Turn-----In The Right Direction

Ezekiel 18:31-32
Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit.......

From time to time, I run into individuals who truly believe that if they could change their circumstances, they could live clean and sober. If they could get the courts off their backs....If the police would leave them alone....if they could just get some breathing room, then they could take care of all the wrong that surrounds them. How foolish is this?
How can someone be the problem that created all the destruction, and then turn around and be the solution at the same time? They can't. You can't. I can't. 

Change begins when we realize that we are the problem. Not our parents..not our spouses...not our bosses...not anyone but who we see in the mirror. And our problems stem from our inability to choose rightly. Like Paul, in Romans 7, "that which I want to do...i do not do...and the very thing I don't want to do...that is what I do." Let me translate that for you. Paul has a sin nature that seeks to exert its will in his life. We've given this nature free reign and it has run rampant and brought us to the brink of destruction. Healing begins when you look deep inside yourself and you truly realize that you are powerless to change. Powerless to control the addiction. Powerless to choose.

Addiction is like climbing into a boxing ring everyday, and there you face off against the heavy weight champion of the world. Needless to say, we get our brains beat out. So you come back the next day thinking it will be different. Once again we get our brains beat out. You continue to do this day after day, always with the same results. Father Joseph Martin says that this is the classic addiction behavior. Day after day, climbing into the ring trying to figure out how to keep from getting beat up. Father Martin finally say...."Don't get into the ring!" 

Recovery is a life of exchange, not a life of giving up things and people. You are changed on the inside and, as a result of this new relationship you have with Christ, you are put into new situations where you meet new people. People who are like minded and are on the same journey you have begun. You are given new places to go that are not tied to the old haunts and hangouts of your past. You exchange the old friends and the old places, for a new way to live.

One of the by products of what we are doing on Saturday night at Vineyard Recovery Church, is that God is putting together a community of people who enjoy being with each other. Finding strength and encouragement from each other, we are learning to admit and confess our struggles and issues that we are dealing with. We get a chance to pray for each other. More than that, we are learning the value of staying in contact through out the week. 

We don't have all the answers at VRC. But we are on a journey to know ourselves and this one they call Jesus better. As we allow God's Holy Spirit to work inside us, we find a strength we have never possessed before. A strength that enables us to get up in the mornings and face the day. To meet head on the challenges of our new life. We are not alone in this daily struggle, as we realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. I don't know about you, but that dog will hunt!

God on you....
mb