Seeing & Savoring Jesus Brings Freedom From Homosexuality: Testimony by Joshua Scott Christmas

The following is a testimony from one of our guys who has participated in The Sight Ministry. I want to make one statement of clarification: When I speak of "freedom from homosexuality" (I named the title) I am referring to the idea that homosexuality no longer is a controlling dominating factor in my life. This does not necessarily mean that I, or others who are fighting the fight for faith in this arena, have no same-sex attraction temptations or thoughts at all. This would be similar to any believer who walks in "freedom" but is not implying totall freedom of any temptation. Each person who is walking this journey of freedom from same-sex attraction issues is unique and we are each at different places on our journey. But it is truly a great adventure and an exciting journey! I invite you to join us. Call me at 615-509-0782 or email me at richard@thesightministry.org or, if you dare, comment on this blog.



Testimony
Joshua Scott Christmas

I grew up in a small town outside of Seattle, WA. I was raised an only child and my parents were evangelists and later became pastors. Like many families my parents divorced when I was 8 and my father ended up relocating to Nashville, TN. My mother remarried a wonderful man, but being a young child I totally rejected his influence in my life from the start. I thought that loving my stepfather would mean I didn’t love my father.

My family attended a small Pentecostal church where at 9 years of age I accepted Christ as my Savior and was baptized. I can remember from an early age that I had a profound love for my Jesus and a desire to know Him more.

I remember being a teenager, praying and begging for Jesus to take my homosexual desires away. As I look back I realize that if He had done that I would have had no way of helping others who struggle with unwanted homosexual desires. I would not be able to give my insight on how others can walk out their deliverance from homosexuality, rejection and the countless other things that accompany this struggle.

All through my high school years I had a horrible time relating to and connecting with other boys. Girls were so much more comfortable and familiar to me. I remember praying that God would give me just one guy best friend. I prayed this prayer for many years. I felt ashamed of this longing and my need to be accepted by other guys. I could not grasp why I craved this so much. I would see guys come up to each other and embrace or give a big bear hug to each other. I wished so badly that someone would hug me like that but there was no way I was going to initiate it because in my mind if I showed signs of joy at hugging men then surely everyone would think I was gay.

At the same time, I also was dealing with my perceptions and feelings of rejection from the men in my life. My intense longing for male acceptance and affirmation drove me to insecurity and extreme anxiety. As I began to develop into manhood, my sexual thought life was all over the place. It consumed me inside and out. My desire for acceptance had now turned sexual. I would pick guys out that had what I felt I was lacking, who looked like they had it all together. I would watch them with their friends playing football and laughing and wishing so much that I could be a part of their world. I never knew what to do with these impulses and feelings. I was too afraid to tell my struggle to anyone. I felt that disclosing this secret struggle would only make things worse for me. I was sure that I would be labeled a “faggot” and shunned. I resolved to just deal with it on my own. I felt alone, rejected and inferior.

After high school I moved to Nashville, TN, to live with my father and stepmother. I became part of a local church and was very active in it. Yet, all the while my struggle with homosexual temptations grew stronger and entangled me more. I finally confided in my pastor and father, but sadly, due to my lack of accountability and my unwillingness to be more open with my struggle I fell deeper. I continued to live in guilt, bondage and condemnation.

At age 21 I moved out on my own and that was the beginning of the end. I lived in sin and filth and felt more separated from God with each new day. My relationship with Christ was being compromised by my need for male affection and acceptance. Logically I understood that I was heading down a dark and evil path but the hope of just maybe finding a man to love me overpowered my mind and the conviction of the Holy Spirit. It was a risk I was willing to take.

I remember the first time I stepped into a gay club in 1998. I had never felt such acceptance and “love” from the friends that I met. They understood me. For the first time in my life I didn’t have to hide my desires or pretend to be something else. I was the popular one. Men wanted to be around me. It was an intoxicating feeling that made me feel like I was on top of the world.

Yet in spite of my new found world, deep inside I hated what I was doing and becoming. I started lying to everyone that cared about me. I became heavily involved in drugs and was going out at least five nights a week. I knew my life was spiraling completely out of control. I continued in this lifestyle for the next eight years.

I remember one day in May of 2006, I was driving home and the song, “Jesus Take the Wheel,” began to play. I heard the lyrics “I’m sorry for the way I’ve been living my life. I know I’ve got to change so from now on tonight, Jesus take the wheel. Take it from my hand cause I can’t do this on my own. I’m letting go so give me one more chance. Save me from this road I’m on. Jesus take the wheel.” Every day for a month I played that song and I would cry like a baby. It was as close as I could get to praying. Then, on June 3, 2006, I was home resting before a night out when the power of God fell so heavy in my living room. I heard the Lord tell me that because of the prayers that had gone up for me and because I was truly miserable in my sin, Jesus was going to deliver me. And that was it. In an hour it was over.

I called my homosexual friends and the guy I was seeing and ended those relationships. I went to church for the first time in months and totally surrendered myself to Jesus. It was what I needed at that moment to give me strength to begin the amazing journey of walking in my deliverance.

God led me to a church called Family Worship Center in Jackson, TN. This church was not afraid of my struggle and did not reject me but totally accepted this lonely broken boy who was in desperate need of love. I was embraced by an awesome group of Christian guys who committed to walking this out with me. It was the hardest and yet most fulfilling season of my life. At the time, I was still living in Nashville so every week for a year I would make the two hour drive to meet with these men. God used my new brothers in Christ to minister the truth and love that I was searching for. These men helped me discover my identity in Christ.

On February 4, 2007, I was visiting the church and after service I walked into the pastor’s office to find his niece sitting on the couch. Instantly I heard the Lord say, “This is your wife, the woman I have made for you.” We began dating and a year later, March 15, 2008, we were married. During the year of our dating I also began finding healthy male friendships that I had desperately wanted all my life. Other men who walked alongside me keeping me accountable, encouraging me and being my friend.

God is continuing to restore the years that Satan had taken from me. My life is one miracle after another and I thank God every day for the blessings He is pouring out on me and my family. Jesus has given me the wholeness and healing that I was desperate for. He not only saved me but He also liberated me and continues to liberate me. I finally understand what it means not just to be a Christian, but to have a personal relationship with an awesome, loving and gracious God. This journey has brought me closer to God and has shown me my complete dependence on Him.

As witness to His faithfulness in my life, I now serve in a ministry at my church called Liberty Outreach and I am using my life to help others walk in deliverance. God has taken what He is doing in me to give others hope.

My passion is to help the Church become a place of safety, refuge and support for those struggling with unwanted homosexuality. Our culture is telling youth, men and women, to accept and embrace their homosexual struggles as their identity, while the Church has remained silent. We are living in a time where sin is not only being tolerated, but it is being celebrated. We as Christians have an amazing chance to stand up for what is righteous and to love people no matter how tattered and broken they are and to open our hearts to them. “There has no temptation taken us but such as is common to man, and God who is faithful will not allow us to be tempted above that which we are able but with that temptation makes a way of escape that we will be able to bear it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).