If I were an individual self-identifying as a ‘gay Christian,’ I would at some point in all honesty and truth need to truly face myself and ask, “Am I more gay or am I more Christian?”

Having a different point of view, a different understanding and belief, or deeply held conviction never has nor will it never = hate.

It is the clarity of the Holy Scriptures that should compel each and every faithful follower of Christ Jesus to be a light where there is darkness, rather than hiding our witness from those who need it.

Today, no one, with integrity, can continue to condemn a behavior or a group of people while doing so very, very little to see things improve.

Respectfully, truth, God’s absolute truth has not changed and will never change just because you did due to a so-called “evolved and enlightened understanding” of homosexuality.

41 years ago…

• You told me I needed to surrender my life to Christ Jesus and be born-again. I surrendered.

• You told me I needed to forsake and repent of homosexual practice. I repented. I turned away.

• You told me my mind needed renewing and I needed a life transformation. I willingly died to self.

• You told me I needed to forsake the gay community and embrace the Church as my new family. I did so by faith.

• You regularly encouraged me to share my testimony. I gladly did so to honor Christ Jesus.

• You continue to remind me the Church is God’s vehicle to reach the wounded, broken and hurting. I agree.

• You told me the Bible is the textbook for life in all matters of faith and practice. I embraced this truth.

• You reminded me over and over again “Jesus remains the same yesterday, today and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8) Indeed and Amen.

But now, some of you are saying, per your new stance that your understanding of homosexuality has “evolved” to – “Well, maybe homosexuality isn’t so bad after all.”

Many Sunday morning church pulpits have lapsed fully into the silent mode with regard to homosexuality which has and is perpetuating a tsunami of immorality.

The gay community is extremely vocal and highly visible demanding their right to be who they want to be, but I am now being told daily I cannot have, and I must now have the same right.

I am trying very, very hard to understand. Would you help me, please?

Much too often, I turn around wondering, “Where did everybody go?”

Having once faced and addressed the impact of rejection and abandonment in my life, must I face it again?

Should we compare where we stand now regarding homosexuality and related issues to the time when things got very, very tough and Jesus said to His disciples, “Will you also turn away?” (John 6:67)

You told me and reminded me frequently…

“The Church must call homosexual practice sin and while that will be offensive too many, the Word of God must not and cannot be watered down.”

In many respects, I attribute my new life in Christ Jesus of 41 years to Christians sharing and holding me to The Truth.

• You told me I was not born gay. I embraced this truth.

• You told me change is possible. I changed.

• You told me our true identity is in Christ Jesus – not our sexuality. True.

• You told me not to allow my past to dictate who I am in Christ today. Agreed.

• You told me homosexuals are redeemable with God’s grace and power more than sufficient to transform a life. Amen.

• You told me sharing the Gospel is not an option for a Christian but rather obedience to a command. Absolutely.

• You told me the only way out of homosexuality was through a deep, personal, intimate relationship with Christ Jesus.

Has any of the above mentioned changed?

If, yes, to any of the above mentioned, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you?” (Acts 19:15)

Truth lived out Christ’s way, does not have any gray edges. It is abundantly clear and straight forward.

In Christ,

Phillip, just one of the many prodigals.

“And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:18)

Respectfully, truth, God’s absolute truth has not changed and will never change just because you did due to a so-called “evolved and enlightened understanding” of homosexuality.

The content of the below graphic is yet another false and misleading attempt to define what’s true, what’s moral and set boundaries in terms of who should be allowed to speak, who should be silenced, who should be scrutinized whenever they post, and whose content and messaging should be given an unexamined green light.

I remain dedicated and purposed to speaking truth, God’s absolute truth on this topic and a host of others, while never letting our present culture dictate what to believe, practice or say.

Individuals that promote such false and misguided notions like the content of this graphic are most definitely to be loved, but…they are not Lord.

No one hates the LGBT community more than the devil.

John 10:10 says, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.”

God is the God of all creation, and the devil does not have the power to destroy the Creator, so he settles for destroying His creation (mankind).

Satan hates God and all that mirrors Him. Satan derives his hate for mankind from his hate for God.

It’s not personal, it’s spiritual.

The Church, Peter reminds us, exists not least to “declare the wonderful deeds of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Once you were no people but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy but now you have received mercy” (1 Peter 2:9-10).

Remain dedicated to speaking truth rather than culture.

*A culture war in society should not dictate to the Church what the Church should believe.

*When the authority of the Bible is denigrated, the Church of Jesus Christ, the light of the world, will be without any clear guidance of her own.

*If we, the Church, have offered homosexual strugglers little help on their way toward making huge, life-changing decisions, don’t we bear some of the responsibility?

*The true crisis we face is not homosexuality, but rather the Lordship of Christ and the Authority of Scripture (Isaiah 5:20).

*People are first tempted. Then after they yield to temptation, they try to justify it. However, grace isn’t a license to sin when it’s taught with truth.

*Scripture provides evidence homosexuality, though deeply ingrained and habitually practiced, can be overcome both as a lifestyle and as an identity (1 Corinthians 6:11).

Our responsibility is to speak the truth, trusting God to make it alive to our hearers.

“The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth” (John 1:4).

Holiness, godliness, and spiritual discipline should be, must be the distinctive marks of the true Church. Jesus prayed that His people be kept in truth: “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth” (John 17:17).

Compromising God’s Word, His Truth, or withholding His Truth only leads to greater unity with the world and not His Church.

As Christians, may we never forget that while our obedience to the Great Commission may cost us personally, the good news of spiritual deliverance through Jesus Christ remains an important and vital resource that Christians must share.

On God’s truth is where a Christian, the Church must stand.

God’s Church remains His vehicle to reach wounded, broken, hurting humanity.

Pastor Phillip Lee
Executive Director
His Way Out Ministries

Please consider making a donation at www.hiswayout.com/donate. Thank you, Pastor Phillip Lee

How can we be Overcomers (Rev. 12:11) if there isn’t anything to overcome?

“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:2)

But, practically speaking, how is that accomplished by someone like me that for many, many years lived life by the patterns of this world?

1. I had to agree with God that I had been greatly deceived.

2. I had to agree with God that I had been believing a lie, and I had to repent for doing so.

3. I had to allow; I needed to give God permission to show me just how destructive the lie I bought into and believed really was.

4. I had to reject the lie(s) I had believed for such a long time and then choose to believe what God says to be true.

5. I had to decide and choose to stand on the many truths God disclosed to me about myself instead of how I would normally have responded to life’s scenarios and circumstances.

By the way, all of the above-mentioned practical points often, very often, involved pushing through strong feelings and emotions that did everything they possibly could to sway me from doing what was right.

The warfare between flesh and spirit is a specific sign that God is at work in you through the sanctification of His Spirit.

How can we be Overcomers if there isn’t anything to overcome?

Thank God for His overcoming grace in the battle that brings seasons of peace and rest, knowing He will never leave us or forsake us.

Without a doubt, the greatest battle was learning to value truth because it is true, and not just because it felt true.

Pastor Phillip Lee
Executive Director
His Way Out Ministries

Please consider making a donation at www.hiswayout.com/donate. Thank you, Pastor Phillip Lee

“It is better to be divided by truth than united in error.” – Adrian Rogers

Many people try to excuse their sin by saying, “I was born this way.” Which is why Jesus said, “You must be born again” (John 3:3).

Dr. Robert L. Spitzer, who passed away on December 25, 2015, at the age of 83, was considered one of the most influential psychiatrists of his generation. Many years ago I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Spitzer and ultimately became one of his case studies with regard to freedom from same-sex attraction.

Despite the appeal that many in the gay community make about science being “on their side,” this isn’t accurate.

The article and video below, titled “Setting the Matter Straight,” capsulizes much of Dr. Spitzer’s study. My condolences to his wife and children.

Setting the Matter Straight
https://hiswayout.com/setting-the-matter-straight/

Today a relentless and often misguided focus of LGBTQ activists on being an ally in support of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning individuals due to bigotry, malice, ignorance and mean-spirited jokes often perpetrated against the LGBTQ community continues.

I once sat on the receiving end of being clobbered with Scripture by well-meaning but horribly misguided Christians.

However, to simply quote a Scripture is not the same as to clobber.

I still find it more than intriguing when conservatives quote Bible verses against homosexuality it’s called clobbering, yet when the LGBTQ community quotes Scripture while arguing against conservatives, it’s just well, quoting Scripture.

God-given love is not primarily a feeling, but an action toward a person. I believe we often have a twisted picture of love, thinking that what makes a person feel love is how we should show love.

Therefore, to confront him or her with some unpleasant thing would not be loving. To this day, I, not unlike many other men and women, remain grateful our families did not lower the bar or dismiss the clarity of Scripture with regard to homosexual practice.

Thankfully and gratefully, my family, and many others continue to love their children while not putting a stamp of approval on a behavior that clearly runs contrary to the teachings of Scripture. Sexual behavior outside of heterosexual marriage, whether homosexual or heterosexual, is sin, and is forbidden by the Word of God.

Today, there are those wanting Christianity, but not without sexual expression. In short, they want it all, a common malady of our time.

Today, even knowing the Scriptural condemnations of homosexuality in both the Old and New Testaments as being clear and final, there are those on a continued quest to find some way to get around them. The proverbial and endless search for a ‘loophole’ that does not exist continues.

Personally, I have friends, acquaintances, and neighbors who are homosexual. All of these relationships can be described as gracious and respectful. Even though our stances may be dramatically different on the topic of homosexual practice, we enjoy a mutual respect.

It is possible to be right in one’s beliefs but wrong in attitude or approach. It is appropriate and good to say the right thing, but it must be said in the right way. To dismiss this part of telling the truth, is to make truth a weapon more than a tool, and even the best tool, when misused, can be destructive.

I would submit that many gay people have misconceptions about Christians, just as a lot of Christians have misconceptions about gays. The criticism is often raised that Jesus preached an ethic of love and would never utter harsh words of condemnation. To speak the truth in love is not to condemn the one to whom it is spoken. Heaven knows, it may feel that way.

It does not matter, in the end, whether we can explain why God has spoken in the way He has; the essential issue is what He has spoken. In the end, the Bible “speaks the truth in love” and pure, true, undefiled love seeks nothing more or higher than the welfare of people – all people.

Pastor Phillip Lee
Executive Director
His Way Out Ministries

Please consider making a donation at www.hiswayout.com/donate. Thank you, Pastor Phillip Lee

Being a professing Christian who adheres to and applies the truths of Scripture to the world around us has never been easy. That said, how do we stand up to an increasingly hostile culture that demands our silence? How do we truly speak truth with love? How can a Christian relationally and effectively address our present culture without compromising truth?

We must never be ashamed of the gospel – and we are told to proclaim its precepts.

God’s Word does not adapt to culture – it transcends it.

Youtube Link
No One Is Doomed to Be Gay — There Is a Way Out

Is there really a way out of homosexuality? Pastor Phillip Lee of His Way Out Ministries sits down with Brandon Holthaus for an honest conversation about same-sex attraction, the church’s silence, and the hope found only in Christ.

In this episode of Tip of the Spear, Brandon interviews Phillip Lee — who has spent more than 30 years ministering to men and women struggling with same-sex attraction — on what the Bible actually says, why so many churches and prominent leaders have gone quiet, the crucial difference between “gay” and “homosexual,” the real story on HIV/AIDS today, and why his teams take the gospel to the world’s largest gay pride events, including Tel Aviv. This isn’t about winning an argument. It’s about souls.

This conversation is for the parent, pastor, or friend who knows someone wrestling with this and wants a response deeper than “it’s wrong.”

An Inside View – Obedience vs. Success: Healing does not, nor has it ever meant an absence of struggle.

Many, many years ago, at the very beginning of my discipleship, I hit a major wall. The wall had a definite name – “Loneliness!”

Not truly desiring to face and deal with the underlying factors causing the loneliness; I contacted my pastor and began to share my grief. Really, I just wanted to whine.

You know, the “Oh, poor me syndrome.”

My pastor requested that I meet him at the church for a more personal face to face conversation. I agreed. I arrived at the church before my pastor and positioned myself in the sanctuary for my tale of woe.

Eventually, I heard my pastor pull in the church parking lot and he immediately proceeded to the sanctuary where I was waiting. He had no sooner stepped inside when out came the words…

“Now, if you’ve got one good reason, I’m here to listen, but do not give me one excuse!” I still hear those words today. They were extremely authoritative and delivered with great volume.

I was stunned and couldn’t say a word. After a few moments of silence and collecting my emotions, I realized that my pastor had told me exactly what I needed to know, but not necessarily what I wanted to hear. His words snapped me right into reality.

You see, I had been giving my greater attention and energy to being successful rather than being obedient. Thank God for pastors who truly have our best interest at heart.

C.S. Lewis once wrote, “No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep picking ourselves up each time. We will, of course, be very muddy and tattered children by the time we reach home, but the bathrooms are ready, the towels put out and the clean clothes are waiting. The only fatal thing is to lose one’s temper and give up. It is when we notice the dirt, that God is present in us – it is the very sign of His presence.”

The Apostle Paul writes in I Corinthians 6:11, “You were sanctified,” or better translated, “are being sanctified.” Sanctification is that process where sin’s power is broken and we are separated unto God, enabling us to come into the wholeness Jesus promises.

Is it any wonder Jesus said, “If any man come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Mark 8:34).

Too often, when we think of salvation, we think of it in our initial choice to follow Jesus. But rarely do we view our salvation as a process, which entails many choices and often a string of many and various deliverance’s.

Healing does not nor has it ever meant an absence of struggle.

Our humanity, out of which our sexuality flows, will continue to bear the mark of the fallen age in which we live to some degree.
But that does not minimize God’s power. Experiencing temptation, feeling irrationally threatened, acknowledging the need for ongoing accountability, simply places us in a dynamic process of becoming whole.

For example, while God was helping me deal with homosexual sin, miraculously, I was spared the painful recognition of my broken masculinity, which was most definitely fueling my sinful behavior.

As I learned what it meant to be a man, and more importantly, a godly man, my masculinity began to be healed. The Lord revealed broken and hurtful aspects of how I related to family, friends, and people in general. God is faithful to reveal what needs to be healed. He does so in light of how much we can handle at once. And He always blesses obedience.

It isn’t enough to experience victory in sexual struggles. You might be saying, “it’s not…why?”

Because the victory will be very short lived if we don’t understand the specific characteristic of God on which victory is built. God wants us to know Him and trust His character, not just to use Him as a means to escape having to take responsibility for our choices.

A final thought…

To say that Christian love is unconditional is not to say that it does not encourage the one loved to do what is right. It is to say that Christian love continues even when that person fails to do what is right.

God help us to be encouraging rather than demanding.

In doing so, may many understand that obedience, not success, is your will and desire.

Pastor Phillip Lee
Executive Director
His Way Out Ministries

Please consider making a donation at www.hiswayout.com/donate. Thank you, Pastor Phillip Lee

The dam has burst, endeavoring to submerge basic Christian morality and ethics. At His Way Out Ministries/Rock Harbor Church we do not merely curse the darkness; we remain purposed to equip Christians in the art and science of conducting difficult discussions wielding the Christ-mandated gavel of grace.

Culture has and continues to embrace a new world vision, but true dedicated faithful followers of Christ Jesus have not.

At some point it is more than likely you will be charged with homophobia, sexism, racism, transphobia, and judgementalism, and you will need to know how to respond.

Will we faithfully – in our homes, pulpits, and lives – profess and steward the Word of God without adding to or detracting from it?

Our Perspective
Is culture influencing us more than we are influencing the culture?

Is culture influencing us, the Christian community, more than we are influencing the culture?

What we are facing is nothing short of a need for reform clothed in the hope of revival.

People I know, people you know, people in our churches, people in our families, having bought into the rhetoric and false teachings of pro-gay theologians, pro-gay apologists, and revisionists of Scripture regarding same-sex practice simply because they offer a so-called ‘enlightened understanding,’ an alternative that for some insane reason (sounds and seems) superior.

Any attempt at accepting or promoting homosexual practice in any form and to any degree requires abandoning the truth of God when trying to make the Bible agree with the gay is good notion.

Example: Pro-gay theology argues the Scriptures that clearly define same-sex practice as sin have been “mistranslated.”

The “mistranslated” argument makes no sense. On something as important as sexual ethics, are we really to believe that the Bible translators we rely on got it wrong five different times, in two different Testaments? And ONLY on the Scriptures regarding same-sex practice scenarios? That’s just too convenient.

The fact is, in Leviticus, Romans, 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy, same-sex practice is mentioned in the context of sexual and immoral behavior. The context is quite clear – a variety of behaviors are prohibited; same-sex practice, along with adultery, fornication, and idolatry, is one of them.

So, there is a group purporting to be of God and led of the Holy Spirit distorting and adding to the Gospel.

Tragically, fueling their fires are those that have embraced and adopted the silent-mode – say nothing, do nothing – received by the pro-gay camp as validation, acceptance, and approval of their quest.

No one can say they truly love people by standing by silently and allowing them to compromise their life in sexual sin, unchallenged.

That is not love!

Those having succumbed to human speculation, human knowledge, human understanding, and human reasons have dismissed and rejected the Bible as the Word of God.

If we, the Church, truly desire to function at our best, we must return to upholding the Truth and Authority of Scripture in all matters of faith and practice. This includes God’s original divine intent for human sexuality and His holy boundary lines for living.

This, I submit, would be a huge, considerable first step in reestablishing the Christian community to positively influence society and culture.

The Church fit to respond with grace and truth to our present culture will be one that is reformed by a return to basics and revived by a fresh wind.

Pastor Phillip Lee
Executive Director
His Way Out Ministries

Please consider making a donation at www.hiswayout.com/donate. Thank you, Pastor Phillip Lee