Home > Work > Openness Unhindered: Further Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert on Sexual Identity and Union with Christ
21 " Because of our fallen natures, we expect that we will be repenting of sin until glory. But repentance is not simply proof of failure. It is, more importantly, a sign of God’s hand upon us. It is a conversion proof, as only a saved person can repent of sin. "
― Rosaria Champagne Butterfield , Openness Unhindered: Further Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert on Sexual Identity and Union with Christ
22 " I prayed that the Lord would help me to see my life from his point of view. It was then that I noticed it: as I looked around my house, I had dozens of PRIDE posters, T-shirts, coffee mugs. The flag that waved in the breeze at my porch was a PRIDE flag. Pride had become my best friend. In the LGBT world, we defined pride as a healthy self-esteem. But something started to crack a little and I dared to just ask the question: was I domesticating a tiger? "
23 " God wants us to hear his voice through the Word of God, the discernment of the Holy Spirit, and the comfort of our redeemed life through the blood of Christ. For example, musical pitch is black and white. It is accurate, sharp, or flat. It cannot be both accurate and flat. It is exclusive in its claims. While a chorus can sing in harmony or cacophony (dissonance), a solo voice can only be accurate, sharp, or flat. So too is Scripture. "
24 " Just like a dancer’s body finds its points and an equestrian incorporates her body weight into the movement of the horse, the Christian learns how to melt her will into God’s. "
25 " Temptation yielded to is lust deified” (My Utmost for His Highest, September 17 entry). Temptation comes in many forms, but it is always personal, uncannily tailor-made for our individual moral weakness, and it takes aim at God’s character, seeking to ransack our faith. "
26 " We violate those we love when we try to supplant Christ by trying to fill his role, or by removing ourselves from this lavish outpouring of love by refusing to take God’s point of view on the matter of sin—its nature, origin, and consequences. Christ loves his people best. We cannot love as he did. We cannot suffer as he did. We cannot redeem our lives, our worlds, or our relationships. "
27 " Real conversion gives you Christ’s company as you walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Indeed, the fall made everything—including my deepest desires—fall. And this happened under God’s providential eye, not behind his back. "
28 " the doctrine of Original Sin is the most democratizing idea in all of human history. "
29 " Even our struggles, our failures, and our suffering are redemptive in Christ. But there is blood involved. There is a cutting off and a cutting away that redemption demands. "
30 " The work of a believer is responsive, not initiative. We respond to God’s love because we must. Like Peter, when called to do the impossible, we do not look to our limitations, but we ponder this: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life” (John 6:68). Owen says this: “Mortification of any sin must be by a supply of grace. Of ourselves, we cannot do it.”31 The gospel does not take us halfway there. God takes us all the way home. But if what you seek is grace apart from Christ’s blood, you will never get home. "
31 " Like it or not, because I stand in the covenant of grace, I must mortify my sin. Because I stand in the covenant of grace I am able to mortify sin. Daily. Hourly. No matter how long this sin has been my companion. I must never become sentimental about it. I’m called by God to put it to death. And one big proof that the grace of God is at work in me is that I know that I need to do this, even if I can’t imagine how. "
32 " God is calling us to so greatly love others that we do not desire for them anything that might separate them from God. Holy sexuality is a love so big that it treasures the purity of another, exonerating that person's status as an image bearer or a daughter or son of the King, and not dehumanizing him or her through manipulating lust. "
33 " Union with Christ is part of the saints’ armor. "
34 " If this was a book written by men who were inspired by the Holy Spirit, then its admonitions about sin were not applied cultural phobia. "
35 " Christian fruit is known by its root (Christ), not by the contribution it makes to a better world. "
36 " Christians who indulge the habit of admitting rather than confessing sin over time tend not to see their sin as sin at all. It just seems like life. At first, they may hate the sin. They may truly wish to be free of it. These brothers and sisters may be forgetting or not knowing that even in our battle with sin God gives us an opportunity to glorify him. Indeed, I believe that the job of a Christian is to glorify God in all situations, including in the repentance of sin. "
37 " The business of the Christian is not to desire just enough grace to be strong in ourselves. Indeed, strong personalities can and do make behavioral changes on the grounds of will, many of these for the good of their health and well-being. But there is no new life found in the fruit of a self-willed behavioral change. Only the risen Lord can give new life. What separates the admitting of sin from the confession of sin is the cross of Christ. "
38 " Oswald Chambers says that “temptation fits the nature of the one tempted, and reveals the possibilities of the nature…. Temptation yielded to is lust deified” (My Utmost for His Highest, September 17 entry). Temptation comes in many forms, but it is always personal, uncannily tailor-made for our individual moral weakness, and it takes aim at God’s character, seeking to ransack our faith. In Matthew 26:41, our Lord commands this: “Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation.” From this verse we know that temptation is an alluring evil or a moral test. "
39 " My testimony is like iodine on starch. There is nothing neutral about it, about me, or about my life in Jesus Christ. Of "
40 " Why is sexual sin so hard to deal with? Because often sexual sin becomes a sin of identity. One goal of this book is to help you face your sin in Christ, know your status in Christ if you have committed your life to him, and reject any identity that Christ has not prepared for you. "