What of Orientation?
There are few who are confused when I mention something like sexual orientation. Our culture has done a great job of catechizing that term. It is taught as something concrete, final, and deterministic. Something that’s fixed. This may shock some readers, but I agree, well, kind of. See, the Bible does speak about our orientation. It does speak of a direction all our thoughts, desires, worship, and love are to be fixed upon. We were made in the image of God (Gen 1:27). We were originally made "very good" in the eyes of God. We were made in a harmonious relationship with our Creator. However, this estate did not last long. Succumbing to the serpent’s temptations, our first parents disobeyed God, plunging all of subsequent humanity into a state of sin. When I was twelve years old, I broke my arm playing hockey (roller hockey...not much ice on California's central coast). No bone protruding out of the skin, no blood. The X-ray showed that my bones were strong, which meant there were no shards of bone in my arm, and the break was clean. Setting it would still be required though. So, off to sleep I went and they set the bones. When Adam and Eve sinned against God, the break was clean. Humanity’s sin completely broke themselves because it broke their relationship with God. The break wasn't surface level, it went to the core. Humans are now dead in our trespasses and sins, children of wrath from birth. We are blind to spiritual things and hostile to God and His law (Eph 2:3, Ps 51:5, Rom 8:7, 1 Cor 2:14).
If Jesus says, “out of the treasure of a man's heart, so he is”, then what is a man if he is sinning? He’s a sinner right to the core. All the way down to his orientations. Right down to the inclinations of every situation.
Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.
Proverbs 4:23
Everything we think, want, desire, or are oriented to, comes from our heart. It follows then that if there's only sin in the treasure chest, that’s what you’ll pull out when you reach in. It will be decisions and desires oriented towards sin. It is inescapable. That is, if we are left alone and uninterrupted. What we need is to be interrupted. We must be reoriented. The foundational message of the Bible is that God is going to reorient a people for Himself. Right now, the state of California is close to banning all professions or literature that attempt to help reorient people. This law is chiefly concerned with the area of being sexually reoriented. This isn't just an attack on transgender or same sex attracted people, it attacks all people. This is a slippery slope. God has given them over to lose their minds. But the effects of a debased mind aren’t just homosexuality. Roman's 1 lists many effects of a debased mind. The presence of these sins is the evidence of God's passive wrath against all ungodliness and suppression of the truth before. Our culture is trying to tell people nothing is wrong with your orientation. Humans don't need any fixing or reorienting. All we need is encouragement, to be lifted up, and praised. People need the award, the front cover, the applause, and our culture obliges happily. Also, we call it brave. People are called brave for embracing and living out everything they feel oriented to. But isn't bravery an accomplishment against the odds? A military commander whose enemy gives up isn't given the medal of honor. What do they really want? Eventually, the charge to shut up those who preach reorientation won't be relegated to sexuality. But this is their 82nd Airborne parachute in behind enemy lines. Why the realm of sexuality? Because it has the facade of being personal and not affecting others. But this couldn't be further from the truth. The florists, bakers, and wedding photographers beg to differ. Tell me again how this only affects the individual? Secular humanism is not neutral, it is authoritarian. They understand that's it is us or them. This is not a battle for whether a moral standard will be established, it's which. The secular humanist most certainly has a set of rules and ethics they adhere to. They won't settle either. Once they're behind enemy lines, they go straight for the headquarters. They cannot stand to have opposition. Opposition to their worldview is now blasphemy and a social capital crime. You are dead to them. It is anything but neutral. What are you going to do, Christian? We have to join arms with the Apostles in Acts 6 and declare that we obey God, not man. We must be ready to defend the faith in all realms of society and make an appeal for God's truth as Paul did on numerous occasions. We have to know what we believe and why we believe it. Nominal Christians will not survive. Christians must storm the gates the hell, because, as we have been told, if we do, we will succeed! We have to remember that martyrdom is never spoken of as a victory for the enemy. The enemy should beware because God especially avenges his martyrs as seen in Revelation. So where does the Christian fight? On all fronts. How do we fight? With scripture. The entire story of the Bible is one of God pursuing humanity’s reorientation through the Jesus Christ. For His glory, God ordained a plan to redeem a people as His possession. He did this by giving them a new heart so they would turn away from their natural orientation and toward God. When speaking of sexual sins, the Bible says “as such were some of you” (1 Cor. 6:9-11), “old things have passed away” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Paul said he was putting the past behind him and pressing forward (Philippians 3:14). Hebrews exhorts us to “...lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us”. There is no way to be a faithful, bible believing Christian without calling all men everywhere to repentance; to reorientation (Acts 17:30). Anyone not preaching the message of being born again and the Christian life of continual reorientation isn’t preaching a biblical message anymore.
Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). Some may say, "This is my orientation, I was born this way".
I say, "Be born again".