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"But God extended His love to us in that while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)
Testimony and Confessions of a
Former Homosexual
Joseph Smith
My life is probably two-thirds over and yet it seems as if it’s
only started. God has been so good to me by protecting me from being turned over
to a reprobate mind. I’ve spent over thirty (30) years in the homosexual
lifestyle fighting within myself and asking the question “Why Me?” Yes, I used
to be a practicing homosexual despite my religious training and my knowledge of
Scripture regarding homosexuality. Needless to say, I was miserable, depressed,
and filled with guilt and condemnation until I learned that God loved me in
spite of my disobedience. He was more than willing to set me totally free from
homosexuality and it’s unholy desires.
I first became aware of my same sex feelings at the tender age
of eight (8) years old. I knew that I was different from the other boys in
school. I would often sit and cry and ask God to take away these same sex
feelings, but no relief or progress had ever been mine. I always knew in my
heart that homosexuality was a sin. I didn’t have to be told. God had made it
clear to me that each man should have his own wife so that they might reproduce
themselves and propagate the earth.
My father came from humble beginnings and was born and raised in
the southern part of Kentucky. My mom also came from Kentucky and was born and
raised approximately eight miles from my father yet they never met one another
until they moved up to Detroit, Michigan after World War II to work. Since they
were from the South they both were highly influenced by God’s Word. My church
provided me with considerable teaching on the subject of “Hell” as a place where
sinners would go once they died if they were not saved. My father though,
despite this religious influence, did not profess to be a Christian. Mom did,
and she was the parent that took me to church each Sunday and gave me my
religious background.
As a child I always enjoyed attending church and studying the
Bible. But being that I was developing stronger attraction for boys of my own
age it became increasingly more difficult to sit in church and hear about God
and what He will do to those who disobey and choose their own path instead of
following Christ. I always feared going to Hell. I would have nightmares and
dreams of touching older boys in inappropriate ways and I knew that something
was happening. My same sex feelings were becoming stronger and stronger and I
didn’t have the slightest clue what to do about them. I did not know then what I
know now. But one thing I did know. I knew that my homosexual feelings were real
and yet I did not ever believe that I had been born this way. To me, this is
significant since I believe that God had given me this insight and also gave me
an intense desire to please Him in every way possible. But no matter how much I
thought I loved God, it did not keep me from learning more about homosexual
life. I became attracted to pictures in pornographic magazines. I became seduced
by the pornographic magazines at the bookstores and drug stores and quickly
found myself in utter turmoil and conviction from God.
My interest in sexual matters began to grow once I hit puberty.
Countless thoughts raced through my head night after night to where I developed
a nervousness and extreme depression over my ”inability” to stop fantasizing
over the nude men I saw in those magazines. It was as if the image of those men
were burned into my brain. No matter how much I cried out to God there was still
an unwillingness on my part to stop viewing those magazines. It was as if I was
controlled by a desire or power greater than myself. I wondered if I was demon
possessed and that just about drove me crazy until I learned more about God, His
Word, and the fact that I truly wanted to serve God and be the kind of person He
wanted me to be.
All through childhood these kind of thoughts lingered in my mind
and I knew no one who could sort out my confusion as to why I became homosexual.
I guess I will always wonder just how this all started and why. God knew me from
my mother’s womb. He knew all along how difficult it was for an eight, nine, on
up to approximately 14 year old child to understand. I had no one to talk to.
Stepping back a little my difficulties in accepting myself as a
homosexual and a Christian seemed to increase more and more as I became more
involved in the homosexual lifestyle. I was holding on to my beliefs of God’s
Word and at the same time engaging in homosexual activities.
My father could not discuss my sexuality with me and that
bothered me so much that I began to develop a hatred toward him. I saw him as my
problem. His drinking habit was becoming worse as well as the daily arguments he
and my mom would have. Sometimes the tension was so pronounced that you would
just feel like running away from home and never return. However difficult it was
for me, there was no place to run to so I had to endure my feelings, and yet
hope that God would someday rescue me and free my mind from the constant sexual
urges I had.
Just as a side note, I could never figure out why anyone would
call homosexuality or refer to it as the “gay” lifestyle. Believe me, there is
nothing gay about “gay life.” It’s all so ironic. Here I was a Spirit-filled
Christian who seemingly loved God and yet had these awful feelings toward men. I
thought that marriage was possibly an answer to my dilemma so because I wanted a
normal life so much I married my high school girlfriend at the age of nineteen
years old.
Just to make mention at ten years old I was molested by an older
boy of sixteen. I knew that I was committing sin yet I didn’t have the power
within me to object to his advances. This encounter is highly significant in the
overall compulsion to embrace this sin for it led me on to seek after men who
were “gifted” in their own masculinity. This preoccupation with the male body
became an addiction. It further developed into more and more homosexual
behavior. But even though I was driven as a teen to be with older boys, the fact
that I was still confessing that I was saved seemed to encourage the inner hope
that one day God would perform a miracle in my life.
I grew up in a denomination called, “The Church of God” whose
headquarters are in Cleveland, Tennessee. I became born-again at the age of nine
years old and was Spirit-Filled at 14 years of age. At that time, no one knew
about my sin except God. Despite all of my encounters with men God put good
Christian people in my life so that I could learn more about God’s love. Since I
was always under heavy conviction and condemnation I would often seek out others
to provide me with an answer as to how I could be set free. I had always heard
that God was a miracle worker and that He would deliver me but I had trouble
actually believing this from my heart. My feelings and emotions were lying to
me. It was as if they had a voice of their own. My faith in God’s willingness to
actually help me overcome seemed to get less and less with each time I sinned.
My heart eventually became hardened to the Word of God and I was getting really
scared. Scared about my eternal destination.
Many of my Christian beliefs became twisted so that I didn’t
know when God was speaking to me and when He wasn’t. Everything in my life had
taken on a numbness. Nothing seemed real. I look back and I just shutter to
think that I was so deceived by Satan.
During my latter teenage years I played the Church organ and
often received special blessings from the Holy Spirit. But after playing for
approximately eight years I could no longer bring myself to continue in this
service for the Lord and still go out on a Saturday night only to willfully sin
again. My entire theology was at stake and it’s only by the Mercy of God that He
has delivered me and kept me free.
Leaving my teens I quickly got married thinking that I could
finally change by having a wife and God’s approval on my life. So like I said, I
married my girlfriend of six years and we began living a pretty normal life as
husband and wife. But as life took on new responsibilities for me I began to
feel trapped in a marriage that was beginning to have more problems than
anything else. I was in graduate school studying Psychology and intending to
teach it at the college level. Finances were becoming very crucial then and I
did not have gainful employment to sustain a household. The depression was
getting worse and I sought out the advice of doctor’s and psychiatrists
everywhere. After all, I was in Psychology myself and we were taught to use
therapy as much as possible to eliminate certain problems. So I spent another
ten precious years in psychological counseling to eliminate and/or decrease my
homosexual behavior. I was divorced after four years of marriage and that left
me lonely, more depressed than ever, and free to finally do whatever I wanted to
do without anyone standing over me criticizing my immoral behavior.
After my first divorce I spent the next ten to fifteen years of
my life directly in the homosexual community. There I frequented the gay bars,
the parks, the bathhouses, and any other place where homosexuals congregated. I
backslid from God, and put my heart and soul into this new life of sin and found
myself on a street corner while vacationing in Puerto Rico puking my guts out
with too much booze in my stomach. The dog had returned to his vomit. I had gone
as low as I thought possible. It wasn’t long until I became involved with drugs
and alcohol and partook every single day. It was an attempt to drown my sorrows
and to merely exist. I had no purpose for living. I couldn’t understand why I
had sunk so low because there was still a sense of innocence when it came to my
thinking as to whom was responsible for being a homosexual anyway. I was sure
that I didn’t bring these feelings upon myself. I already knew that satan was
responsible for his part in all of this, but I had played a part too. I felt
that life had given me a bad wrap and that I was innocent and somehow was not
responsible for the onset this sin.
I lived as fast as I could and for a while things began to quiet
down for me and life wasn’t so dramatic. I felt good at times as I tried to
accept my plight and just live as if there was no tomorrow. The Bible talks
about how there is "...pleasure in sin for a season." Well, I was experiencing
some pleasure yet I started to sense a return of the Holy Spirit’s voice telling
me time was short and eternity was long. It wasn’t long before I again was
convicted by the Holy Spirit in a real way. By this time certain evangelists
throughout the United States were becoming quite popular and were captivating
audiences by their insight and spiritual knowledge of the Word of God. Men like
Kenneth Copeland, and women such as Joyce Meyer began to have a real effect on
my life. It wasn’t long until I became interested in drowning myself into
teachings from both ministries. I would listen to Faith teaching under Kenneth
E. Hagin Sr. and my faith started to grow once more only this time I was
receiving a witness in my spirit that all that I heard was true. I then
purchased every teaching tape that I could get my hands on and listen for hours.
The Word was rich to my ears and I saw for myself that God loved me and there
was nothing He wouldn’t do for me. I wanted to believe that more than anything.
So I studied Mark 11:23-24. I then purchased every teaching tape that I could
get my hands on and listen for hours. The Word was rich to my ears and I saw for
myself that God loved me and there was nothing He wouldn’t do for me. I wanted
to believe that more than anything. So I studied Mark 11:23-24 where Jesus said
you could essentially have whatever you say as long as you believe it in your
heart. Although, there was much controversy at that time as to whether or not
the teachings I was listening to was heresy. The Holy Spirit moved and through a
period of time confirmed His Word by changing me and lessening my desires to go
out and engage in homosexual activities. I no longer found it necessary to drink
alcohol, smoke a cigarette, feed on drugs such as marijuana and I had greater
inner strength to resist these things and follow through by submitting myself to
the Lord more than ever before.
It took some time, but each time I confessed God’s Word was
true, and relied on it to overcome my problems this inner strength grew stronger
and stronger and I experienced for the first time a complete sensation of God’s
peace and love in my being. My entire personality, and disposition took on new
meaning. I could see more clearly how God intended for man to live and because I
was enjoying my Christian experience God just overwhelmed me more with His
amazing grace, and uncompromising Love. I learned how God took away all of my
sins, past, present, and future and was not holding anything against me. He had
given me a rebirth of my former acceptance of Him and energized me with a new
resolve to be obedient to God in word, and deed.
Once I felt that my salvation was real I then became interested
in a woman who came to my church. After getting to know her better, we got
married. She knew of my past and was totally resigned to help me in any way I
needed. I began to feel safe with her. Soon, we had a daughter and I was the
world’s happiest man alive. My daughter was truly a gift from God and she means
everything to me. I felt that God had given me a second chance. And He did.
However, after 4 years of marriage we began to suffer financial problems. The
pressure from that marriage and the excessive stress it had upon me made the old
temptations come back again. It wasn’t long before I was back in the gay bars
looking for some solace and a friend who could perhaps understand. But my
unfaithfulness had caused my wife to divorce me and I was again back in the
homosexual community. Fortunately, I was able to return home to my parents house
in the fall of 1997 and there I have lived until the present time.
Now, there is a portion of my life that remains to be told. God
worked out a situation for me while I was living in sin. I believe He did this
just to win me back. At age 30 years old I met a young man who shared my life
and eventually became my best friend. He is considerably younger than myself,
but God has saved him, and delivered him from homosexuality as well as he has
me. Both of us came out of the homosexual life and we are both serving God with
all due diligence. No sexual contact, but just a good open moral friendship
between brothers in the Lord. So you see, God will meet you right where you are,
and will give you the desires of your heart when you finally put Him first in
your life.
I am glad to report that my deliverance is still real and God is
using it for His Glory. I have never been happier than I am now. The greatest
factor that influenced my deliverance was the Renewing of My Mind to the Word of
God. (Romans 12:1-2) Presenting my body as a living sacrifice each day has
helped me to focus on it so that I don’t enter into sin if tempted. There are no
magical formulas to receive deliverance from God. It comes through simple faith
and God’s amazing Grace over your life. All I did was immerse myself in God’s
Word and to confess it night and day. I joined a good church that preached the
whole Bible and became obedient to God. I had to deny myself from thoughts that
were against the Word and fill my mind with thoughts centering around God. In
time God did the delivering while I submitted and allowed myself to be willing
to adopt His way of thinking.
May God help each one of us to accept His way of doing things
and not our own will. God is faithful and He desires to set us free from satan’s
grasp. Learn to trust Him more than yourself. Love yourself enough to admit that
God’s way is the best way. Escaping the fires of hell and winning a mansion in
Heaven is worth every bit of hardship I’ve encountered. My life didn’t have to
have so many hardships. I made them hard by my ignorance and unwillingness to
submit to His Word. God is not the One Who is to blame for the time it took me
to finally accept Him at His Word. But He is the One Who gloriously saved my
soul. I pray that this testimony will help you to not do some of the things I
did, but will inspire you to avoid so many hardships by opening up your heart
and allowing your mind to be renewed and changed by His Word.
When people say they’re “saved,” what do they
mean? And what exactly are they saved from?
To say you’re saved means more than just the fact
that you’re a Christian. It means you’ve been saved from something.
Specifically, it means you’ve been saved from hell, both the literal hell that
Jesus talked about when people are separated from God for all eternity, and the
practical hell that you can experience here on this earth when you continue to
follow your own sinful ways.
To someone who isn't “saved,” the word seems to
be either offensive or just plain laughable. But to someone who is “saved,” the
word is full of life, because they know what would have happened to them had
Jesus not come to save them.
I read this week that one of the candidates
running for office is being questioned because their pastor “preaches hell for
anyone who doesn’t believe in Jesus.” I guess when you put it that way, it does
sound rather offensive. But the truth is, it’s the same message that Jesus
preached. (Good thing He isn’t running for office--He’d probably get crucified
again!)
Some people, unfortunately, think that Jesus is
out to get them, that He came to condemn them for what they’ve done. But Jesus
didn’t come to condemn you. He came to save you. He even says so in His own
words:
“For God did not send His
Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.
Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands
condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only
Son” - (John 3:17-18).
So, yes, there is hell to pay if you don’t
believe in Jesus. But no one’s going to hell because they haven’t believed in
Jesus; they’re going to hell because of their sins, which is a completely
different reason altogether. Whenever you sin, it separates you from God. And
without a savior, you’d be separated from God forever. That’s hell. That’s the
fate from which Jesus came to save you.
When the Apostles Peter and John were arrested
for preaching that Jesus could save people from their sins, they didn’t back
down even when threatened with death. In Acts chapter 4, they spoke boldly about
the fact that Jesus alone had the power to save:
“Salvation is found in no
one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must
be saved” (Acts 4:12)
Faith saves. One of my favorite scenes in
the Indiana Jones series is when Indy comes to the edge of a cliff and can’t see
any way across to the cliff on the other side. With a look of exasperation, he
says, “It’s a leap of faith!” With his enemies pressing in from behind and no
other way forward, he takes a giant step into what looks like thin air in front
of him, only to find that he has stepped onto a solid rock bridge that had been
camouflaged from view. Indy’s “leap of faith” had saved him.
Jesus wants to save you from more than just a bad
ending to the movie of your life. He wants to save you from hell, both here on
earth and on into eternity.
When Jesus died on the cross, He extended an
invitation to every person in the world who had strayed from God to come back to
Him. The price for our sins had been paid. But reconciliation is a two way
street. Just because one party wants to be reconciled with the other doesn’t
mean they are reconciled. Both parties have to agree to it.
Jesus has done His part. Now He’s waiting for
each person to respond individually. And the way you respond is by faith.
If you’ve never put your faith in Christ to save
you from your sins, I pray you’ll do it today. He’d love to say to you what He
said to the woman who wiped His feet with her tears:
“Your sins are forgiven.
Your faith has saved you; go in peace” (Luke 7:48,50).
Let’s pray...
Father, forgive me for the sins I have committed,
too, as I put my faith in Christ. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Blessings in His marvelous love,
Rev. Joe Diaz (1984 - )
Founder of His Love Extended International Ministries (2000)
I have received Jesus Christ as my personal Savior, and my desire is to live my life for his glory. I have been born again according to John 3:3 which states, "...except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God".
This site is pleased to be honored
with the
2003-2004
Golden Web Award for website excellence
from the
The International Association of
Web Masters and Designers.
Help me
spread the Gospel
Should you desire or be led to help me evangelize and share the Gospel of
Jesus Christ and His loving, saving and delivering grace message overseas,
please contact Carole Nafzinger at
www.goabctravel.com
or call her at 1-815-969-8123 and she will explain the program with you.
If you are in ministry of any kind and would want to purchase airline
tickets at a discount, you may contact Carole. She's a wonderful servant of the
Lord and quite helpful!
