Archive: A Former Homosexual Testifies to the Gospel of the Grace of God

By Jeff Painter, Musical Evangelist, Fairmont , West Virginia

My name is Jeff. I am in full-time ministry as a Christian pianist and evangelist. This is done with the approval and recommendation of the Evangelism Committee of the Western Pennsylvania Conference of the UM Church.

But I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself, in order that I may finish my course, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God (Acts 20:24, NAS).

I accepted Christ as my Savior in the eleventh grade. But, as many of you know, that doesn’t automatically take care of all the troublesome areas of one’s life.

When I was a piano major at West Virginia University, I had a singing group that ministered in churches on weekends. The group sang and testified to the power and love of God.

However, my week days were anything but a testimony to God’s love and power. At best they were a testimony of serving two masters: love of God and the love of being gratified in the form of homosexuality.

To be honest with you, I don’t know how I ended up the way I did, and I don’t believe anyone else knows either. Even then I knew that I couldn’t equate the purity and holiness of Christ with the gay life in which I was floundering. There was always a lustful undertone, no matter how lovely the experience was meant to be.

Quite frankly, it got to the place where I didn’t want to live anymore. I had never heard a preacher talk of how the Lord could either heal or deliver you successfully from such a lifestyle. I didn’t feel I could turn to my college friends, and I didn’t want to have to confront my parents without some ray of hope. So finally I cried out in prayer, “Father, Help! If You can’t help, then I guess I’ll just have to be through with this life.”

To make a long story short, I just happened to see Oral Roberts on television, and I decided to write him for help. I received a letter back within a few weeks saying that he had prayed for me and that God would begin to answer my prayer in three days. I laughed and threw the letter away.

Three days later I was in a Christian broadcasting station in Morgantown, West Virginia, waiting to provide music for a television program when I overheard a conversation between two ladies. One was telling the other of a former minister, Don Fitzwater, who had shared his testimony the week before. He’s married, has two kids, and had come out of a homosexual lifestyle. I got Don’s address from one of the ladies. That was exactly three days from when I had received Oral Roberts’ letter.

I went for counseling at the Jesus Outreach Christian Center in Fairmont, West Virginia.[1] There I met Don and a woman counselor, Joyce, and that was the beginning of the Lord’s healing in my life. That day I claimed the Scripture of Revelation 12:11 for myself: “And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even to death.” For a year it was quite a battle for me to claim that whole Scripture because my reputation was probably more important to me than Christ.

But praise God—when I began sharing and living that Scripture in all its fullness, God started to work in a fabulous way. I’ve been out of the gay life now for five years. My testimony is a public testimony. It’s even mentioned on the back of my first record album. Since coming out of the homosexual lifestyle, I’ve had the blessed privilege of helping teen-agers and young adults do the same. That is one of the major ministries of the Jesus Outreach Church of Living Waters.

From a personal standpoint, I had come to accept with equal joy whether I was to remain single or be married. Being in the center of His will was more important. Last November, 1981, on Friday the 13th, I was married to Lisa Kay. I praise God for a wonderful wife. The Lord has done sufficient healing in my life. This does not mean there is never any temptation, but it does mean that the Lord has given me the capacity to love and care for a woman for the first time in my life.

I hope you see that the reason I have such a deep joy in my life is not because of the healing He has done in my life; it’s not the people to whom I’m privileged to minister in concerts and individually; it doesn’t even come from the satisfaction of making theological statements to support what I believe and know to be true; but it’s because of the intimacy and loveliness of my relationship to Father God.

Like St. Paul, I heard my Father in Heaven say, “Jeff, My grace is sufficient for you. ” I praise God that the uncontrollable area of my life became a vehicle through which I was compelled to let God be my strength, my desire, and my sufficiency. Though it’s been five years since my last homosexual encounter, the greatest healing that has taken place in my life is the relationship to my Heavenly Father. That relationship is being healed to such an extent that my Father God has allowed the fruit of that relationship to overflow in healing family relationships. My family is now being challenged to a deeper reliance on Jesus Christ in their daily lives. God is also using me to reach out in concerts to minister, to be an instrument in the healing of relationships of many other families. Once I thought the only thing that God wanted was to heal me from my old lifestyle! I was really self-centered!

My Heavenly Father spoke to me, “Jeff, are you willing to be My living sacrifice and not some cause’s living sacrifice? Are you willing to believe you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you? Even if I allowed you to be blind in one area of your life, are you willing to believe that I would never forsake you or leave you, that in the fullness of My time I would be glorified by your complete healing? Are you willing to follow Me even if I decide not to deliver you out of the fiery furnace of temptation like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego? Will you get to the point where you will not bow your knee to anyone except Me, no matter what? If by faith you will, I promise that I’ll walk with you and there will never be a fire that will be able to consume you. ” Hallelujah!

In my opinion, if gay ministers ever came to the point of saying, “Father, take this consuming fire of temptation out of my life … but if You don’t, let it be known that Your relationship to me and my fellowship with You is so sacred and precious I will never bow the knee to other gods such as lust, self–centeredness, or man’s theology,” whatever success they’ve had as a minister of God will be multiplied at least five times. And, in the fulness of His time, they would be healed. (I say this because God has done both in my life, and He is no respector of persons.)

I would have made a terrible mistake if I had succeeded in working out a suitable theology which would have allowed me to practice homosexuality while proclaiming Jesus Christ and Him crucified. If this would have happened I would have died spiritually instead of being spiritually deepened. My family would have been destroyed instead of being healed. My music and words would never have been effective in reaching out as God’s vehicle of healing to other families and individuals. God’s anointing could never be on my music if I were not playing with clean hands and my words were not spoken from a pure heart.

We need to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and freedom for those who are downtrodden.

Since homosexuals have the third highest suicide rate in the country, they need desperately to know the love and forgiveness that comes when they meet the Savior Jesus Christ. They also desperately need a church which is willing to show through words and lifestyles (individual and collective), compassion, hope, and resurrection power how to be an overcomer in Christ.

We, the Church, are to be the voice of God to a world of confusion, grey areas, indecision, doubts, and hopelessness. No church should vote to ordain practicing homosexuals. To do so would deny the sovereignty of God’s Word. It would also create more confusion, grey areas, and doubts in that person’s individual life and in the church.

Jesus Christ is pure love. Anything in my life that doesn’t come from His pure love ends up in confusion anyway. My indecision and my doubts began to be erased when He answered my prayer of desperation exactly as the letter I received said He would—in three days!

He showed me in Jeremiah 29, that He has a plan of welfare for me—not calamity—to give me a future and a hope, if I am willing to see Jesus Christ and Him crucified in my life. I believe God’s Word that He is faithful to finish what He has started. If He didn’t and couldn’t, I wouldn’t be alive today. I’m free in Jesus. “It’s no longer I that liveth but Christ that liveth in me ” (Galatians 2:20).

[1] Now called Jesus Outreach Church of Living Waters, 704 Country Club Rd., Fairmont, WV 26554. If anyone wants counsel or guidance, please contact Jeff Painter and this ministry. Jeff is also available for music evangelism and/or seminars on counseling the homosexual.