You know the verse. If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation. The old is gone, the new has come!.
It sounds like freedom. It sounds like a jailer fumbling with keys. It is the groan of iron hinges. It is a corridor flooded with light you forgot existed.
The Trap of the “Religious To-Do List”
We take that beautiful truth and whittle it into a to-do list. Starve the sin, categorize, mortify flesh, cultivate spirituality. We turn a resurrection anthem into an employee handbook. We stand on the riverbank. Dry and safe, and shout at the drowning: “Put off the old self!” I think sometimes we mistake panic for rebellion and shift into defensive mode to keep our own feet clean.
Our phone buzzes. We take it out, not to call for help, but to check our reflection. Doctrine in place. Brand in place. We’re not late for our livestream on cutting ties. The carpool to the conference is leaving. The audience for our purity is waiting.
What We Miss About Transformation
The person in the water isn’t refusing transformation. They’re drowning. And drowning people don’t need a lecture on swimming technique. They need a hand. They need someone willing to get wet.
The problem isn’t the truth. The truth is still true. We are new creations. The old has passed away. But somewhere between receiving our promise and finding a pulpit, we confused proclamation with participation. We started wielding truth as a club; something to beat people into shape with, instead of a key. A key that unlocks. A key that requires us to come close, to bend down, to carefully insert it into the specific lock of someone’s specific suffering.
When “Put Off the Old Self” Sounds Like a Threat
I know what you’re doing. Ephesians 4 rings in your ears. Put off your old self. You want it bad. But when your attractions don’t immediately shift (and they don’t), that command sounds like a threat. Like being told to operate on your soul with a butter knife.
So you fake it. You learn the performance. You hide the struggle, because admitting it’s still there feels like your transformation didn’t take.
I am not a judge. I was your cellmate.
The key is realizing you were never meant to live in that cell. Your identity was never supposed to be those walls.For thirty years, I believed my sexual desires defined me. I built a life in that prison. I’m writing this from the other side of that prison door whispering through the bars: the lock is on the inside. You were never meant to live there. Those walls are not your identity.
That hiding? That performance where you hustle for a love you must earn, thinking you must fix yourself first? That’s the corrupted “former manner of life” Paul is talking about.
The Miracle in the Middle of the Addiction
The miracle for me wasn’t the instant vanishing of all my desires. It was God meeting me in the middle of the addiction, not after I cleaned up. The “putting off” really began the moment I stopped pretending I could.
It started with a raw, honest confession: “God, this is my old self. You see my thoughts. This pattern seems woven into me. I am powerless to extract it.”
That was the death. That was the autonomous me who thought he could manage, hide, or struggle his way to holiness being crucified. What emerged, slowly and achingly, was not a new “straightness.” It was a new center. A knowing that even in the midst of a wrong attraction, God was right there. His steadfast love wasn’t waiting on the other side of my perfect performance. So I could pray, “Lord, forgive my lust. I cast it down. I give it to you.” My identity stopped being “guy defined by his urges” and started becoming “Your beloved, in process.”
Beyond Labels: Why “Gay Christian” Isn’t My Name
I would like to quickly give a moment to the term “gay Christian.” My problem isn’t the word “gay.” It’s any adjective we staple to “Christian” that roots us in our own flesh.
- “Ex-Addict Christian”
- “Theologian Christian”
- “Conservative Christian”
- “Progressive Christian”
Same cage. They all chain us to an unfinished story, instead of the work Christ declared finished.
I wouldn’t ever use that label. Not because I’m ashamed. Not to avoid any awkward moments of being set up on a blind date by someone in our young adults ministry. But because it would mean digging up a corpse. That person died with Christ. I would be dragging it with me just to show you the scars.
The facts are real. My past is real. My daily struggles are real. But they are not my name.
My Name is His
This isn’t about labels. It’s about freedom. The freedom to say, “This struggle is part of my story, but it is not my identity. Christ is.”
You are not defined by what you put off. You are defined by who you put on. He is your righteousness. He is your holiness. He is your new self.
The old you that could be explained by a sin, an ache?
- Gone.
- Buried.
- Stop trying to dig it up. Even to mourn it.
You are a new creation. Full stop.
Walking that out is slow. It’s messy. It’s falling down covered in mud. But the belonging? That was settled at the cross.
You are not too far gone.
You are right on time.
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