An important truth circulating around Exodus Ministry circles these days goes something like this: "Our goal is not heterosexuality but holiness." Oswald Chamber's entry for September 1 in, "My Utmost for His Highest," speaks to this same important truth.
"We are not destined to happiness, nor to health, but to holiness. Today we have far too many desires and interests, and our lives are being consumed and wasted by them."-- One of the focal points of gay activists is the idea that we have a right to "be happy." Happiness that comes from anything this world has to offer is shallow and empty. Many live for sexual gratification or to have their emotional needs met in unhealthy emotionally charged relationships with other unhealthy people, often of the same gender.
"The only thing that truly matters is whether a person will accept the God who will make him holy. At all costs, a person must have the right relationship with God." --Many living from a world view will not be able to comprehend this truth. Their interests are almost totally focused on this world rather than other-worldliness. Their wrong thinking is that if they keep searching they will find something here and now that will make them happy and that will make life worth living. Because of their ignorance of that which is truth and ultimate reality they do not realize that true happiness and joy comes from above. Having an intimate relationship with our Creator is the key to happiness and life that is content and fulfilled. Living from heaven's view puts everything in a completely different perspective and we can then truly enjoy this world and all the gifts from the Creator of this world.
"The preaching of the cross awakens an intense resentment because it is designed to reveal my unholiness, but it also awakens an intense yearning and desire within me. God has only one intended destiny for mankind--holiness. His only goal is to produce saints." --Fallen, broken beings embrace only that which can be experienced in this material world and they hold on tightly to it. When what they are clinging too is
threatened by the gospel and the truth of God's word resentment rises up. This resentment expresses itself in civil rights and moral justice from a humanistic perspective. The battle is fleshed out in our cultural wars, politics, education, philosophy and religion.
"God is not some eternal blessing-machine for people to use, and He did not come to save us out of pity--He came to save us because He created us to be holy." --This runs counter to what most who have a humanistic perspective on life. Humanism elevates human beings to a divine status. This carrys with it the idea that humans can be anything they set their minds on and that every human being has a right to be happy. The view of God is that He is obligated to make us happy if He is truly good and loving. If God is truly good and loving then there must be no poverty and no suffering. This is translated to unconditional sexual freedom; anything to make us happy.
"Atonement through the Cross of Christ means that God can put me back into perfect oneness with Himself through the death of Jesus Christ, without a trace of anything coming between us any longer." --This translates into holiness and a desire to enter into an authentic intimate love relationship with God where we are truly fully and completely satisfied without any of the comforts of this world being necessary; including our sexuality and our emotional connections whether they be homosexual or heterosexual.
"Never tolerate, because of sympathy for yourself or for others, any practice that is not in keeping with a holy God. Holiness is not simply what God gives me, but what God has given me that is being exhibited in my life." --This is the calling of the Church and it is the calling of Exodus International and the ministries and individuals affiliated with Exodus International. We must never compromise the truth of God's word or the desire of God's heart simply because we feel hurt or because we are suffering in this world. There are many well intentioned people who have embraced homosexuality for that very reason, either for themselves or for those they know and love. This is a fatal and tragic mistake. We enable ourselves or our loved ones to settle for something much less that what they [we] are truly searching for and we are causing them [ourselves] to miss the great destiny God has for all people.
Oh to comprehend and embrace the consuming love and grace of God who has intended His best for all His people. Something out of this world!
