[Sincirr]

I had a really close friend who I loved dearly. I became a Christian and he started freaking out. he came out the following year.

He wouldnt go near me, saying to people that I would judge him cos Christians say that Gays will go to hell. I loved the guy, he was a good friend, but I had no idea that he was struggling with this.

Believe this or not, the week before he came out, I was in the bathroom and the Holy Spirit said very very clearly, "____is gay". It was so left field as far as I was concerned, I questioned whether it was God.

When I was told, I asked God, OK U gave me prior warning that he came out before anyone had actually told me, now, how am I sposed to react as a Christian to this??? God clearly said, well, U have all these other friends that freely talk to U about their sexuality that are Heterosexual, and U dont seem to worry about that...

Basically what God was saying was that I had a predudice against gays that I needed to deal with, cos his sexual activeness was no different to a Heterosexual's as far as God was concerned...Point was, God was more interested in dealing with my sin that day, than my friends!

God showed me through all of this that He loves gays. Just as much as he loves heterosexuals that don't aknowledge Him. No difference.

I have heard of a man who was gay and gave his life to Christ. He now evangelises to gay's. Most of them just turn their back on him, and understandably so. Of course, he is not a practicing gay now; he is married with kids, but alot of people don't like what he does. Who else is gonna reach out to these people! God loves them. In this case, what he is doing is so needed because of the distorted image of God and grace toward gays that some Christians have verbalised.

U can read about it in Philip Yancey's book, "What's So Amazing About Grace". I dont know if that helps or confuses, but I posted it cos of the profound effect the experience had on me.

I am a huge Kings X fan, and Doug Pinnick was told by some Christians that he was going to hell and all sorts of things. I wrote him an email and told him about what God said to him and he replied. In the past, he has spoken of how much, especially as a christian, agony he went through while struggling with coming out. It broke myheart to think that "youre going to hell" was now in his spirit. I was so glad that I could tell Him what God said.