Introduction:

Romans 1:18-25, 26-27 tells us what man is like before God enters his life. When we become new creations in Christ, new spiritual beings; God begins a process of renewing and re-making the whole person. Body, soul and spirit, mind, imagination, heart, behavior, relationships, attitudes, beliefs, and inclinations. Ultimately, even our bodies will be re-made into spiritual bodies.

Our soul (mind, emotions, will) are being renewed and transformed. And our spirit or character is being remade into Christ’s image by the work of the Holy Spirit. New Birth is just that, a Birth; a baby state, an infancy state. The rest is a maturation process that God effects in our lives. We have become His children, and He is going to raise His children to be like Himself; which is to say, like His prototype and perfect Son, Jesus.

This means that He will change not only our sin nature and vulnerability to sin, but also areas of emotional and psychological weakness and brokeness. Therefore, with regard to yourself, our Father God intends to deal with your life-dominant brokeness; your homosexuality.

Furthermore, it’s clear that God’s Thoughts and Ways of dealing with people and problems differ from man’s ways. See Isaiah 55:1-13. Sometimes they are compatible with our way of changing and growing, sometimes not. But often God works with different assumptions, intentions, and processes. It’s good to understand the processes and principles by which God works. Many of these processes and principles overlap and are closely related to each other, or follow one from another.

These are Biblical processes and principles. You see them operating in the life of people in the Bible. I learned these from the Bible or as the Holy Spirit taught them to me as applied to my work with "overcomers". Some are processes specifically about the resolution of homosexuality. Some are general principles about life, wholeness, and holiness.

In terms of homosexuality, what term should we use to describe the goal and objective being sought by the Christian who desires to be faithful and obedient to God’s Word? I believe this is best expressed by the term "Resolution" or resolving homosexuality. Not curing it, or eliminating, suppressing or repressing it. Resolution is the primary attitude or indicator. It is the foundational mentality to adopt.

What God does about homosexuality is Resolution work and it is important that you adopt a Resolution mentality. God works on renewing the person himself, not just fixing the person’s problems. If you have a Resolution Mentality, it is a primary indicator of healing and change.

Resolution means that God does not promise the homosexually inclined person that He will make you completely heterosexual on the one hand, or eliminate or remove all homosexuality on the other. Most often He transforms or remakes the person himself, so that the big, life-dominating "H" becomes a small ‘h’ and disappears into the background of a person’s life. Resolution embraces a larger biblical and Christian worldview and life-choice of living WITH homosexuality in a redemptive, integrated, healthy, and holy way.

Resolution means that H becomes livable, manageable, controllable, tolerable, un-troublesome, non-absorbing, non-preoccupying, non-obsessive; as your life becomes filled and fulfilled in other ways. The overcomer no longer is living to serve his sexuality. Sexuality, and homosexuality does not define the person. H does not control your life or define your life any longer.

Do you have a Resolution Mentality ? Or, have you been consciously or unconsciously living with an Elimination Mentality? A Resolution Mentality is the foundation for all other indicators of healing and positive change.

What vision of yourself, your life, your relationship to people and God has the Spirit been forming in you? What, especially, is your vision of yourself as a whole and resolved person? Do you sometimes live out that vision? How often do you live without that vision? Are you living "visionless"?

God knows what a man may become and is supposed to become. (See Rom 8:29-32). His view of people, solutions and problems is always deeper, longer, wider. He sees the end from the beginning. He knows the alpha and omega of everyone’s life. God always has an eternal view of a man. It is always about what is best for man’s spiritual, eternal and moral well being and his relationship to God as well as his well being in life. God always has long-range, spiritual, eternal purposes to what he does. Secular Psychology rarely has such a view. It often takes the narrow, immediate, relieving, temporal, view of problems and solutions. That’s why SP says "use condoms, rather than be abstinent"; "abort the child, rather than give it life"; "be gay, rather than work through your homosexuality".

God works on integrating a person through his problems and difficulties, not removal, denial, avoiding, separating or dividing a person. He always deals with people as whole persons. He doesn’t throw away anyone or anything. He can, and often uses everything and everyone. He will use your "homosexuality"? Therefore another indicator of Resolution is the indirect and integrated work on other areas of your life, not only direct and concentrated work on H. Two analogies may serve to illustrate this principle.

Look at a piece of cloth; maybe a sweater. If you have a loose thread (the loose thread of homosexuality) and try to pull it out, you are likely to tighten the threads and disfigure the sweater. If you cut it off you leave the loose roots of the thread which are likely to unravel at some future time. God’s method is to weave the thread into the garment in some way.

The Person Pie is another analogy. Think of a pie cut into several pieces. H is one of those pieces. If you remove it, you don’t have a whole pie anymore. You are left empty in some way. Something is missing. You will be divided, distorted. God will counteract your tendency to denial, dissociation, division, distort and compartmentalize.

God knows that your issue of homosexuality is one piece of your personality system. It does not stand by itself. It will not be resolved by your concentration on it alone or by your attempts to eliminate it. Often it is best to concentrate on the other issues that keep homosexuality alive. For instance, you may be a person who has a number of outstanding fears and anxieties. Or you may be obsessive and compulsive OCP in your lifestyle generally. You may have been unsuccessful at finding a satisfying career. You may have unresolved anger and resentment toward your father or mother.

Homosexuality is a thread woven into the fabric of your whole personality. You can’t just pull it out. You had better not try to pull it out for in doing so your whole personality may collapse or become unraveled. Instead you may need to work with other contributing threads. Your Father knows this about you!

Wrestle: What degree of compartmentalization and division have you been living with? Forget about your homosexuality for awhile and look at some other areas that call for your attention. What are they? Let your Father show you!

This is another way of saying, "Accentuate the Positive".

There are four major areas by which we measure life-satisfaction. God knows that most people experience satisfaction and fulfillment in life from these four areas. These are the four basic relationships of life which need your attention. A major indicator that a person is healing, growing, changing and resolving homosexuality is that they are more invested and successful at these four relationships. They are invested in

(1) True Discipleship. A real, personal, alive relationship with the Lord in which He is your experienced Friend (Jesus), Fellowship-giver (Spirit), and Father (God). Philippians 1:6 says He is working in your life to bring you to conformity to the image of His Son Jesus Christ. He has begun a good work in your life and He desires to complete it. "And I am sure that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on that day when Christ Jesus comes back again." Overcomers know that the Father has this ultimate plan for their lives. It is to be like the perfect Son Jesus. They know He is working in them, on them, around the, for them and through them. They know that God does not begin a good work and abandon it. Only you can abandon the work.

(2) A real and vital relationship to certain people; a wife, some close male and female friends, with family and with some other male and female companions.

(3) A real vital relationship to some meaningful and rewarding work, avocation and or ministry.

(4) A real, loving, accepting, caring relationship to yourself –physical, sexual, psychological, emotional, self-image, etc (which is more likely to develop if the other three are).

Wrestle: How would you assess each of these life-satisfaction areas. The men who are living with homosexuality in a mature and holy way (resolution) usually find themselves high on each of these scales. If each were a scale of 1 through 5 (5=very fulfilled), how would you rate yourself?

Your Father knows where you are on each scale. Do you?

5. The Life-Acceptance Perspective is another indicator of Resolution. God knows that you have only one life to live, and that is the life as it is for you right now with all its unique gifts, disabilities, weaknesses, sensitivities and circumstances which make it uniquely your life. For you this includes living with homosexuality. God accepts you as you are completely. He accepts your tendency to homosexuality. For another it is living with some other burden or difficulty. This is both a sobering and sad recognition for you. You have one life to live and you are now living it. You say, "O.K, so what’s new about that? What’s so important about that?"

This assumption is important when you contrast it with it’s opposite. Its contrast is an attitude that causes you to always be looking for some other life that is to come in the future. An attitude of underlying dissatisfaction, fighting, and opposition to your life. A lack of acceptance of yourself and your life! You have been at war with your life. When you reject any part of your life, you reject all of yourself.

If you were to survey your whole life and all that has happened to you and that is part of your life (ex. Family, God, friends, childhood, work, homosexuality, etc) have you unconsciously been discarding or rejecting some parts of your life? Have you been trying to reject some things? You certainly have tried to reject homosexuality!

Am I suggestion that you not try to eliminate homosexuality? YES, I AM! I’m saying the attitude or stance of rejecting homosexuality is not healthy. Accept the FACT of homosexuality, not the ACT of homosexuality! Instead I believe you must EMBRACE IT! Not behaviorally; not by acting it out; not be embracing a gay lifestyle. Embrace it psychologically, emotionally and spiritually.

Instead, accept who you are, work with what you have now; with what is given. Make peace with yourself and with homosexuality as a FACT. Face the reality of your life as it is now. This is not to say that you should not seek a better life, but it speaks to the importance of facing and accepting your actual life as an important element of sound maturity and spirituality. Accept the life you have been given.

No one else has the exact same set of characteristics, as does your life. Your life is a one-of-a-kind life. Your life is unique! Your life is special! Others are smarter, more gifted, less talented, less good looking, more educated, less emotional, completely heterosexual, etc. What you have is who you are. Their life is no better or worse than yours. On the surface it may seem better or worse. But you will never know if it is or is not since you cannot experience another person’s life as they uniquely do. Only God knows and experiences each person’s life as they uniquely do for only He is the author and redeemer of all lives. And only God looks upon the inner man’s heart. So, there is no use or need to compare yourself with others. You are and have what you are and have.

Wrestle: Review your life from childhood with the words "I Accept…" before you. As you recall events and circumstances, say "I Accept…" as you

Wrestle: Take some time to consider yourself and who you are. As you name different positive or negative things about yourself, claim each one by saying, "I Claim…" or "I Own…" "I Accept…." !