The pride of Going My Own Way: The Greatest Sin
Proponents of transgenderism often challenge me to prove where the Bible says that it is a sin to live as transgender. One verse in the Old Testament says: “The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are an abomination unto the LORD.” (Deut. 22:5). God makes it clear that dressing as the opposite sex is an abomination to Him, but why?
The truth is, the Bible actually addresses this issue on a much bigger scale. When the Holy Spirit began to open my eyes to the truth, the entire Bible began to tell me that I could not be transgender. This does not mean a transgender person cannot be saved. God saved me when I was living as trans, even though I had undergone surgeries and major body alterations. But God didn’t leave me that way, and I knew that I couldn’t remain that way.
How Does God See Your Transgender Identity?
To identify as transgender means that you have determined that the way you were created is not right, that God made a mistake. It is to declare yourself as equal with God and able to re-create yourself into the person you want to be. Isaiah 29:16 says, “Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter’s clay: for shall the work say of him that made it, ‘He made me not?’ Or shall the thing framed say of Him that framed it say, ‘He had no understanding?’”
A pot cannot determine how it is made. It cannot decide what it will look like, how it will function, or what shape it will be. The potter created the vessel for His use and His purposes. But we are much more valuable than pots. Then why do we think that we are able to recreate ourselves? The original temptation from the garden where the serpent deceived Eve was similar. Satan promised, “you shall be as gods” (Genesis 3:5). Pride is the root of this temptation to recreate ourselves into the image we desire. It exalts self and diminishes God. Pride says that I know better than God.
What Did Pride Cost Lucifer?
It was pride that caused Satan to rebel against God and led to him being thrown out of heaven. “12How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which did weaken the nations! 13For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God:… 14I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.” (Isaiah 14:12-14). The pride of Lucifer that caused him to say, I will be like the Most High is the same pride that says I will declare who I am, I will be my own creator.
It was also pride that caused Adam and Eve to sin in the garden, which caused the fall of all mankind. Sometimes we like to blame them, or the devil, our parents, our peers, or even God for our problems. And while it is very likely that we have been sinned against, it is our own pride that causes us to rebel against God. You might have even had grievous sins committed against you. God does not turn a blind eye to that. God weeps over the pain and suffering of His children. He promises that He will fight for us and avenge us. But it is His job to set things right.
You Must Forgive
It is our job to forgive others as He offers us forgiveness through repentance and faith in the sacrificial death of Jesus. “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matthew 6:14-15). God knows the injustice committed against you. We have all hurt one another in this world that is cursed by sin and filled with sinful people. God’s love for us is so great that He allows us to make choices. Often those choices lead us to hurt others.
What Does Pride Cause In Our Lives?
But the pride of our heart leads us to harden our hearts, to stiffen our necks, and to put up walls. In an effort to make ourselves into someone that people will love and that we ourselves will love more, we recreate ourselves into the image we desire to be. But the problem is that we are created in the image of God. That means that our true identity is in reflecting Him, much like a mirror reflects the real person. But if the mirror is broken, the image is distorted. Some people might just embrace that brokenness. Yet, it doesn’t change the reality of the person looking in the mirror. It simply reflects a distortion.
The image is not the greatest reality, but the person looking into the mirror is the greater reality. So too God is a much greater being than we are. We can reflect His character and His beauty, but we cannot become Him. God, through the power of the Holy Spirit can transform a life to be like His character. As God forms us more and more into the image of Jesus Christ, we can be a better reflection of Him. If you have brokenness in your life, only Jesus can restore the broken pieces of the mirror.
“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;” (Isaiah 61:1).
But even the greatest men on earth can never truly become the same as God. God created us to glorify Him, and we are all subject to Him.
Pride Is the Ultimate Sin
Isaiah 53:6 says “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” Going our own way is actually the root of all of our sin that led Jesus to the cross. It is the reason He was crucified. Yes, He was crucified for all sin, but the root of all sin is pride. Pride says I know better than God, I don’t need God, God hasn’t done enough for me, or I will be as God.
Pride was the reason that Jesus was “despised and rejected of men”. It is also the reason He “bore our griefs”, the reason He was “stricken and smitten of God”, the reason He was “wounded for our transgressions. The reason He was “bruised for our iniquities” (Isaiah 53). Everything the Lord Jesus suffered was because we have all gone our own way. There was no way to be reconciled to God without God taking on Himself all of our sin and dying as a perfect sacrifice in our place.
“Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18). A transgender identity seems to be, on the surface, as becoming your “authentic self”. But the reality is that only God can define who you are. He knows you better than you know yourself.
How the Lord Opened My Eyes
Before I left the transgender lifestyle the Lord asked me a question one night: “If you stood before me tonight, what name would I call?” I didn’t know how to answer, but I knew He would not call me Jake. I knew instinctively, Jake was not who He had created. He reminded me of John chapter 1 where it says that Jesus Christ Himself is creator (John 1:1-3). He said to me, “You cannot claim to love me and yet reject my creation”. In the most loving voice I have ever heard in all my life He said, “Let me tell you who you are”. That was what began to free me. I realized that no matter what I did to myself there was a deeper identity that was fixed and unchangeable. While that was painful, it was also freeing.
You Were Known Before the Foundation of the World
“According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish.” (Ephesians 1:4, see verses 3-14).
“Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand (the sheep, those that have committed their lives to Jesus), ‘Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world’.” (Matthew 25:34, see 14-34).
“Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect (unformed), and in Thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.” (Psalm 139:16).
God had a specific plan and purpose for you. You will never find true peace and happiness in going your own way. Rather, repent of your pride. Turn your life to Him fully and completely and trust in Him.
If you do not know Jesus, see my page on coming to know Jesus.
Great and inspiring interview on WHK 1420 with Bob Frantz
You brought tears to my eyes Laura. God Bless you for the difference you are making
Amen
I continue to be blessed by you, Laura! And you too, George 😉 Both of you, and countless other followers of Jesus, display a courage that is powerful, and encouraging! A courage that is borne out of the lived reality of what Jesus Christ does in and through us when we surrender. THANK YOU for saying Yes to Him, thank you for letting your witness of Jesus be so public. I pray for you both regularly, and love you both very much.
Thank you for your diligence, perseverance, and vulnerability in sharing to help others. As a mother of a transgender you give me hope for my child.
““Let me tell you who you are”. That was what began to free me. I realized that no matter what I did to myself there was a deeper identity that was fixed and unchangeable. While that was painful, it was also freeing.”
Today, I went to my LinkedIn account to update info on it, since I haven’t looked at it in forever. When I looked at my profile, a little blurb by my name encouraged me to put what “pronouns I use” so that I could let people “know how to refer to me.” The feelings of terror I get when asked this are always the same, it really plays into the issues I’ve dealt with a bit in my life. Reading this has truly helped me out of that terror today. Thank you, when I have more time, I think I’m going to erase my LinkedIn profile completely, because it’s so disturbing to be asked what I clearly am.
I haven’t told anyone about my own dealings with gender dysphoria, or whatever on earth it’s called now, but I’ve dealt with it at different points in my life, especially at the start of my teenage years. All the bodily changes that little me didn’t want and then I couldn’t keep up with the boys anymore in sports. There’s also outside influences from the failings of the adults in my life that have impacted me, and I’m still learning to forgive them, again and again.
In high school, thank God, I went to a youth group with a youth minister very, very passionate about helping us. God worked through him to save my sanity and help me through depression I didn’t feel safe enough to go to the other adults in my life about. God also helped me to fall in love with the reality that He created me, as I am made. My body! Every part of me, as a woman who doesn’t, shouldn’t, and really can’t act like a boy. No matter what I do, or how I do it, it will always be done by a human female. Just like, if I was a female penguin, everything I do would be that of a female penguin! And that’s okay! Because, if He made me that way, then human femaleness is a singular gift, just made for me! (This, I am just now realizing as I type. Did not mean for this to get so long! And I’ve not actually thought that I was ever a penguin, haha.)
Then, I went to college. Looking back, I should have been more discerning with where I wanted to go for school, but I just wanted to get OUT, there was a lot of pain in my family at that time. The school I ended up going to was a very liberal, liberal arts school. I will say, they did have a top notch education with most of their professors, but it was the very “inclusive” political climate of the school that really seemed to pull at all the darkness I thought I was over from before. It was very much a cult, and maybe I was able to temper some of the “cultishness” of it for awhile with my friends by bringing in an outside perspective of the glaring issues the cult clearly had, and they couldn’t see, but it was very hard not to give in. It felt more than having my perspective challenged, it was more like my entire subconscious knowingness in what REALITY was, was being threatened almost every day of classes. Don’t recommend that to any college bound kids! Discern better than I did!!
But, what really affected me the most was the “simple” act of “asking my preferred pronouns.” I didn’t realize it at first, but 3 and a half years of starting semesters out that way worked into my subconscious (I was not asked to do so my very first semester). I remember having a breakdown in the early spring of 2020, my last semester, because I “didn’t know if I was woman enough anymore.” “Was my body not enough to be a woman? If a man could also be a woman?” “Why was I not enough as I was, as I was made and referred to for my entire life?” (And looking back again, this isn’t fair to anyone. It’s a devastating manipulation of reason and navigating the world without constant subconscious subversion. You don’t get to determine what you are, even if you don’t like what you were born as! And no sane person can live like this!!)
In my particular situation, God got me out of there with the coronavirus lockdown. I had to move back home, finish my classes online, without having to deal with the fear of addressing someone who was clearly the sex they were by the “wrong” pronoun in person. I’ve made mistakes since then, with my mental and spiritual health, but He really has helped me make peace with the dark feelings wanting control over Him in my life. Even while seeing more and more of that cult I left from college extend itself into what feels like all corners of our society is still terrifying, it’s Him leading me and others to people like you, who are not afraid of boldly proclaiming their testimonies about God given reality, has helped immensely. I’m not alone in this, even when the dark feelings say I’m wrong, and that I’m terrible for thinking otherwise. That I’m evil for denying the manipulation of the cult. My former friend who’s still neck-deep in it even said it only was, “was like gaslighting without the narcissism” when I pointed out the flawed contradictions that made up the anarchy-like community. But, you can’t have gaslighting without the narcissism. It’s a symptom of the disease, just like how bumpy rashes are only a symptom of Chicken Pox.
In my human frailty, I get scared sometimes that this reality-denial is going to take fully over, and then I’ll have to live in that fear forever. But, despite my doubt, God persists with us. And dealing with the pain caused by the fear of these cult ideas taking over has proven that Truth matters, even in something seemingly insignificant as properly using pronouns as they were invented to be used. To identify all around us as either male or female humans!
I wasn’t expecting to type a mini article out, but maybe it’s a start for me to be brave like you.
And thank you, again, for this article and website. God is working through you to save people’s minds and bodies. Like mine.
How He made us, is enough. It’s the gift from Him that we take wherever we go!
“He said to me, “You cannot claim to love me and yet reject my creation”. “
Thank you for sharing, Ashley. As a parent of a daughter struggling with gender dysphoria your words were insightful and encouraging. I believe God is doing a mighty work in you and I prayed and thanked Him for that. You are loved by the Creator and He has good plans in your future. Psalm 27:13-14
wow!!! Thank you Ashley. Somehow I missed your comment last year. I am so thankful for what God has done in your life and how He has shown you that who He created you to be is the truth. Praise God for this revelation. I will be praying for you. Email me if you ever want to talk more.