Preface:
Hello Readers,
This post will be a different from my usual writings. This is a letter to a friend who is also a lesbian. Let me give you some context to this letter. When I went to college, I became friends with a girl who later revealed to me that she was a lesbian. We became very close. So close, in fact, that I was able to admonish her to resist her temptations and follow Jesus. She was raised in a Christian home. She identified herself as a Christian and she so desperately wanted someone to love. I encouraged her to love Jesus and let him work out the rest.
She did. For a while.
After college, she moved away, back to her home state where she was surrounded by her old friends—the ones who encouraged her in her homosexuality.
I first wrote this letter when I saw that she had become engaged to another woman. Then I saw that she had now entered into a mirage. I won’t call it marriage, because that can never be a marriage. She gave up and gave in. Her struggle is now over. She chose her side. She chose an idol instead of Jesus. This is my letter to her. I wanted you to have this context in case you are tempted to think that I’m being unloving. She knows my heart. She doesn’t think I’m a bigot or a jerk, although I’m sure that those who surround her think otherwise.
This is a letter from a grieved heart who wants the best for his friend.
-P.C.-
PS: Special thanks to Lex Lutheran for the Gospel check. I really appreciate guys like you, Lex!
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Hello, My Friend,
I hope that you are well. I was thinking about you yesterday–I got my hands on a pack of clove cigars and I remembered all those talks we had on your back porch over cigars and wine. Oh, that reminds me. I have a wine recommendation for you: Apothic Red. We get it at Costco, but I’m sure you could find it elsewhere.
I really wish I was writing to you under better circumstances. I’ve tried to pray for you as often as I think of you, and I was saddened when I came across your recent Facebook status change to married. Normally, I would be overjoyed when a beloved friend enters into marriage. I cannot rejoice over this. Instead, I am grieved. I’ve told you all of this before and I’m going to tell you it all again. This is not God’s will for your life. I want you to be happy. I want God’s best for you and that is why I’m writing this letter to you.
As you continue to read this, I want you to keep in mind Proverbs 27:6:
Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.
I’m going to wound you with this letter and I do it because you are my friend and I love you.
I hope that you’re happy with the choices that you’ve made. I really do. I hope you live a long, peaceful life and that you have no troubles in this life. I hope that you are happy with your choices because that is all the happiness you will receive in life. When your time on this globe comes to an end, your happiness will cease. You will have had your best life now and what awaits you will not be good. Yes, I am saying you will find yourself in hell if you continue in your sin. I know that hurts you. I don’t say that glibly.
Please don’t hear a self-righteous, gleeful tone in that. I say it with a broken heart. I say it because that’s what God says will come to all who willfully continue in their sin. What’s worse, dear friend, is that it will be worse for you, a baptized member of the covenant. You enjoyed the privilege of growing up under the preaching of the Gospel. You professed faith in Christ, but now you have turned your back on him by embracing the very sin that put Jesus on the cross. You are called to war against sin, no matter the cost. You are called to deny yourself, take up the cross, and follow Jesus. But you’ve decided not to do that. You’ve decided that you know better than the God who made you. Rather than embrace life, you have chosen to embrace death.
You have been severed from Christ.
He will not follow you down the path that you have chosen. You and Jesus are going in opposite directions.
You have been lied to, my friend. You have been deceived. The people surrounding you, your so called “wife”—they are lying to you. You haven’t entered into marriage, you’ve embraced a mirage. I don’t know if there is anyone else in your life that will tell you this. From what I can see, there isn’t anyone. All I see is people encouraging you in rebellion. I saw the “likes” on your “engagement” and “wedding” photos—hearty approval from those who know these things are wrong and that those who practice them deserve death.1 There is a way that they are pointing you towards and it does seem right to them and to you but it only leads to death.2
Sin will kill you.3
Hear this: If you are not about the business of killing sin than it will surely be killing you. You know this. I know that you know this. I’ve heard it from your own mouth in less guarded moments. You know this is a lie. Maybe it’s in the middle of the night or maybe when you see a man and wife with their children walking through the mall—you know it’s a lie. You know that you will never have what they share, what my wife and I share together. You know it’s a lie and you know what God calls you to be.
Holy.4
Unstained by the passions of the world because of Jesus’ purifying blood.
I realize the cost is high. I won’t sugar coat it. Following Jesus isn’t easy for anyone. It’s not easy for me. Stop being deceived, my beloved friend! Stop listening to the spirit of the age! Love is only love when it finds its root in the One who defines love. You can’t say that you don’t know. You know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s kingdom. Not liars, not thieves, not drunkards. No idolater, swindler, or greedy person will enter the kingdom. Not one sexually immoral person, whether they be heterosexual or homosexual will enter inherit God’s kingdom. You know that. That list found in 1 Corinthians 6 pegs everyone multiple times.
But I want to tell you that there is hope and Paul gives it at the end of that long list.
Such were some of you. But you were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
5
You, my friend.
Flee from those things and flee to Christ. He delivers from all of those things. I’m not saying it will be easy. I’m not saying that it’s a one and done thing. It’s not. Your temptations may never go away. But your temptations do not define you. You’re to find your identity in Christ. Your heart will be restless until your heart rests in Jesus.6
The Christian life is one of daily repentance. Daily turning from sin. Daily putting off the old and putting on the new.7 Daily dying to self. It’s a war. I know it will be difficult. I know that there will be setbacks. I know it will hurt. But hear this: Disobedience hurts even more. What profit is it to you, friend, if you get all you want but you lose your soul?8 Sin is but a moment of pleasure, and then gone. It’s like fresh snow at the end of winter—it endures for a little while but is soon gone.
I pray that you will flee your sin. I pray that the Holy Spirit will bring heavy conviction on you every time you look at that ring on your finger, a ring that profanes God’s good gift of marriage. May your soul be spent with grief and may your bones waste away with effort trying to suppress what God has made so plain to you.9
Listen to me, my friend. Listen to this warning that comes right from God. Continue on this course and God may give you exactly what you want. If you refuse to love the truth, God will cause you to love a lie.10 He will give you over to your sin and God’s wrath will come crashing down on you like the waves of the red sea on Pharaoh’s army. Your baptism will become a curse to you. Your profession of faith will rise up against you and condemn you.
God will not be mocked.
For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
11
I’m pleading with you, my friend! I don’t hate you! I love you! Can’t you see that?
Turn back! Get out of By-Pass meadow before you fall into the pit.
It’s not too late, but it may soon be. Repent and do it quickly for you do not know what tomorrow will bring. It may be that even tonight your very soul will be demanded of you and what will you have then?
Do not presume upon God’s goodness.
Repent, my friend. Repent! I don’t want this for you. Cry out to him and, like the Father to the prodigal son, he will run to you and pick you up and put the fresh, spotless robe of his righteousness on you. He will take you into his house and there will be much rejoicing over you. Jesus will forgive you! But you must repent. I pray that God will grant you this grace! Do not harden your heart like Pharaoh and the unbelieving Israelites who came out of Egypt—God destroyed them. If God did not spare the natural branches do you think he would spare you? A branch grafted in?12
I don’t know if you’ll ever read this and if you do, I don’t know how you’ll react. But I want you to know that I will always be here for you. You can always come to me. When the lie comes crashing down, I will be here to help you pick up the pieces, proclaim the Gospel to you again, and walk with you back to Jesus’ throne.
I love you.
Your Friend, Always.
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End Notes
- Romans 1:32
- Proverbs 14:12
- Romans 6:23
- 1 Peter 1:16; Leviticus 20:26
- 1st Corinthians 6:11
- St. Augustine’s Confessions Lib 1,1-2,2.5,5: CSEL 33, 1-5
- Ephesians 4: 22-24
- Matthew 16: 26
- Psalm 31
- 2nd Thessalonians 2: 10-12
- Hebrews 10: 26-31
- Romans 11:21
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Photo by Eli Juicy Jones via Flickr
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This is a very poignant and faithful response to your friend.
I would not advise speaking so directly as a general rule to people who are in such a situation, but close friendship permits this kind of candor(Prov 27:6).
The culture we currently live in unfortunately makes repentance from homosexuality much more difficult than perhaps in a former time. There is so much encouragement to accept it as a normal alternative sexual expression and legitimate emotional bond. And the acceptance by the ‘church’ of so much of the gay perspective makes it very difficult for those who have this as their primary focus in mortification and sanctification to persevere in the battle.
My hope is that your letter may be a means for the Holy Spirit to work repentance and faith in the heart of your dear friend.