Staying on point.....
Keeping everything in perspective.....
The MAIN thing is the MAIN thing.....
These all relate, in one way or another, the need to have purpose (and the Power) in our recovery.
I tell the guys who are in the program here at Rapha that recovery is more than just the absence of alcohol or drugs from your life. If that was the goal, then I could simply lock each man up for 49 days and feed them by shoving their meals under the door. At the end of the 49 days, they would be clean and sober, but they would not have addressed any of the issues that fed their addiction.
So what is the main thing? Recognition and surrender to Christ. Hey, I'm a 12 step guy. I see the value in working a program. I have watched as the lights come on for someone and those 12 simple directions lead them out of all the destruction and devastation that comes with addiction. But.....(here's the biggie) the steps are not the solution. The solution is the Power that comes in Step 2 and 3. The recognition and surrender to the Higher Power, Jesus Christ. It takes the Power of God's Holy Spirit, in my life, to activate those steps that lead me to life.
If anyone was an example of trying to work the steps in their own power, and then surrendering to Christ, it would be the Apostle Paul. Paul wasn't a drunkard or an addict but he did have his problems. Paul (originally known as Saul) was a religious man. He was living a religious life outside of the Power of Christ. Kind of like working the steps in our own strength and ability. Paul had it down pat. He went to meetings...He knew all the slogans....He was so into his religious 12 steps that he couldn't see any other way. Then Paul met the Power behind the religion. He was shown that trying to attain life through religion was empty and hollow and only appeared to be successful. Paul had an encounter....a significant spiritual experience, if you will, and it changed him forever. It changed him to such a degree, he abandoned his old name, Saul, in favor of a new one, Paul. This Higher Power, Jesus Christ, had laid hold of Paul and was now in the process of empowering him and changing him.
Paul writes in Philippians 3:12-14: Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected, but I press on that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Do you see how Paul was keeping the main thing, the main thing in his life. He had dealt with his past....He had settled all the accounts that were following him around, and now......he was moving on. I like how Paul says "That I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me." What would that be? What was it Paul was "laying hold" of? Well, it would be this new way of living. Paul recognized and rejected his old ways, to embrace this new way of living. Paul recognized that it was about the journey. If you back up in Chapter 3 of Philippians, you'll read where Paul says that everything he thought was important and of value, pales in comparison of knowing Jesus. In fact, Paul says everything he use to think was important is dung...manure. That's pretty harsh, but when you finally realize that Christ can do for you what you could not do for yourself, your eyes (spiritual eyes) will be opened and you'll see your old life for what it truly is....a lie.
So what about you? Are you ready to make the main thing the main thing?
Thanks for stopping by the Greene Street Letters.
See you tomorrow...
God on you....
mb
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