Saturday, October 27, 2012
For the Believer, there is no Inventory to Take!
"For this is
the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith
the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts:
and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
"And they shall not
teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord:
for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. "For I will be
merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I
remember no more." (Hebrews 8: 10-12) This is the New Covenant for every believer in the Body of Christ. We do not sit and itemize our sins from day to day. We are not called to look at ourselves or depend on ourselves anymore. Paul explains this in the Book of Colossians: "If ye be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on
the right hand of God. 2Set your affection
on things above, not on things on the earth. 3For ye are dead,
and your life is hid with Christ in God. 4When Christ, who
is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory." (Colossians 3: 1-4) He is our new life, Jesus Christ! He is actively working on our behalf. The New Covenant is based on everything that Jesus Christ has done for us. Our job -- and it's so easy that it's hard for the man who wants to be complicated: Believe! "Jesus answered and said
unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent." (John6: 29) It is appalling how little this has been preached! But because Jesus Christ is right now the propitiation for all of our sins (1 John 2: 1-2), we can rest assured that in Christ we are forever righteous (Daniel 9: 24; 2 Corinthians 5: 21) So, all of our sins are forever forgiven. As far as God is concerned, we are no longer that person in our fleshly, fallen body! "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto
God through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6: 11) When a sense of resentment, of fear, of anger, of any hostile emotion rises up within us, we must rest in our new righteousness standing before God, no longer identifying with hostile feelings of the flesh: "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery,
fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, 20Idolatry,
witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
21Envyings, murders,
drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I
have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not
inherit the kingdom of God." (Galatians 5: 19-21) We do not have to feel ashamed of our old Adam nature, for it has been crucified with Christ: "20I am crucified
with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the
life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who
loved me, and gave himself for me. 21I do not frustrate
the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is
dead in vain." (Galatians 2: 20-21) For the believer in Jesus Christ, we do not take our inventories over and over, every day. We do not seek forgiveness because Jesus Christ has already forgiven all of our sins: "And you, being
dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened
together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses" (Colossians 2: 13) "All" means "all"! Don't believe it? Here's another account: "But if we walk in the
light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood
of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." (1 John 1: 7) "All sin"-- did you read that? and "If we confess our sins,
he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from
all unrighteousness." (1 John 1: 9) "All unrighteousness" - this passage in itself, and coupled with the context of the entire first chapter of John, outlines clearly that we do not keep confessing our sins, for the blood cleanses us from all unrighteousness! We do not confess our sins over and over, because he has forgiven us our sins and all unrighteousness. Not just the unrighteousness from your past, not just the unrighteousness of your present, but of your entire life! In effect, believers do not have an "inventory to take" because Jesus Christ has taken stock of our sin problem and effectively dealt with it entirely at the Cross. That is why we can boldly proclaim: "I am the righteousness of God in Christ!" (2 Corinthians 5: 21) He only asks that we keep receiving the gift of righteousness and grace: "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) The Devil wants us to focus on ourselves, our sins, and our circumstances. God wants us to bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, who is our propitiation and our righteousness, ever-reminding us through His Holy Spirit that we have righteousness forever! (John 16: 8-11) For the believer, there is no inventory to take, for Christ has taken every bad stock in our lives, forever!
Monday, October 22, 2012
Third Step Nonsense
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
The third step made no sense to me at all.
How do I turn my will and life over to God? Does that mean that I sit down and wait for God to tell me what to do?
Do I wait for the sponsor or the leader of the meeting explain to me? The moment that I was told that I was wrong on many issues, that I would be best served by turning my will and life over to someone who could take care of things, I assumed that all would be well.
That has simply not been the case.
God wants to put His laws in our hearts and minds (Hebrews 8: 10-12)
He works within us both to will and to do for His good pleasure (Philippians 2: 12-13)
He has even fashioned us with the works that He wants us to do (Ephesians 2: 10)
AA gives the terrible, tyrannical impression that we need to turn our will and our live over to another person, the sponsor, and the group. The nutty ideas which proceed out of these meetings is just dizzying in their complex stupidity. Some people think of the Ocean as their "Higher Power", while others have little "My Little Pony" statues in their home. People in the throes of alcohol addiction will go to any lengths to break free of alcohol, even if it means turning themselves over to dead stones and empty idols.
The whole program takes people at their weakest and invests them with dependence, only to deprive them with the skills to break free of their shame and fear and frustration. Shame on AA!
I do not need a God that I understand -- I need a God who gives me beyond what I ask or think! (Ephesians 3: 20). Anything less is just not worth settling for.
The third step made no sense to me at all.
How do I turn my will and life over to God? Does that mean that I sit down and wait for God to tell me what to do?
Do I wait for the sponsor or the leader of the meeting explain to me? The moment that I was told that I was wrong on many issues, that I would be best served by turning my will and life over to someone who could take care of things, I assumed that all would be well.
That has simply not been the case.
God wants to put His laws in our hearts and minds (Hebrews 8: 10-12)
He works within us both to will and to do for His good pleasure (Philippians 2: 12-13)
He has even fashioned us with the works that He wants us to do (Ephesians 2: 10)
AA gives the terrible, tyrannical impression that we need to turn our will and our live over to another person, the sponsor, and the group. The nutty ideas which proceed out of these meetings is just dizzying in their complex stupidity. Some people think of the Ocean as their "Higher Power", while others have little "My Little Pony" statues in their home. People in the throes of alcohol addiction will go to any lengths to break free of alcohol, even if it means turning themselves over to dead stones and empty idols.
The whole program takes people at their weakest and invests them with dependence, only to deprive them with the skills to break free of their shame and fear and frustration. Shame on AA!
I do not need a God that I understand -- I need a God who gives me beyond what I ask or think! (Ephesians 3: 20). Anything less is just not worth settling for.
How Loving is AA's Loving God?
We, in our turn, sought the same escape with all the desperation of drowning men. What seemed at first a flimsy reed, has proved to be the loving and powerful hand of God. A new life has been given us or, if you prefer, "a design for living "that really works. (AA, pg 28)
This is a lie, pure and simple. I would not care all that much, except for the damage which this lying program, masquerading as the truth, can do to people who are sincere and well-meaning, only to be end with a conscience seared with the hot iron of sin, never finding peace and respite, perpetually trying to purge themselves of all sin.
A design for living for a dead man is a design that will resign itself to doing nothing.
We do not need a plan for living, we need LIFE and that more abundantly, and that life is found in Jesus Christ!
"The loving and powerful hand of God" means nothing when God is just some idea that you come with on your own. If I am head-deep in trouble, I cannot think of God in any way based on my own circumstances to break me free.
Paul did not claim to have figured out the Gospel, at all, and he was the most well-read of Pharisees:
"But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man.
"For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ." (Galatians 1: 11-12)
In other words, man cannot conceive of this Gospel, one in which God sends His Son in the form of fallen man to die for our sins, to be raised from the dead, to sit at the right hand of the Father and extend to us His Holy Spirit as a gift of His loving and blessing presence forever in our lives!
This Good News must be believed and received as a matter of truth, just like we breathe whether we want to our not. If we choose not to breathe, we die. If we choose not to believe, we die eternally.
The loving hand of God means nothing without a clear proof this love. The Bible outlines in two ways how God has loved us:
"Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John 4: 10)
and then
"Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world." (1 John 4: 17)
Choose life, Choose Him, for God is Love (1 John 4: 16) and forget about Bill W.!
This is a lie, pure and simple. I would not care all that much, except for the damage which this lying program, masquerading as the truth, can do to people who are sincere and well-meaning, only to be end with a conscience seared with the hot iron of sin, never finding peace and respite, perpetually trying to purge themselves of all sin.
A design for living for a dead man is a design that will resign itself to doing nothing.
We do not need a plan for living, we need LIFE and that more abundantly, and that life is found in Jesus Christ!
"The loving and powerful hand of God" means nothing when God is just some idea that you come with on your own. If I am head-deep in trouble, I cannot think of God in any way based on my own circumstances to break me free.
Paul did not claim to have figured out the Gospel, at all, and he was the most well-read of Pharisees:
"But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man.
"For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ." (Galatians 1: 11-12)
In other words, man cannot conceive of this Gospel, one in which God sends His Son in the form of fallen man to die for our sins, to be raised from the dead, to sit at the right hand of the Father and extend to us His Holy Spirit as a gift of His loving and blessing presence forever in our lives!
This Good News must be believed and received as a matter of truth, just like we breathe whether we want to our not. If we choose not to breathe, we die. If we choose not to believe, we die eternally.
The loving hand of God means nothing without a clear proof this love. The Bible outlines in two ways how God has loved us:
"Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John 4: 10)
and then
"Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world." (1 John 4: 17)
Choose life, Choose Him, for God is Love (1 John 4: 16) and forget about Bill W.!
Resentment, Fear, Guilt, Self-Seeking: Answered in Christ
The answer is so simple, too simple for some, I suppose!
The goal of this life is not to drink, nor is the goal of life to stay sober.
Life is not a goal, but a person, and that person is Jesus Christ.
The problem for the world, and even many believers in the Body of Christ, is that they do not see Jesus as more than the Way to Heaven.
But he is also the Way on Earth, for why else would he declare
"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." (John 14: 6)
He is the Life that we need to get through this world. He is our Mercy Seat, the propitiation now and forever for all of our sins. In Christ, we have an eternal credit card of grace, one which transforms us from dead in our trespasses to alive and led by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Life is not Twelve Steps, not a set of steps and traditions, nor attendance in abortive meetings where people smoke and drink caffeine to their hearts' detriment, where men and women listen to the same sob stories of men and women who no longer drink but still hope that there is more to life than being sober and sitting around to tell people the daily drag troubles that they still must overcome in their own flustered efforts.
The last meeting that I went to -- the first day of 2011 -- 01--01--2011 -- I saw the same faces with the same traces of "barely getting by", the same social club with men and women jumping up to claim a birthday or two, still holding on to the notion that "we are not a glum lot." Two people whom I had met years earlier, a Christian couple, were going through more trouble. The husband had relapsed a number of times. He has shared how upsetting he made other members of the AA meetings when he share his faith in Jesus Christ. He stopped going to meetings, then he started drinking again. I believe that the reason he started drinking was that he did not know that in Christ he is a new creation, and therefore he does not identify with his fallen body or the physical desire to drink. When we are established in righteousness, then no weapon formed against us can prosper, including addictions and bad habits which war against our peace.
Resentment, fear, and guilt are all answered in the Cross. Jesus provided an eternal source for our pain, our misery, our shame, for the hardships of this life, where we can now revel in His grace, which abounds even when we sin, and especially when others sin against us. This is the release and the relief which men relish yet cannot find, and AA not only does not bring them any closer to finding this Life, but actually takes people away from the truth with distractions and distortions. Churches which insist on incorporating the Twelve Step program in its services invite a sickened hybrid form of Galatianism, where men and women start in faith but end up in bondage once again to the law.
The answer to our problems, all of them, is in Christ, for He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and He is close as believing in your heart and confessing out your mouth that He is Lord!
The goal of this life is not to drink, nor is the goal of life to stay sober.
Life is not a goal, but a person, and that person is Jesus Christ.
The problem for the world, and even many believers in the Body of Christ, is that they do not see Jesus as more than the Way to Heaven.
But he is also the Way on Earth, for why else would he declare
"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." (John 14: 6)
He is the Life that we need to get through this world. He is our Mercy Seat, the propitiation now and forever for all of our sins. In Christ, we have an eternal credit card of grace, one which transforms us from dead in our trespasses to alive and led by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Life is not Twelve Steps, not a set of steps and traditions, nor attendance in abortive meetings where people smoke and drink caffeine to their hearts' detriment, where men and women listen to the same sob stories of men and women who no longer drink but still hope that there is more to life than being sober and sitting around to tell people the daily drag troubles that they still must overcome in their own flustered efforts.
The last meeting that I went to -- the first day of 2011 -- 01--01--2011 -- I saw the same faces with the same traces of "barely getting by", the same social club with men and women jumping up to claim a birthday or two, still holding on to the notion that "we are not a glum lot." Two people whom I had met years earlier, a Christian couple, were going through more trouble. The husband had relapsed a number of times. He has shared how upsetting he made other members of the AA meetings when he share his faith in Jesus Christ. He stopped going to meetings, then he started drinking again. I believe that the reason he started drinking was that he did not know that in Christ he is a new creation, and therefore he does not identify with his fallen body or the physical desire to drink. When we are established in righteousness, then no weapon formed against us can prosper, including addictions and bad habits which war against our peace.
Resentment, fear, and guilt are all answered in the Cross. Jesus provided an eternal source for our pain, our misery, our shame, for the hardships of this life, where we can now revel in His grace, which abounds even when we sin, and especially when others sin against us. This is the release and the relief which men relish yet cannot find, and AA not only does not bring them any closer to finding this Life, but actually takes people away from the truth with distractions and distortions. Churches which insist on incorporating the Twelve Step program in its services invite a sickened hybrid form of Galatianism, where men and women start in faith but end up in bondage once again to the law.
The answer to our problems, all of them, is in Christ, for He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and He is close as believing in your heart and confessing out your mouth that He is Lord!
The Truth vs. The Tradition -- Christ vs. AA
Often, I have looked over the hardships in my life, trying to understand why I struggled in certain ways, could not stand up to creating problems, or often walked around with a sense of guilt, sin, and worthlessness.
I believed that Jesus Christ died for my sins, but I did not believe that Jesus Christ died for all of my sins -- past, present, future. I also believed that I was on my own in this world, as if Jesus Christ had died for me, then went off and I was left alone to get by in this world.
The biggest reason why I had such a mixed message -- I grew up in a household where AA was preached morning, noon, and night. I grew up in a home where the answer was in the Twelve Steps, as though the Gospel of Jesus Christ was somehow not enough!
This mindset stuck with me for a long time, but this all too common a problem for believers, many who have not bothered to sit down and take in what the Bible says, without adding from the tradition of the elders or the habits of their former denominations.
Jesus gave us Holy Spirit, His very presence in our lives, who by His peace leads us into all knowledge and understanding. Unlike the crowing of members in AA, believers do not need a little Blue Book to tell them how to live from day to day.
Unfortunately, though, I was raised to believe that I should sit and wait for God to send me a deliberate message, or that I needed to wait for someone outside of me to give me signals on how to live.
The Holy Spirit grants us life! This all too neglected Third Person of the Trinity brings Christ Jesus to live in us, the Hope of Glory (Colossians 1: 27) The same Holy Spirit convicts us of righteousness, a necessary witness as we live in a world hell-bent and hellish on reminding us how often we fail, how often we miss the mark, how much we need more than what we already have in us through Christ Jesus.
This lack, this alienation, this emptiness leads men and women to drink, use drugs, and engage in other perversions. Men and women seek freedom from the death and condemnation within them. They want have peace, freedom from the fear of death. The loneliness, the emptiness, the weariness and boredom which afflicts man is a manifestation of human nature trying to get what can only be received by faith -- Life and that More Abundantly!
So, I had received a mixed message and an incomplete Gospel. Jesus died for my sins, yes indeed. Yet the way that my parents had raised me, that did not matter one bit. I was raised to believe that I was on my own in this world, and growing up I found myself constantly looking for something or someone that I could stand on, since I was taught that the same Jesus who had died for me was not doing anything else for me.
No wonder my mother was so attached to AA. She had gone along with the same religious upbringing which tells people that Jesus died for your sins, but you still have to confess your sins to maintain fellowship with God. The whole blessings of God still depend our obeying Him.
Yet the New Covenant has been outlined so clearly:
"For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
"And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.
"For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." (Hebrews 8: 10-12)
The New Covenant has nothing to do with us.
Even in the Old Testament, Abraham's Covenant had nothing to do with what he did:
"And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.
"And he said unto him, I am the LORD that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it." (Genesis 15: 6)
Later, God cut the covenant with Jesus, not with Abraham, because he was mere mortal and could not keep the standard of righteousness by faith in his effort:
"And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces." (Genesis 15: 17)
Interestingly enough, "17" speaks of victory, and fittingly this seventeenth verse outlines the "smoking furnace and the burning lamp" -- the same smoking and fire that Isaiah saw just before his sins were purged by coal fire (Isaiah 6).
Despite the Biblical record which outlines that our only "part" is to believe -- just as Abraham believed, just as Jesus tells us to believe on Him (John 6: 29), I was living a life of trying to please and trying to get God's approval and favor in my life.
Even as a child, the program of AA and Jesus did not make much sense to me. If my sins are forgiven because Jesus died on the Cross, then why did I have to confess my sins in order to be forgiven? Holiness is something that I cannot earn, only something that I can receive by faith. A "god of my understanding" makes no sense. At one point in my life, I had the courage to tell my own mother that I did not believe in that "AA stuff."
But since I was not thoroughly skilled in righteousness, I faced trouble and was then convinced that I had to do something about it. When times got tough at one point in my life, my mother trotted out AA as the answer, and so I agreed to go along with it. For a long time, I did not know what else to do when I was filled with fear or upset or any other resentment because I had been taught for so long to "take my inventory." For a long time, I never understood why so many people around me were not as easily offended as I was, why they could make mistakes and not brow-beat themselves about their problems. I was so uptight, yet everyone else was not. It made no sense to me, for a long time.
Now I look back on so many upsets and mishaps in my life, and the one common denominator comes through: I did not believe, simply believe that all of my sins -- all, all, all -- were forgiven at the Cross. The reason why people were able to "mess" with me for so long, whether intentionally or not, is that I did not have peace with God. Instead, I made my peace a factor of who I was with and what they said or did to me or around me. What a terrible way to live, trying to get love, joy and peace, when the Holy Spirit brings and bears forth these fruits as a matter of faith.
The Truth is so simple and so great. Jesus died for all of my sins, all of them, and His blood continues cleansing us! My mother did not believe this, and she even pushed it aside, choosing to trust what she had learned in AA. The nightmare of taking your inventory over and over, the nightmare of trying to catch yourself to make sure that you never have a bad thought or do something wrong, the whole religious nonsense of trying to "keep short accounts" with others is just pure insanity, if not arrogance.
By Christ's death and resurrection, I am made clean and ready to receive His Life. Jesus Christ did not die on the Cross so that we would spend the rest of our lives going through the motions of confessing our sins and trying to maintain through our own efforts what God so freely gives, and only by receiving what He so freely gives by faith do we receive it!
The Truth is older than every tradition of man, since Jesus was in the Beginning with God (John 1: 1-2). The Gospel is as simple as every sin paid for in Christ, forever! We can then rest in His life and love, no longer responding to shame about the past or fears about the future, for in Christ we have a new life, a new self free of oneself trying to do and to get, for in Christ everything is granted to us (1 Corinthians 3: 22)
I believed that Jesus Christ died for my sins, but I did not believe that Jesus Christ died for all of my sins -- past, present, future. I also believed that I was on my own in this world, as if Jesus Christ had died for me, then went off and I was left alone to get by in this world.
The biggest reason why I had such a mixed message -- I grew up in a household where AA was preached morning, noon, and night. I grew up in a home where the answer was in the Twelve Steps, as though the Gospel of Jesus Christ was somehow not enough!
This mindset stuck with me for a long time, but this all too common a problem for believers, many who have not bothered to sit down and take in what the Bible says, without adding from the tradition of the elders or the habits of their former denominations.
Jesus gave us Holy Spirit, His very presence in our lives, who by His peace leads us into all knowledge and understanding. Unlike the crowing of members in AA, believers do not need a little Blue Book to tell them how to live from day to day.
Unfortunately, though, I was raised to believe that I should sit and wait for God to send me a deliberate message, or that I needed to wait for someone outside of me to give me signals on how to live.
The Holy Spirit grants us life! This all too neglected Third Person of the Trinity brings Christ Jesus to live in us, the Hope of Glory (Colossians 1: 27) The same Holy Spirit convicts us of righteousness, a necessary witness as we live in a world hell-bent and hellish on reminding us how often we fail, how often we miss the mark, how much we need more than what we already have in us through Christ Jesus.
This lack, this alienation, this emptiness leads men and women to drink, use drugs, and engage in other perversions. Men and women seek freedom from the death and condemnation within them. They want have peace, freedom from the fear of death. The loneliness, the emptiness, the weariness and boredom which afflicts man is a manifestation of human nature trying to get what can only be received by faith -- Life and that More Abundantly!
So, I had received a mixed message and an incomplete Gospel. Jesus died for my sins, yes indeed. Yet the way that my parents had raised me, that did not matter one bit. I was raised to believe that I was on my own in this world, and growing up I found myself constantly looking for something or someone that I could stand on, since I was taught that the same Jesus who had died for me was not doing anything else for me.
No wonder my mother was so attached to AA. She had gone along with the same religious upbringing which tells people that Jesus died for your sins, but you still have to confess your sins to maintain fellowship with God. The whole blessings of God still depend our obeying Him.
Yet the New Covenant has been outlined so clearly:
"For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
"And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.
"For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." (Hebrews 8: 10-12)
The New Covenant has nothing to do with us.
Even in the Old Testament, Abraham's Covenant had nothing to do with what he did:
"And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.
"And he said unto him, I am the LORD that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it." (Genesis 15: 6)
Later, God cut the covenant with Jesus, not with Abraham, because he was mere mortal and could not keep the standard of righteousness by faith in his effort:
"And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces." (Genesis 15: 17)
Interestingly enough, "17" speaks of victory, and fittingly this seventeenth verse outlines the "smoking furnace and the burning lamp" -- the same smoking and fire that Isaiah saw just before his sins were purged by coal fire (Isaiah 6).
Despite the Biblical record which outlines that our only "part" is to believe -- just as Abraham believed, just as Jesus tells us to believe on Him (John 6: 29), I was living a life of trying to please and trying to get God's approval and favor in my life.
Even as a child, the program of AA and Jesus did not make much sense to me. If my sins are forgiven because Jesus died on the Cross, then why did I have to confess my sins in order to be forgiven? Holiness is something that I cannot earn, only something that I can receive by faith. A "god of my understanding" makes no sense. At one point in my life, I had the courage to tell my own mother that I did not believe in that "AA stuff."
But since I was not thoroughly skilled in righteousness, I faced trouble and was then convinced that I had to do something about it. When times got tough at one point in my life, my mother trotted out AA as the answer, and so I agreed to go along with it. For a long time, I did not know what else to do when I was filled with fear or upset or any other resentment because I had been taught for so long to "take my inventory." For a long time, I never understood why so many people around me were not as easily offended as I was, why they could make mistakes and not brow-beat themselves about their problems. I was so uptight, yet everyone else was not. It made no sense to me, for a long time.
Now I look back on so many upsets and mishaps in my life, and the one common denominator comes through: I did not believe, simply believe that all of my sins -- all, all, all -- were forgiven at the Cross. The reason why people were able to "mess" with me for so long, whether intentionally or not, is that I did not have peace with God. Instead, I made my peace a factor of who I was with and what they said or did to me or around me. What a terrible way to live, trying to get love, joy and peace, when the Holy Spirit brings and bears forth these fruits as a matter of faith.
The Truth is so simple and so great. Jesus died for all of my sins, all of them, and His blood continues cleansing us! My mother did not believe this, and she even pushed it aside, choosing to trust what she had learned in AA. The nightmare of taking your inventory over and over, the nightmare of trying to catch yourself to make sure that you never have a bad thought or do something wrong, the whole religious nonsense of trying to "keep short accounts" with others is just pure insanity, if not arrogance.
By Christ's death and resurrection, I am made clean and ready to receive His Life. Jesus Christ did not die on the Cross so that we would spend the rest of our lives going through the motions of confessing our sins and trying to maintain through our own efforts what God so freely gives, and only by receiving what He so freely gives by faith do we receive it!
The Truth is older than every tradition of man, since Jesus was in the Beginning with God (John 1: 1-2). The Gospel is as simple as every sin paid for in Christ, forever! We can then rest in His life and love, no longer responding to shame about the past or fears about the future, for in Christ we have a new life, a new self free of oneself trying to do and to get, for in Christ everything is granted to us (1 Corinthians 3: 22)
Friday, October 19, 2012
Freedom from the Bondage of Self -- In Christ!
This revelation is just too much for me not to talk about again and again and again!
Yes, AA is correct, in that we need to be freed from the bondage of self.
Every one program of "self-help" advocates this. "We" are our biggest problem.
But then we run smack-dab against the "Buckaroo Bonzai" syndrome:
"'Cause, remember: no matter where you go... there you are."
We simply cannot escape from ourselves. We are dead in our trespasses, and therefore, we need someone who comes to us and grants us His life! We need someone to move on our behalf, not us to move for ourselves!
I am not surprised that there has been an explosion of "Self" studies and self-awareness, but this obsession with ourselves makes us bereft and broken, just like our first parents Adam and Eve, because a sin-consciousness -- from the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil -- made them focus on themselves, then try to cover themselves. That is what the Law, this knowledge of Good and Evil, will eventually do!
We are now free from that Old Covenant of Law and Self-Occupation. In Christ, we receive Pardon for all our transgressions, plus covering for everything we will commit in the future, and He gives us the Life that we need. Do not put God in a box, though, concluding that He only moves in the Church service, but that your are on your own at the workplace, or in the supermarket. He is already there moving on your behalf.
What I am now learning is that it is not my job to "make him be there" by how I think or what I do. He is already there, and He is already helping me. Wow, it is amazing how self-absorbed we can be, even when we think about God!
He is your Life, He is the Self that we need. Yet He not only lives in us, but He has everything prepared for us in advance:
"3For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world." (Hebrews 4: 3)
The problem for us, as for many people in the Body of Christ and in the Celebrate Recovery Programs -- we feel that God is, but not that God saves. We do not believe that He is moving in our lives, or we believe that He moves in our lives if we do or say or believe or think a certain way.
Yet what does the New Covenant say:
"For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
"And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.
"For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." (Hebrews 8: 10-12)
Notice how this covenant has nothing to do with us! We do not do it, we believe it and receive it.
Now, the tripping point for many people still goes back to self. "But what am I supposed to do?"
We still have too narrow an understanding of God and His Son and His Holy Spirit, who are always with us! If God gave us His own Son, do we not believe that He will provide all things with Him? The same Jesus who holds the universe together, do we not rest and believe that He is working all things together for our good?
Like many people, I had too static an understanding of Jesus Christ -- as if He was somewhere far away not interested in my life. Yes, He died for my sins, yes He has prepared a place for me in heaven when I die, but then I would turn back to the three dimensions of this world, convinced that everything else depended on me.
Yet Paul blasts such selfish arrogance, weak and beggarly in its entirety:
"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
"I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain." (Galatians 2: 20-21)
and
"But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.
"Therefore whether it were I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed." (1 Corinthians 15: 10-11)
Yet still we are often nagged with the idea of "What am I supposed to do?" Let's pick up on this issue specifically in the Bible:
"Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?
"Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent." (John 6: 28-29)
Now, to believe seems simple enough - the problem lies, then, in do you know Him as He whom God the Father hath sent to deliver you? Do you see Jesus Christ as hanging on a Cross still? Do you see Him only as a king far away telling you what to do? Do you see Him only as a servant who moves when you tell Him to? Do you see Him as God Almighty and Eternal, yet moving in your life also as King, as Servant, and as Son of Man?
For example, I am now starting to realize that just as God was moving in the lives of Joseph's brothers and himself, even though they meant evil by betraying him into slavery, so God is now moving in your life, taking your past, having forgiven you for all your sins, and now taking those sins and make them into something glorious here and now today!
I am growing in grace when I realize that Jesus did not just die for my sins, but he took the penalty and the record -- and He restores to me double! This is what it means to walk in the Truth, seeing all that Jesus has done and keeps doing on our behalf!
AA cannot provide this because AA says that we choose "God as we understood Him" - a God who would send His own Son to die for us, to justify us and live evermore to give us His Life -- this is something that goes beyond what we can ask or think! This must be accepted as a matter of revelation, or we will not believe it at all! No man could think this stuff up, because man in himself is dour and depressed and down-trodden, or takes pride in himself, not Himself!
Jesus Christ is our life, our self, yet that does not mean we think about Him, but then worry about the details. What we do "need" to do is learn more about whom we believe on!
In Christ, though, we do not have to wonder like Dr. Emilio Lizardo and his cronies:
"When are we going home? Real soon!"
In Christ, you are already home! He is your life and your everything! We are freed from the bondage of self not just in living, but in all things being provided for us through Him!
Yes, AA is correct, in that we need to be freed from the bondage of self.
Every one program of "self-help" advocates this. "We" are our biggest problem.
But then we run smack-dab against the "Buckaroo Bonzai" syndrome:
"'Cause, remember: no matter where you go... there you are."
We simply cannot escape from ourselves. We are dead in our trespasses, and therefore, we need someone who comes to us and grants us His life! We need someone to move on our behalf, not us to move for ourselves!
I am not surprised that there has been an explosion of "Self" studies and self-awareness, but this obsession with ourselves makes us bereft and broken, just like our first parents Adam and Eve, because a sin-consciousness -- from the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil -- made them focus on themselves, then try to cover themselves. That is what the Law, this knowledge of Good and Evil, will eventually do!
We are now free from that Old Covenant of Law and Self-Occupation. In Christ, we receive Pardon for all our transgressions, plus covering for everything we will commit in the future, and He gives us the Life that we need. Do not put God in a box, though, concluding that He only moves in the Church service, but that your are on your own at the workplace, or in the supermarket. He is already there moving on your behalf.
What I am now learning is that it is not my job to "make him be there" by how I think or what I do. He is already there, and He is already helping me. Wow, it is amazing how self-absorbed we can be, even when we think about God!
He is your Life, He is the Self that we need. Yet He not only lives in us, but He has everything prepared for us in advance:
"3For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world." (Hebrews 4: 3)
The problem for us, as for many people in the Body of Christ and in the Celebrate Recovery Programs -- we feel that God is, but not that God saves. We do not believe that He is moving in our lives, or we believe that He moves in our lives if we do or say or believe or think a certain way.
Yet what does the New Covenant say:
"For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
"And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.
"For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." (Hebrews 8: 10-12)
Notice how this covenant has nothing to do with us! We do not do it, we believe it and receive it.
Now, the tripping point for many people still goes back to self. "But what am I supposed to do?"
We still have too narrow an understanding of God and His Son and His Holy Spirit, who are always with us! If God gave us His own Son, do we not believe that He will provide all things with Him? The same Jesus who holds the universe together, do we not rest and believe that He is working all things together for our good?
Like many people, I had too static an understanding of Jesus Christ -- as if He was somewhere far away not interested in my life. Yes, He died for my sins, yes He has prepared a place for me in heaven when I die, but then I would turn back to the three dimensions of this world, convinced that everything else depended on me.
Yet Paul blasts such selfish arrogance, weak and beggarly in its entirety:
"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
"I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain." (Galatians 2: 20-21)
and
"But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.
"Therefore whether it were I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed." (1 Corinthians 15: 10-11)
Yet still we are often nagged with the idea of "What am I supposed to do?" Let's pick up on this issue specifically in the Bible:
"Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?
"Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent." (John 6: 28-29)
Now, to believe seems simple enough - the problem lies, then, in do you know Him as He whom God the Father hath sent to deliver you? Do you see Jesus Christ as hanging on a Cross still? Do you see Him only as a king far away telling you what to do? Do you see Him only as a servant who moves when you tell Him to? Do you see Him as God Almighty and Eternal, yet moving in your life also as King, as Servant, and as Son of Man?
For example, I am now starting to realize that just as God was moving in the lives of Joseph's brothers and himself, even though they meant evil by betraying him into slavery, so God is now moving in your life, taking your past, having forgiven you for all your sins, and now taking those sins and make them into something glorious here and now today!
I am growing in grace when I realize that Jesus did not just die for my sins, but he took the penalty and the record -- and He restores to me double! This is what it means to walk in the Truth, seeing all that Jesus has done and keeps doing on our behalf!
AA cannot provide this because AA says that we choose "God as we understood Him" - a God who would send His own Son to die for us, to justify us and live evermore to give us His Life -- this is something that goes beyond what we can ask or think! This must be accepted as a matter of revelation, or we will not believe it at all! No man could think this stuff up, because man in himself is dour and depressed and down-trodden, or takes pride in himself, not Himself!
Jesus Christ is our life, our self, yet that does not mean we think about Him, but then worry about the details. What we do "need" to do is learn more about whom we believe on!
In Christ, though, we do not have to wonder like Dr. Emilio Lizardo and his cronies:
"When are we going home? Real soon!"
In Christ, you are already home! He is your life and your everything! We are freed from the bondage of self not just in living, but in all things being provided for us through Him!
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Resentment: That We Have to Do Everything
I think that I am starting to get the information that I have longed for yet have not been able to find about conflicts, confrontation, and assertiveness which so many people seem to lack.
AA teaches its members that they have to be free from anger.
The Bible teaches something different about anger:
"Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath" (Ephesians 4: 26)
There is a time and place for getting angry, for facing up to provocation or perversion in our lives.
But for people in AA, what I experienced and what I saw, people were getting angry all the time, and the Steps did not work.
The Twelve Steps do not outline the peace and the righteousness that people really need to succeed or grow in our lives. They do not give people the Truth on which to stand, which gives man the power to know the different between good and evil.
In fact, the writer in the Book of Hebrews teaches us that we need to skilled in righteousness, that before God we are forever justified, and then we can rightly discern good and evil.
Yet another element needs discussion -- that we are not alone in this world, nor do we have to wonder whether God is on our side or not.
This righteousness has nothing to do with how we feel, but everything to do with what He has done for us at the Cross:
"For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
"And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.
"For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.
People who do not rest in a sense of righteousness, who are not receiving the unmerited favor of God no matter how they feel or what they think, find themselves looking at themselves too much of the time. And all of that self-focus makes us sensitive, makes us easily hurt, as well.
I cannot share this revelation enough. For the longest time, I have been convinced that my joy, my peace, my well-being had to do with me, my thoughts, and everything that I said and did.
In truth, it has everything to do with Himself and His Kingdom:
"For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." (Romans 14: 17)
The righteousness is a gift (Romans 5: 17), the Peace is a Person (Ephesians 2: 14), and joy is a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 2: 22). These things we receive by grace through faith.
It is amazing to me how little I knew about my standing before God, or worse I did not care, as if my identity in Christ meant nothing. Yet the greater our knowledge of God and His Son and all that He is doing for us, the greater the Life that we receive from Him!
Resentment comes down to the false belief, in many cases, that how I feel makes or breaks what I take from God the Father. In truth, there is nothing that can separate me from God, not one thing (Romans 8; 38-39) but my feelings were getting in the way all too often.
Now I am learning even more -- my feelings, that speaks of focusing on me instead of focusing on Him who has prepared all things for me, including the works that He wants me to do (Ephesians 2: 10) and the Reward of Rest and Righteousness (Hebrews 4: 11)
AA teaches its members that they have to be free from anger.
The Bible teaches something different about anger:
"Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath" (Ephesians 4: 26)
There is a time and place for getting angry, for facing up to provocation or perversion in our lives.
But for people in AA, what I experienced and what I saw, people were getting angry all the time, and the Steps did not work.
The Twelve Steps do not outline the peace and the righteousness that people really need to succeed or grow in our lives. They do not give people the Truth on which to stand, which gives man the power to know the different between good and evil.
In fact, the writer in the Book of Hebrews teaches us that we need to skilled in righteousness, that before God we are forever justified, and then we can rightly discern good and evil.
Yet another element needs discussion -- that we are not alone in this world, nor do we have to wonder whether God is on our side or not.
This righteousness has nothing to do with how we feel, but everything to do with what He has done for us at the Cross:
"For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
"And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.
"For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.
People who do not rest in a sense of righteousness, who are not receiving the unmerited favor of God no matter how they feel or what they think, find themselves looking at themselves too much of the time. And all of that self-focus makes us sensitive, makes us easily hurt, as well.
I cannot share this revelation enough. For the longest time, I have been convinced that my joy, my peace, my well-being had to do with me, my thoughts, and everything that I said and did.
In truth, it has everything to do with Himself and His Kingdom:
"For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." (Romans 14: 17)
The righteousness is a gift (Romans 5: 17), the Peace is a Person (Ephesians 2: 14), and joy is a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 2: 22). These things we receive by grace through faith.
It is amazing to me how little I knew about my standing before God, or worse I did not care, as if my identity in Christ meant nothing. Yet the greater our knowledge of God and His Son and all that He is doing for us, the greater the Life that we receive from Him!
Resentment comes down to the false belief, in many cases, that how I feel makes or breaks what I take from God the Father. In truth, there is nothing that can separate me from God, not one thing (Romans 8; 38-39) but my feelings were getting in the way all too often.
Now I am learning even more -- my feelings, that speaks of focusing on me instead of focusing on Him who has prepared all things for me, including the works that He wants me to do (Ephesians 2: 10) and the Reward of Rest and Righteousness (Hebrews 4: 11)
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