Step Two

Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Human beings are worse than crazy, stupid, or missing the mark -- we are dead in our trespasses!


We do not need to be restored to sanity, or at least exclusively restored to a proper state of mind. No matter how intelligent a human being may be, a man who is spiritually dead has no life, and no eternity to look forward to!

Clear thinking, "sanity", all of this becomes a relative nonentity, relatively unimportant, to the degree that we are still spiritually dead!

We need life and truth, the way made plain before us -- Jesus Christ supplies all three (John 14: 6)

The sanity, the stability that we seek, cannot be found in thinking the right thoughts by themselves:

"For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." (2 Timothy 1: 7)

"Power, love, sound mind"-- that last element, "sound mind" speaks to sanity, to clarity, to the capacity to embrace what is without evasion, denial, or outright falsehood.

Where do we find the standing to receive all three of these gifts? Through righteousness, which we receive as a gift:

"For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ." (Romans 5: 17)

This gift we are called to keep receiving. Young's Literal Translation explains this important subtlety even more forcefully:

"for if by the offence of the one the death did reign through the one, much more those, who the abundance of the grace and of the free gift of the righteousness are receiving, in life shall reign through the one -- Jesus Christ." (Young's Literal Translation)

In fact, we must view our new identity as often as we can in line with the Righteousness of Christ Jesus Himself:

"For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." (2 Corinthians 5: 21)

In Jesus Christ, the believer is restored by the power of the Holy Spirit, who writes God's laws of life and liberty on our hearts and minds (Hebrews 8: 10-12) and grants to us power, love, and a sound mind (2 Timothy 1: 7)

We need more than sanity -- we need a new mind, the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2: 16).