Ex-lesbian Jessica Newsome says holding on to sin is one of the most damaging things you can do to yourself—and your relationship with God. The longer you wait to cut off sin, the more damage it can do.
In her “The Victory > The Struggle” podcast on Charisma News, Newsome opens up about her past struggle with homosexuality and how that sin damaged her connection with Jesus. She says we can’t overcome evil and sin unless we give God our best.
“We people who struggle with homosexuality hold on to lust, because even though we aren’t doing it out here, if we could do it in our mind, if we could do it in our heart, it fulfills some type of need and gratification that we aren’t getting by following God because we don’t want to wait in His timing for change to come.
“So we gratify the desires of our flesh, even if it’s low-key to where no one realizes it, to where no one knows about it. It’s only us and God. And we think we aren’t hurting anybody. You know what? We are hurting someone. We’re hurting ourselves. We’re hurting our future. We’re hurting the destiny that God has for us by not being obedient.”
Newsome goes on to emphasize that not giving God our best can lead us to become complacent and “lukewarm,” which only serves to put a wedge between us and God and hurt our witness.
“God says, ‘Be hotter, be cold, but don’t be lukewarm. I’ll spit that out.’ … What lukewarm does is it confuses other Christians. It tears down the fabric of the church. Because you have one foot in, one foot out. And to people what does this look like?
“It looks like Christians who don’t really know that God can deliver someone from homosexuality, because there’s people that say, ‘Well, it’s okay to be homosexual.’ And like it’s permissible with God, right? There are some people who say, ‘Well, you can still be homosexual, but you have to be celibate,’ right? And this is confusing to people.”
Listen to Newsome’s episode titled “Sin is crouching at the door” here.
