I was operating from the wrong premise for so so so long.
Jesus died on the Cross and gave me His Life, and I can reign in this life because of His Life.
No one, not one person, ever told me that.
The crux of the matter is life, not doing good or bad.
The Cross is the matter which grants me life, His life, and through me Christ does better than good, and helps me and all who trust in Him to overcome the bad.
I still remember that funny pastor from West Virginia, when he shared about the wonderful revelation about life, not good and evil, as the full purpose of Jesus living for us, dying for us, and serving us forevermore at the right hand of God the Father.
As long as I held onto the idea that Jesus was doing His part, but I had to do my part, then He could not do His part through me.
He is everything for us:
"I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing." (John 15: 5)
A wrong conception of God makes it all too easy to make wrong decisions and take wrong actions.
Even when I look back on all the years that I spent operating under a wrong view of Himself, as though He was not there, taking care of me, I now realize that He was taking are of me.
This revelation brings the "Footprints" Poster into greater focus for me.
He carries us all the time, though, not just when times are tough. Oftentimes, I believe that as we allow the Holy Spirit to change how we see Him and ourselves, our attitude changes, our understanding of how great He is grows, and we find that instead of distrust, we grow in greater trust of Him who has been from the beginning.
The true premise, the righteous starting point, is not going from bad to good, but going from death to life. How do we pass from death to life? With the Twelve Steps?
"We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death." (John 13: 34)
Now, do not read this passage, and then assume that you need to love your brethren in order to pass from death to life. Just meditating on that idea should dispute it right away. If you are dead, you need life, so that you can do anything, including love others.
Let us look in the beginning of Chapter 3:
"1Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. 2Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. 3And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." (1 John 3: 1-3)
We are made sons of God by adoption through His Holy Spirit (Romans 8: 15).
We are not reborn by acknowledging that we are sinners, or declare ourselves powerless over alcohol. We are reborn by the blood of Jesus, shed at the Cross, which sent His Holy Spirit to live in us forever.
As long as I was holding to a cult, as long as I was trying to work by hollow precepts, then I could never believe, then I could never race, and I could never see Him as He is, for as long as I do not see myself in Christ, the proper identity for every believer, we will struggle as we act out of a false identity. Wrong conception, wrong results.
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