There is this strange idea that has been floating around within the Church for a long time which is that, if one prays to God to remove a temptation, a sinful desire, from oneself, He is obliged to do so instantly. Though the making of that sinful desire, the forming of its strength and enduring nature, may have taken many years to develop, the belief is, often, that in a single moment God will remove the desire, that freedom from sin means immediate and total relief from it. Where is this stated in God's word? Nowhere. Most of the time, God doesn't remove sinful desire in a single stroke. Instead, He uses our struggle against sinful desire to teach us about living under His control all the time, about waging spiritual warfare, about standing by faith on His truth, and about our great need to remain always fully-dependent upon Him. "Praying the gay away," then, is not a biblical idea.
Part of the reason God hates sin is that it is habit-forming, it shapes our psychology and behavior in profound, pattern-forming ways; and the longer sin has to do so, the more difficult the process of winning free of its power and pattern. If it's taken years to settle deep into a person, sinful desire and thinking can require years to fully abandon, new thinking and desires established in their place. Some kinds of sin strongly engage physiological aspects of our bodies, triggering powerful brain chemistry and hormones, and in doing so make getting free of such sin even harder. And so, God warns us stridently in His word to avoid sin - especially sexual sin. Such sin can leave us with a permanent "limp."
It has been a master-stroke of the devil to get people to identify with their sin so much that their self-identity is formed in large part upon their sin. As a result, forsaking sin feels like denying who one is. By this means, the devil more deeply ensnares people in the sin that God promises will destroy them. When, though, any sinner comes to a saving faith in Jesus Christ, s/he is "made new" and receives an entirely fresh identity that is anchored in Christ, not in their sin. If they don't relinquish their old sin identity and take up, by faith, who they have become in Jesus instead, they can enjoy nothing of God. Only as a born-again person knows and lives by faith in their new identity in Jesus Christ are they properly able to walk with God. It is, after all, only because they have been put "in Christ" that they are at all accepted by God. The devil, however, wants to keep Christians from living in the truth, part of which includes the truth of their Christ-identity in which sin has no part.
What is truly compassionate, then, when it comes to the person enacting homosexual behavior? Their sin, God promises, will destroy them eternally in hell (Romans 6:23; James 1:14-15; Galatians 6:7-8, Romans 8:6). But first, it will corrupt them, twisting their mind and heart, searing their conscience, silencing the conviction of the Holy Spirit, and deadening their fellowship with God. Their sin will blind, deafen and harden them toward God and His truth, leaving them fearful, defensive, doubting, double-minded and angry (Hebrews 3:13; James 1:8; Isaiah 59:9-12; 1 Timothy 4:2; Hebrews 10:26-31, etc.). Why in the world, then, would any Christian think it is showing compassion to make a person acting homosexually feel comfortable in doing so? Their sin is destroying them! There is no love, then, no real compassion, in affirming them in their sin.
Does this mean Christians ought to harp continually upon the sin of homosexuality? No more than they ought to harp on any sin. All sin, really, is just symptomatic of a deeper problem. Whether it's homosexuality, or gossip, or pride, or gluttony, or laziness, or whatever, these things are just sparks rising from the bonfire of our "old wo/man," the person we are apart from God, who is incorrigibly and radically self-seeking, shortsighted, and sensual (Romans 6:6: Romans 8:5-8; Romans 7:14-25; Philippians 3:18-19). What people caught in sin need, then, isn't a constant pointing at their particular sin, but at their need to be put to death by God, through Christ, that they might live in "newness of life," free from bondage to their "old man," the world and the devil.
In any case, homosexuality is sin; about this the Bible is crystal clear. God makes no allowance whatever for homosexuality, by which He means a person having sexual relations with someone of the same sex. Just read Romans 1:18-32, Leviticus 18:22, and Leviticus 20:13. No "translation" of the Bible can undo the plain description of the homosexual act in Scripture which has nothing to do with "temple prostitution."
Leviticus 18:22
22 'You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.
Romans 1:25-27
25 For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
26 For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural,
27 and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.
