GREENE STREET LETTERS: AN ALTAR? REALLY?

Saturday, August 20, 2022

AN ALTAR? REALLY?

Taken from the Message Bible:

Romans 12 1-2

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life -- Your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking around life---and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for Him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit in without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention of God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what He wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

The Message Bible isn't my favorite translation, but I just can't get away from the way this passage is worded. It truly is that STEP # 3 point where you are brought face to face with a choice that has to be made.

Many simply don't want to choose and think that by not doing so, they are off the hook for the time being. They don't understand that by not choosing to surrender life and turn the focus of my will over to Christ, is only going to keep me under the bondage of my addiction. We have a million reasons why we can't make the turn to Jesus, but they all crumble and are left in a heap at our feet in the glorious light of His truth.

This choice I make isn't a simply nod of my head as accepting God.

It isn't a mental ascent that I have to wrap my brain around.

It is a heart-invasion by God's Holy Spirit, illuminating all the darkness in me with the glorious light of God's mercy and grace.

Who would not want that? Who would not want to be free from the legacy and history of addiction in their life? Praise God that it is more than a thought or concept. More than an idea or formula. It is life itself poured out on those who accept Jesus and what He has done into their life. This acceptance means that I turn the reins over and allow Him to drive. I simply follow. I bask in His love and acceptance of me as this Jesus grows me and stretches me so that I can be the man He knew I could all along.

It's scary climbing up on that altar of surrender. You feel so vulnerable and open to the world. Truth be known, it is the safest place a person could be. It is a place of trust as we let go of the old ways to embrace this new life Jesus is offering to us.
Go for it !

God on you....

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Looking At The World Through Cracked Lens

As ol' Paul wrote in his Corinthian letters.."We see in part and we know in part." Now what piece of this bit of wisdom do we not get? I wish to not run around acting and trying to be some sort of Biblical G00-Ru (I meant to spell it wrong). Or a sage of sages.

I simply want to be able to communicate some of what God has given to me. Why? Do I think what I get is better than what you may have received from Him? Nope. But I do think encouragement comes when we share our daily story of struggle and victory in an effort to encourage each other.

Thanks for letting me share.

Time to soldier on..

mbb

Our Statement of Faith

We believe that God is the eternal king. He is an infinite, unchangeable Spirit, perfect in holiness, wisdom, goodness, justice, power and love. From all eternity He exists as the One Living and True God in three persons of one substance, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit equal in power and glory. we believe that God created mankind in His image, male and female, for relationship with Himself and to govern the earth. Under the temptation of Satan, our original parents fell from grace, bringing sin, sickness and God's judgment of death to the earth. Through the fall, Satan and his demonic hosts gained access to God's good creation. Creation now experiences the consequences and effects of Adam's original sin. Human beings are born into sin, subject to God's judgment of death and captive to Satan's kingdom of darkness. We believe that Jesus, God's Son, was sent to this world, conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin, Mary, fully God and fully man in one person. He is humanity as God intended us to be. Jesus was anointed as God's Messiah and empowered by the Holy Spirit, ushering in God's kingdom reign on earth, overpowering the reign of Satan by resisting temptation, preaching the good news of salvation, healing the sick, casting out demons and raising the dead. Jesus' atoning death on the cross took God's judgment for sin which we deserved as law-breakers. Jesus' resurrection and ascent back to heaven opened the door for those who received salvation to begin a relationship with God.

Little Nets Into Deep Waters

Fishing nets were designed for one purpose only. To catch fish. Nets are no good if they stay on the boat. Nets serve no purpose if they are never used. I think maybe God sees us this way. We are all created for a purpose (by the way, the creator gets to define what our purpose is). Any other use besides the one we were created for does us no good. But when the creator places His hands upon us, casting us out into those scary, dark places with deep waters, it is then we can see the reality of our purpose. He knew there would be a catch waiting for us. I think I will be the net God has called me to be.

The Twelve Steps

As a community of people in recovery, we affirm that our higher power is Jesus Christ. He did for us what we could not do for ourselves. Just as God told the children of Israel He was going to give them a promised land, He has revealed to us that He desires to give us a "Promised Life." When Israel got to the promised land, God instructed them to go and in a possess it, fight for it and claim it. In recovery, the 12 Steps are the directions given to us on how to fight, possess and claim this promised life.

Saturday, August 20, 2022

AN ALTAR? REALLY?

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THE REALITY OF THE NAME OF GOD