I struggle to begin this blog entry. Though I enjoy writing and feel like I should keep writing, when I set out to do so lately I’m overcome with an awareness of my smallness: the smallness of my life experience, the smallness of my knowledge, the smallness of my  wisdom, the smallness  of my maturity. I don’t say this to prop myself up on a throne of humility, but I say it repentantly, because this often has not been the case. My pride and self-reliance have been exposed (more to myself than anyone) in the midst of the humiliation I’ve experienced the past few months. I don’t mean humiliation in the sense of embarrassment, but in the sense to being brought low….very, very low.

It is no surprise to anyone (unless this is the first of my posts you’ve ever read) that I have struggled to walk faithfully with the Lord. I have chosen sin over obedience time and time again….. for quite a while. Honestly, since I began following Christ I have in a sense kept one of my fists clenched around sin, not ever really fully embracing repentance. There have been sinful things in my life that I just have not been willing to let go of, and inevitably, my heart got more and more calloused and it took more and more sin to satisfy me. The rest is history… you’ve all read the Huffington Post (and other) articles. I said in one of the interviews I did that I would never be back on Grindr again and that I really was repentant…. I proved that to be untrue in days and weeks to come. My rebellion against God continued for nearly 5 or 6 weeks after the Grindr event. I just knew what the “right” thing to say was, so that’s what I said. Continue reading →

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?”- Jeremiah 17:9.

My life over the past few months has been consumed with grappling over the truth that this verse communicates. Am I really that bad? Is my heart really corrupted? I know that sometimes I desire “bad” things. But Jeremiah 17:9, along with Genesis 6:5 and Romans chapter 3 all tell that the state of my natural will, inclinations, and desires are much worse than just imperfect. Pretty much everyone, even most religions, would agree on one thing: we as individuals aren’t perfect. But the majority of people and religions and ideologies would still say that even though we aren’t perfect, we are still mostly good. The Bible crushes that kind of thinking. The Bible is at times brutally communicative of how wicked, foolish and dark man is at his core.

A couple of months ago I was found out to be behaving hypocritically, and was publicly exposed for it—as most of you are aware. Due to the publicity of my actions, my email inbox was flooded with well-meaning messages from a lot of gay people assuring me that there was nothing ungodly or unnatural about my attraction to men. At the time, I automatically rejected what these people were saying and held to the truth of Scripture. But as weeks passed on, doubts about all of this (i.e. God, the Bible, the gospel) started rising to the surface of my thoughts. Continue reading →

This is the last post I’ll be making for awhile. I feel I need to step back from the internet and the public eye for awhile, but I wanted to first make sure that I clarified everything that needed to be clarified. Thank you guys for all your support, your prayers are greatly appreciated.

“Interview:  Matt Moore on Being ‘Outed,’ Same-Sex Attraction, and God’s Grace” http://www.christianpost.com/news/interview-matt-moore-on-being-outed-same-sex-attraction-and-gods-grace-89682/#g8AXhg3RMBr2O0RA.99

I want to address what I’m sure most of you have already seen on the internet: my profile on Grindr. For those of you who don’t know, Grindr is an app designed specifically for gay men. It shows you where the other gay guys (who also have grindr) are around you, listing them in order according to closest proximity. You can send messages, chat, etc. Most users on this app are only looking for sex; I know that because it’s what I used to use it before prior to coming to faith in Christ 3 years ago. I started fooling around on this app again a couple weekends ago. I’ve been in a pretty bad place spiritually for the past few months (really, the last year), and finally something broke in me. Weekend before last (January 26-27), I basically just let go deciding I was going to revert back to my old lifestyle…mostly because I was tired of being depressed. I felt unvalued by people and I felt like all I was doing all the time was repenting and being sad and fearful and doubtful. I remembered my life before Christ, how “free” I felt (although I really wasn’t)…. and I remembered how I could get attention, affection and acceptance from other gay guys. For a period of about 24 hours, I “tried” to just be gay again…. kind of as an escape. I know this sounds crazy, and it is crazy; but it’s really how my mind was working and processing. Although I was talking to guys on Grindr, I didn’t’ go out to the gay bars and I didn’t meet up with any guys for coffee or anything like that (much less sex), but in my heart and mind I had strayed far from God. That Sunday (the 27^th), the Lord graciously opened my eyes to show me the foolishness of what I was going after. I got on the phone with my pastor (who is still in Shreveport. They are moving down next month) and I confessed to him everything that had been going on. He helped me work through some of my thoughts, etc., and just talking about it helped me clear my head. I came to Shreveport a few days later to share my testimony at a conference, and returned to New Orleans on Thursday, the 30^th. On Friday, I downloaded Grindr again.  I put my picture up and left it up this time…… stupidly, yes, but not blindly. I knew the risk of someone seeing me and calling me out, but I was in such a state of mind that I didn’t care. The more messages I kept getting from guys, the stronger the desire got to keep pursuing this. And by this, I mean sin. I was willingly making a choice to pursue sin and disobey God. On Saturday (the 2^nd), I got an email from a guy telling me that he found me on Grindr and to “Be ready, because justice is coming.”  This rattled me a bit, but not to the degree that I was “scared into” getting off of Grindr and repenting. At this point, my goal was to find someone to go out to the gay bars with. It was the superbowl and mardi gras this weekend in NOLA, and I wanted to go out. But I didn’t end up finding anyone to go out with, so I didn’t go out. Then, out of nowhere once again, I was overcome with conviction and guilt. So I talked to my pastor again, confessed, and I deleted the app. He told me to go to church in the morning (a church I’ve been visiting while I’ve been awaiting our entire church planting group to be in New Orleans). When I woke up I immediately got back on Grindr, yet somehow I still ended up in the church parking lot….. where I knew I had to make a decision. I was going to have to renounce Christ and choose sin, or I was going to have to humble myself and repent. I deleted the app (which signified a whole lot more than just deleting an app) and went into Church. My repentance doesn’t change the fact that I’ve sinned, and it doesn’t erase the temporal consequences for my sin—which I am in the midst of right now. I know most of you have read the articles, and if you haven’t, you will…. because they’re still popping up. My disobedience has impacted my life in an irreversible way. This stuff on the internet will now always be on the internet and available for all to see. And I fear the day that the Lord has words with me about how my actions have surely been a stumbling block to many. I take full responsibility for my sin, and I won’t’ attempt to blame it on any circumstance or weakness. With that said, considering what the press is printing about me, I would like to quickly address a couple of things to the gay community. Firstly, never have I ever even remotely insinuated that I am now “heterosexual” or “cured” from same sex desires. I’ve actually clearly communicated exactly the opposite. I have constantly been transparent about my present sinful desires… including the desire for homosexual interaction/behavior/attention. Some of you have come to realize this upon going and reading my blogs, and have emailed me to apologize on behalf of the things that the Huffington Post, Gawker, and other news sites have made me appear to represent. I appreciate your emails and messages, I’m sorry that I haven’t had a chance to respond to them all. I also need to say that I did not meet up with any guys I met on grindr, nor did I send any explicit photos or even remotely converse with anyone in a sexual manner. I’m not saying that I didn’t sin because I didn’t do these things. Regardless of my lack of physical sin, my heart was as sinful as it gets. I just want to be clear about exactly what happened, and what didn’t happen. I was on the app, yes. And I chatted with quite a few guys, yes. But that is it. Lastly, I would like to say to all: Despite my recent hypocritical behavior and disobedience to Christ, I stand firmly in saying that the Word of God, in totality, is true in every matter it addresses: including the sin of homosexual behavior. In all of this, the Word of Christ should not be questioned. It is not at fault, I am. Jesus is a good and loving Savior. He is gracious and forgiving to all of those who repent and ask Him for forgiveness. But sin and Jesus cannot be mingled together. I have sinned, and I believe that Christ has forgiven me because I am repenting….. but if I were to continue on in sin and refuse to repent, it would be evident that I have no part with Christ. I want to be clear as ever that a true Christian cannot embrace a lifestyle of sin—specifically here a lifestyle of homosexuality. I say this so that you all know I’m not changing my theology and disregarding what the Bible clearly says to make room for my sinful desires. Rather, I’m asking God to change my heart. And no, I don’t mean I’m asking him to change my sexual desires. I’m asking Him to change my heart—-so that whatever my desires may be, I choose Him over them. This is all I want to say at this point. I’ll be doing a more extensive interview with the Christian Post this week and will post that once it’s up. To those of you praying for me, please continue to do so. I am still not in a good place and need God to work mightily in my heart and mind. I am taking steps to get help with my depression and other issues which I think have led to my recent instability, I have a meeting with a Christian counselor next week. Pray that God would bless that, and that He’d show me what else I need to do in order to get my mind working right and my heart in full submission to Him. I don’t know that I’ve ever really been happy, or joyful, before… even though I’ve said that I have been. I’ve had spurts of happiness here and there, but it always seems to soon be drowned out by depression, sadness and fear. I’m ready to be happy……..not in sin, but in God.

I used to think that the power of my testimony was in my conversion experience, so over the past few years whenever I have had the opportunity to talk or write about my testimony, I have had a tendency to go back to 2010 and relive the details of how bad I was and how deep in sin I was— in order to demonstrate how shocking it was that I was brought out of all those activities so suddenly. Surely, God did glorify Himself in yanking me out of the depths of my depraved behavior. His power was seen clearly in that experience and I will continue to tell people about that. But, over the past year or so, what I’ve become even more convinced of is that the real power of my testimony lies in the continuation of my faith in Jesus Christ, rather than just the initial profession.

When I came out of the homosexual lifestyle, the reactions of those around me varied, but one thing was pretty certain among most: “Matt’s just going through a phase.” Parts of my family supported me and parts of my family were perplexed by me. Most of my friends ceased communication with me, but the ones that remained in my life I could tell didn’t take what I was saying and doing seriously. I think that overall, everyone wished me well, but at the same time were sure that sooner rather than later I would embrace homosexuality as good and right again…..but maybe be a little more “tame” this time around. By this point, in January of 2013, I’m sure that nearly every one expected me to have “returned to my senses.”

This is why I believe now that the real power of my testimony lies in my continued seeking after Christ and my continued repentance. When I often examine my heart, as Paul urged believers to do, I can only gain so much assurance and comfort from my “conversion experience” back in 2010. Like many of those who doubt the authenticity of my salvation, I could analyze that experience up and down and come up with all sorts of ‘logical’ explanations for my sudden switching gears in behavior:

 ”Maybe I was tired of the craziness of week by week partying and getting trashed? Maybe I was frustrated not being able to find a guy who I could actually see myself being in a committed relationship with? Perhaps I was just ready for a change? After all, I do get bored easily.”

What gives me assurance, and what I believe speaks volumes of the grace of God and the power of the gospel, is that year by year, month by month, week by week, day by day—-I continue to fight the fight of faith. I have sought after Jesus and I have turned from sin daily. Throughout all the ups and downs, the fluctuation of my circumstances and emotions, the frustrations of having to build a completely new life, and the often very real and sometimes overwhelming loneliness of this path I’m on—I stand firm and with my whole, imperfect and sin-tainted heart say, “Jesus Christ is everything.”

Many, many days I have failed to fight perfectly. I have at many times in my walk stooped down and willingly spoon-fed myself the familiar, vile vomit that is sin. Yet, in each and every one of my failures— I was given grace; grace to repent and to keep following after Jesus. The Lord gives me grace each and every day, despite the failures or successes of the day, to believe the truth that Jesus Christ died for my sins and that despite my inablity to offer God anything, He offers me everyhing—He offers me His Son. And in believing this truth, the truth above all truths— I am able to wage war against the hopelessness that fights to consume my heart and destroy my soul. The life-enabling grace given to me because of Jesus Christ, and only because of Jesus Christ, sustains me—to the surprise of many. And even often to the surprise of myself.

The power of my testimony is not limited to my road-to-damascus-like conversion experience, but is really found in my grace-enabled perseverance that points right back to the power, love, patience, faithfulness and goodness of Jesus Christ.

I’ve been aware of pro-gay theology from early on in my walk with The Lord. Almost immediately upon revealing my repentance from my same sex desires, my email inbox was flooded with messages from people presenting to me a ‘new’ interpretation of the Scriptures that did not forbid or condemn homosexual behavior within the context of a monogamous relationship.