Courage and Contending-Part 2

Author: Andrew Comiskey
January 07, 2013
‘We must help all believers acquire a more vigorous, conscious adherence to the Gospel.’ Pope Benedict

 ‘I urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.’ (Jude 3b)

How Christians apply the Gospel to those with same-sex attraction will become a litmus test for the Gospel they uphold. Will we be the Church that calls seekers to repent unto Christ and His design for their humanity? Or do we bless the worldly model of forming an identity, even a marriage, around one’s same-gender tendencies? As never before, homosexuality will signal the divide between the compassion of the Cross and that of mere men.

More than any other issue, including abortion, homosexuality will divide the Church of Jesus Christ.

The falling away of many from a Cross-centered Gospel is already evident in the way some conservative churches address homosexuality. A lay leader recently shut down a friend of mine requesting prayer to uphold marriage (in light of several ‘gay marriage’ initiatives) on the grounds that we don’t ‘take positions against gays.’ That very month a church in the same evangelical denomination hosted a civil ‘gay wedding’ ceremony.

The Church must steward the fullness of both grace and truth. Yet we have faltered to define that truth—the relational order and purity Jesus commands. As a result, our message of grace has no power. We have lost any notion of how far we have fallen. Thus our call to repent unto Jesus, the Source of our order and purity, has no direction, no urgency.

The Church is now subject to an utterly false mercy. We want to be relevant and ‘loving’ to those in sexual darkness so we turn down the Light. We agree with angry broken people that we should not uphold marriage because it is offensive. Why else would 59% of Roman Catholics in the USA favor ‘gay marriage’? St. Paul said it best: ‘They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator.’ (Rom. 1: 25)

The Church must uphold God’s best for humanity and not alter His will for the delusions of men. To do so is idolatry. That is why I and Desert Stream Ministries continue to hold out for God’s vision of marriage, regardless of the changing tides of popular opinion. We have a holy mandate to obey. Political victories rise and fall; they are not our hope. Jesus is. We render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to Jesus what is His. Marriage belongs to the Maker, and we shall fight for its integrity until death frees us for full consummation with Him.

Those Christians who think differently are marvelously short-sighted. You cannot pretend to love the same-sex attracted then agree to a legal covenant that further binds them, the children they adopt, and the culture that supports them to a perversion that has power to send body and soul to hell.

Truth and transformation go hand-in-hand. Hold out God’s best and call the broken into full repentance. Line up with Jesus and be the Church that represents His compassion, His absolute surrender at Calvary that demands nothing less than ours.

‘Be merciful to those who doubt; snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear, hating even the clothing stained by immoral flesh.’ (Jude 22a, 23)

‘Go stand in the temple courts,’ an angel of the Lord said, ‘and tell the people the full message of this new life.’ (Acts 5: 20)
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