"The "S--ty Committee" and Other Nonentities

People in AA are exhorted to stop thinking about themselves.

Yet all of that thinking about "not thinking about oneself:" -- makes you think about yourself!

I heard lots of funny little phrases -- "I have to stop the "Sh--ty Committee."

Or, "I have been listening to "K-F-U-C" radio, so I better get to a meeting.

These men and women begin to live a life of running to someone or some place in order to have any peace in their lives. The moment that they have a bad thought, the moment that they struggle with fear and anger, they break out the phone and call a sponsor, sit in a meeting, or break out a pad and paper and make a list of all their fears, resentments, and so on.

Oh, how I used to live this life, convinced that my emotional well-being was out of my control, that I had to maintain a certain life and atmosphere around me so that I would never get upset. If your life is all cut up in not having to take your inventory, the result is that you never really do much, since it is much easier not to do anything than to risk breaking a rule or stepping out, only to have to look over your shoulder, take your inventory, and resolve to do better.

A life of sin-consciousness is not life. We have been made the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5: 21), which means that we are totally accepted in Him. Sin is no longer an issue, since Jesus is (not was, but IS) the propitiation (literally, the Mercy Seat) not just for our sins -- past, present, future -- but the sins of the entire world!

The blood of Jesus keeps on cleansing us from all sin (1 John 1: 7), which includes the terrible thoughts that can crop up in our lives. Rather than trying to wipe away the wickedness that afflicts, let us rest in the faith of the Son of God, our shield which quenches the fiery darts of the devil.

We have been purged from a conscience of dead works (Hebrews 9: 14), and a "dead work" is simply doing something in order to get something from God, for in Christ we receive all things (Romans 8: 31-32).

We do not need to dispense with the bad thoughts which attack us -- they are Satan's last attempt to keep us preoccupied with ourselves instead of resting in Christ, who is preoccupied with living through and serving us.

We have been born again in our Spirit, but we still have a mind that will wander and a body that will die. The more that we identify with the Life that is in us, as opposed to the death and the flesh around us, the more that we are receiving His grace to reign in life (Romans 5: 17)

Christ has done away with our sin and the guilty that comes with it. The devil may instigate his attacks on our mind, but we have the mind of Christ, and we can know and believe that the love of God has made us sons of light to shine in a dark world!