Step 12: Carry His Message

Well it is finally over, last night we concluded our series on the 12 steps. I plan on us spending some time talking about discipleship in recovery and then launching into a longer series on the foundations of recovery, primarily sections of Mathew, 1 Corinthians, and the entire book of James.

What we talked about last night was this idea that those of us who have been spared from the horrors of addiction, have a responsibility to help others escape it as well. My hope if you are following this is that you will have an even deeper relationship with God by this point in the steps. Then, having had that “spiritual experience” you will get busy with the business of helping others to find recovery.

Noone promised us when we got saved that all was going to go well. But even in our low spots we can still find a fellow believer who is in worse shape than we are. Or better yet a non-believer who has yet to hear the Good News.

We need to ask ourselves a few simple questions and then it is time to start kicking rear and chewing bubble gum.

• Do I have a personal relationship with Christ?
• Does ever increasing Victory in my life over sin?
• Do I believe that there are people in this world whom I can help?
• How much of my spare time do I terminate on my own selfish ends?
• How much, or specifically in what ways could I begin to give back?
• Am I consistent in my life as to how people view me?

With these questions contemplated we really need to strap on our tennis shoes and hit the ground running. There are hurting units out there and within our Church who desperately need the love of Jesus and the peace that that relationship brings.

Step 11: Pray

Step 11: Pray

One of the things that I talked about Tuesday night was how many Christians struggle with a regular prayer life. While it is good to pray in Church, it is imperative that we begin to develop a prayer life that worked at and fulfilling. We sometimes forget that God does not want to pray because he has decided we have to. God allows us a relationship with him through Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. So what we have an area in our lives where we get to. How cool is it that a God who could have thrown us away like He did the Angels who sinned, instead has decided to reconcile us back to himself.

To those of you who were at Recovery last night and need a recap of the challenge here it is.

• Begin a daily prayer practice
• Begin praying with your wife, kids, family, and friends
• Begin praying with people you do not know

Depending on your current practice pick one and start.

You can always listen to past Recovery teachings on the Recovery page.

Have a good week,
Dustin

Step 10: Trudging the Road of Sanctification

On a practical level the 10th step is really a way to measure our day as we go through our day. Here are some things I have found through working the steps to be helpful. We watch how we are thinking and acting towards others on a daily basis. Are we being selfish, inconsiderate, dishonest, resentful or fearful? When we are not if we are we should go into a time of prayer right there and ask God to remove this thought, attitude, or behavior from us. Sometimes it is helpful to discuss this with a sponsor, mentor, or friend. If we have harmed anyone we then go about making it right. At this stage of the game a simple apology will probably suffice provided we are cleaning up our mess on a daily basis. Then we once again would be Wise to turn to God again in prayer and ask whom we could help. This simple process is adapted from the original direction for the 12 steps and goes something like this.

Watch yourself move towards Sin.

Ask God to remove this thought, attitude, or behavior from us.

Discuss it with someone we trust (focusing on where we are at fault)

Make amends if we have harmed anyone

Ask God to direct us towards whom we can help.

The 10th step is not something we do at the end of the day as is popular in some 12 step groups. The 10th step is really just a new way of thinking about, and reacting to life. If we begin to operate in this way we will begin to do it naturally.

Finally, I think that it is important to note that most of us do not fall back into our sin addictions over the big catastrophes in life. When someone dies, or we get sick, or lose a job most of us turn to the Lord even more so. What leads most of us into our addiction is the continual ignoring of small issues. When I lie to you I don’t clean it up I just sweep it under the rug. When I don’t do what I am supposed to; when I cover things up. When I have made a commitment and I am supposed to be there and I’m not. I make an excuse rather than confess I was wrong. These things pile up and the continual rejection of the reality of our wickedness lulls us into a sleep of complacency which inevitably leads to a relapse in behavior. If we want to get free of our self will we will continually need to seek his Face and lean into life continually making mistakes, and admitting to them when we harm others. That is what the 10th step is about

Boast in Him

Last night, as we spent time in celebration, I was reminded how truly needy I really am for a savior. How I am not competent enough, smart enough, righteous enough, enthusiastic enough, or wise enough to earn my way into God’s favor. In fact, regardless of the personal victories I have seen, I am still a sorry, depraved and horrific example of creation. With all the self-esteem building out of the way let me say this, this is the beauty of the cross, I am not good enough nor does God expect me to be. If he expected me to be good enough he would not have come down to die for me. He gave me the law to see how much I fall short and how much I need a savior like Him to fix my wicked heart. Here are a couple of neat Bible verses to chew on this week as we get ready to complete the series on the 12 steps.

Jeremiah 9:23-24

Galatians 6:14

2 Corinthians 5:21

Steps 8 and 9: Set Right The Wrong

So many of us have taken on the attitude of a victim. We stay a slave to the people who anger us, and even worse we treat them in shocking ways justifying it the entire time. What we learned in the 4th step is that we were hating ourselves through other people. Meaning when we harbor resentment we are blaming someone for some aspect of why our life didn’t turn out how we wanted it to. Well at the end of the day we all know that we are responsible for our life and so the question is: Who am I really hating when I pour energy into harboring resentment? Myself of course I am “taking poison and hoping the other guy dies”.

What we are going to do in steps 8 and 9 is reverse the process. We are going to go out and set right the wrongs we have committed against others while at the same time letting them off the hook for their mistakes. In doing this we will stop pouring energy into hating the person who screwed up our life (us). We will begin to feel nearness towards our fellows and God. We will see relationships mended and hearts healed.

The 9th step is about action. Unfortunately there is no right or wrong answer for these tough decisions when it comes to amends. What we must do is pray to God for discernment and then the courage to take action and face the people we have wounded. Get after it….

Steps 6 & 7: Pleading for Sanctification

Last night we were talking about these steps and something came to me. When we have suffered enough due to sin we will regret our behavior. When we regret our behavior enough to repent we will find ourselves in complete readiness begging God to change us. I know most of us in our culture have been sold this bill of goods that the reason we feel so bad is because we don’t know how to love ourselves. The truth is we feel bad because we are bad. Our sin is as thick as it will ever be the moment we are born. The NLT rendering of Psalm 51:5 is “For I was born a sinner–yes, from the moment my mother conceived me.”

The problem with this tough verse is not what God says nor the simple interpretation it leads us to. No, the problem is that we have been sold a bill of goods by popular culture that we are born good and that we just choose to do bad. This of course is not what the Bible says but what our culture says.

So the problem we face while looking at the 6th and 7th steps is two-fold. Do I believe that I cannot fix myself? And do I believe that God has to power to remove my sin, shortcomings, or defects of character (depending on which synonym you prefer). Hopefully, we have gotten to a place with the previous steps to see our wickedness and our inability to overcome our sin because we have an nature rooted in it. Getting ready to take these steps takes more time than actually taking them. With that said I am going to recap the technical side of last nights teaching and sign off for the week.

1. Take an hour for reflection after your 5th step
2. Ask yourself if you are ready to have these things removed from you
3. Say a prayer something like what is referred to as the 7th step prayer which goes something like this. My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. Amen

This prayer can be found in the book Alcoholics Anonymous on Page 76 2nd Edition.

A final thought about the 7thstep is that being as we are not the one sanctifying ourselves is should not take long to work steps 6 and 7. We are going to ask God to do the miraculous and then we are going to go on with the steps and our life as if he had already done it. God can and will forgive and he can and will change hearts. It is not up to us as to when and what it looks like when he does. Remember we are no longer enemies of God if we are in Christ Jesus. Have a good week.

P.S. Here is that word study resource I was talking about last night.

http://www.blueletterbible.org/

For Recovery at the Alley Audio go tohttp://www.thealley.org/2010/02/10/recovery/

Step 5: Getting Honest

Tuesday night we talked about the 5th step in the program of Recovery. For many of us it was this step that was the beginnings of us learning how to open up. This process of honesty and repentance is one that will take most of us into the afterlife to perfect. We talked about some general ideas behind the 5th step and some practical, if not technical details for how to go about taking a 5th step. For those of you who missed it here is the 5th step.

We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

And just to reiterate and clarify some helpful hints for doing a 5th step.

• Do a 5th step as soon as possible
• Take this step with someone you trust
• Try not to be worried about what people will think of you (most sin just like you)
• Read what you wrote in your 4th step
• Share those skeletons in your closet
• Try to do your first 5th step with just one person
• After your first step try sharing more of yourself with those you are close to.

With these simple hints we have simply got to do the work necessary to get to this point. Then take the jump into the deep end knowing that A.) It may not feel comfortable right away and B.) In the long run this is going to be better for us.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ

What a cool opportunity we have in this world. To be saved by grace through faith because of the great love with which God loves us. We were very fortunate last night at Recovery to have Ben come share with us the Gospel. I would really encourage you to check out the audio and listen for yourself the importance of this message. I really only have a couple of questions for you to consider this week.

Am I still trying to earn God’s love?

Do I think I am somehow better than other people because I am a Christian?

Where am I with gratitude today?

Consider these things and it is amazing how blessed we truly are. Have a good week.

Visit the Recovery page here

Step 4 (cont.): Fear & Sex

This week we continued on with our journey through the 12 steps with a look at the fear inventory, and the sex conduct inventory. I have to say it was a challenging topic for me. Speaking about sex in Church is about as weird to me as say wearing a rain coat in the shower. I hope that I did not offend anyone unless of course you were offended at the proposition that we should seek the will of God rather than the ideas of man. In that case I am glad to have stirred your soul and made you think about this. Here are a couple of Bible verses followed by a excellent sermon resource on the fear of man.

Fear: The Lord is for me, so I will have no fear. What can mere people do to me? – Psalm 118:6

Sex: Genesis 1:28 Then God blesses them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply…” Pop quiz: How does that happen?

But that is not the whole story.

Sex: 1 Thessalonians 4:3 God’s will is for you to be holy, so stay away from all sexual sin

As we see from these sections of scripture we are not to be afraid of man. We should be reverant of God but we should not fear man. We also see that God created sex and ordained sex between a hustband and a wife. Sex in itself is not sinful but in this broken world and as strong as a desire as it can be it has become a major issue for our culture. Thessalonians is a very tough passage if one wants to have sex outside of marriage, commit adultry, indulge in pornography and masterbation, and refuse to repent from one’s sexual sins. And here I thought that the New Testament was basically a free pass to do whatever you want. Turns out the New Testament or Jesus if you will is a free pass to seek what God wants.

Peace and Prayers
Dustin

P.S. Click here for the resource by JR Vasser
JR was speaking at www.thevillagechurch.net and is himself the pastor of www.apostlesnyc.com both of which are amazing resources for free content that is Biblical and rich.

Step 4: Searching & Fearless

First off I would like to say that it is really encouraging to watch so many of you show up week after week. Recovery is not a journey that most of us can make alone so to see you step up and submit to accountability is reassuring. That being said let’s take a look at step 4. I said that I would get some resources put together to help you with your inventory process. Here they are in no particular order.

http://www.aabythebook.org/welcome.html

This is a page that my sponsor has put together to help people to write inventory.

http://www.thefiringlineaa.org/Articles/Dustinb4thstepguidecopies.pdf

Here is a place to get more copies of the sheets found in your packet.

http://anonpress.org/

This is a place to purchase copies of the book Alcoholics Anonymous.

http://www.aastpaul.org/

This is the place to purchase the book locally if you would rather do that.

http://bible.org/seriespage/parable-unforgiving-servant

And finally, this is a neat article on the topic of biblical forgiveness.

I also said that there are some amazing parts of scripture that that deal with the concepts we were talking about last night.

Try these on for size:

The parable of the unforgiving servant
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+18:21-35&version=NLT

The most important commandment
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+12:28-34&version=NLT

But I don’t want to forgive
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%206:14-15,&version=NLT

There are many more verses in the Bible that we could go to to seek the wisdom of the Lord but I think that these are a good place to start.

Peace and Prayers
Dustin

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