“You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin.”
Hebrews 12:4 NKJV
I was watching the famous CBS news show, 60 Minutes, as they reported on a young woman who recently transitioned her gender to a male. It was a 20 minute segment which I shall be the first to stipulate makes a subject like this one hard to grapple with appropriately or adequately. Perhaps the first critique of such an attempt is the simple notion of fairness in exploring what exactly is going on inside a person born one gender but feels they are another gender. My instincts tell me that CBS had no intention of being “fair” but rather paint a sympathetic portrait of a transgendered person which will make assimilating their desires into main stream culture a natural and ordinary thing. There was no professional analysis or exploration into this area. It was simply an endearing story which was meant to frame any question into the legitimacy of such a transition as bigoted and narrow-minded.
As I watched the brief presentation there were several things that struck me as noteworthy. Her picture in high school (before the gender transition started) was simply amazing. She was an attractive young lady which (as her parents put it) had athletic or “tom-boy” tendencies. She loved being around boys and participating in their activities. She admitted to initially being attracted to females which made her explore the possibilities of being “gay”. Eventually, after being introduced to transgender possibilities at a “church meeting”, she became convinced she was actually a boy. From that point forward, it was full steam ahead in an incredibly short period of time (one year as I calculated from the report) in a full transition to “male-hood”. She began testosterone therapy and had her breasts surgically removed (which I cannot believe any physician could have done that procedure in integrity). Again, she was ostensibly transitioned by the time she was a freshmen in college. She reports that she is currently at total peace with herself.
This was a lengthy introduction to simply say…I believe that is a counterfeit peace.
What we fail to recognize is that every person born has an “inward bent” to sin. That is point one in theology class called the doctrine of depravity. Every person will have a natural, innate, disposition to rebel against God and His order. The manifestation of that bent can appear in all sorts of ways. Perhaps it is the propensity to gossip, overeat, lust, fornicate, anger, murder, steal, cheat, covet, lie, and a host of other equally sinful activities. Each of us will have certain inward “feelings” that if unaddressed will lead us to activity that is against the plan, the order and the purposes of God. No one is exempt. Each one can be different. Each struggle all too real. Sinful proclivities are never “fair” in how they land in each person’s life. Some proclivities will carry greater social stigmas than others depending on the country or time period you live in. What one person struggles with by way of feelings may be greater than what is perceived in another, but the truth is that whatever your dominant sinful “bent” may be, when it’s yours…it’s real personal and challenging.
However this is what we need to be reminded of…
FEELINGS are not the final say. FEELINGS are not necessarily the gauge upon which we define truth. FEELINGS are not always to be trusted and followed.
For example, do we really look at the 16-year old boy whose hormones are raging and would conceivably have sex with untold multiple girls to run with that “feeling”? Do we look at the married man or woman who has the “feeling” to run away with that cute office worker and say, “just follow your heart”? What about the guy who cuts you off in traffic and you “feel” like punching him in the nose? Do we simply say, “Be true to yourself”. Of course, we haven’t even explored the “feelings” of incest, bestiality, and pedophilia. At what point are our feelings evaluated to make sure they are valid and appropriate feelings? This is the slippery slope the sexual anarchists can never answer to anyone’s satisfaction. What we are seeing in our era is the fruit of the 60’s philosophy, “If it feels good, do it”. If there is an answer offered it is usually couched in the sentiment that once they “followed their heart (feelings)”, they were somehow at peace. How do you argue with peace?
By telling them it is a FALSE PEACE…a counterfeit substitute for the real peace.
Please read again the passage posted above in Hebrews 12:4. It is vital in dealing with your feelings. You see, I have no doubt that whatever the struggle is that is going on inside a person, it is no doubt immense. To resist the bent (feeling) to do what you feel is challenging. It is like a war raging on the inside. In some ways, you really are at war with what was inside of you since birth. It is called the “carnal nature”, the “body of sin”, even the “old man”. For some, they yield to the feeling and suddenly the struggle is gone. The struggle is gone because your resistance has stopped. You then mistakenly interpret that moment as “peace”, when in actuality you have simply surrendered to the enemy. And in similar fashion to a soldier becoming a POW after an intense battle you mistakenly think your captor is giving you peace because you no longer are at war…when in fact you stepped into captivity.
Some have asked…”How long must one battle with these feelings?”
Till you secure true peace…that only comes through Jesus Christ, the Cross, and His resurrection power. In fact, He is the only way true peace ever arrives. It is why we call Him, “The Prince of Peace”. It transcends even our understanding.
The Hebrew writer said that you “strive against sin” even to the point of bloodshed.
So any Christian who maintains that people with proclivities that run counter to the Scripture are simply born that way are partially correct. We are ALL born with a bent to some evil. The key is to cure the bent, not facilitate it.
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