Riverside, Calif. (Oct. 28, 2015) – "It's a really hard thing to know that God is holy, to know that God is righteous, to know that God is loving, yet to reject him."

Jackie Hill-Perry had this realization when God called her as a teenager. Hill-Perry, a poet, writer and hip-hop artist, spoke to California Baptist University students during chapel Oct. 28 about the temporary pleasures of life compared to the holiness of God and the joys of a relationship with Jesus.

Growing up, Hill-Perry was confused over her gender identity and in high school started one of her first same-sex relationships. However, she felt more and more convicted as time went on, she said.

"I felt God speak to my heart and tell me that the girl I was with would be the death of me. When He said it, it was like, it wasn't just homosexuality," she said. "It was as if everything that I loved and enjoyed would be the death of me. I saw my pride, I saw my lust, I saw my anger, I saw my bitterness."

She had heard of the verse in Romans that talked about "the wages of sin was death" and at that moment, it became reality for her, she said. Hill-Perry began weighing the cost and compared everything that she loved with the consequences.

"I saw that the consequences far outweighed the pleasure that it brought me in the moment," she said. "I saw that an eternity in hell can't really be worth it and life in God is."

She broke off the relationship she was in at the time and moved to Los Angeles to be involved with Passion 4 Christ Movement ministries.  

Everyone will be tempted, Hill-Perry said, but that is not the end of the story.

"I have realized that I have a new identity in Christ as His friend, a saint and I am reconciled to the Father," said Hill-Perry. "I don't have to believe in what my feelings are telling me."

Hill-Perry elaborated on the consequences of living in a fallen world. "We were born into sin, born with an inherent disposition to love and enjoy and do everything that God hates," she said. "We think it makes us happy, and it does for a moment, but then we have to do something else to get that itch."

"But God is so gracious, so intentional, and so loving and so faithful and so holy that he sent Jesus … to live the life that none of us will ever be able to live," she said.

Two years after coming to Christ, Hill-Perry met a man in ministry that would become her husband. When telling that part of her story, Hill-Perry cautioned the students that marriage is not the climax of living a Christian life.

"The aim of this life is not marriage," she said. "The aim is to know God, the aim is to serve and love Jesus."