Addictions

The Process

Jesus IS The Process:

He's The Map, He's The Way, He's The Life, He's The Bread of Life, He's The Water of Life, He's The Builder, He's The Author and Finisher of our faith.

The Steps:

Many people trust the steps and their ability to follow or not follow the steps or some point in between more than they trust Jesus to get them where they need to be. Him inside, letting Him in, giving Him access, submitting the thing to Him, yielding to Him, Leaning towards Him, that's the secret. He will personally baby step you to and through step one to step two to step three etc. And you are not defined by your addictions or your limitation, but you are defined by Jesus and if you'll give yourself to Him, He's looking at you completely differently than you're looking at you. We look at ourselves through our own distorted view of self, but Jesus doesn't have that problem or limitation. He can see you in Him and introduce you to that vision of you.

Paul's Testimony:

Paul was a Jew, a Pharisee of the Pharisees. Paul knew the law probably as good as anyone at the time, practiced the law as well as if not better than anyone at the time, had a personal encounter with Jesus Himself, received more Grace than maybe anyone else at the time because he had persecuted the church yet was saved by and called by Jesus, wrote half the new testament, was filled with the Holy Spirit, saw God do many many things in and through his life..., yet what was Paul's Testimony? He had the information, he knew the Law, he had lived by the Law, the perfect Law of God, but then Jesus ran into Him, and Paul let down his guard for Jesus and submitted his will to Jesus on the road to Damascus on that day when Saul of Tarsus was freed from his own sowing and reaping, and began to enter into Jesus sowing and reaping that Jesus had finished on the cross leaving nothing left to be done. So Paul had the information, and had the Grace, including that he knew as well as anyone the Spirit of the Law..., yet Paul's Testimony was Simply This, that he still couldn't do it, and that many times what he wanted to do that he knew was right, he didn't do, and that which he knew was wrong that he didn't want to do, he still ended up doing..., So he said in no uncertain terms..., “i still can't“ and so..., “oh wretched man that i am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" "I thank God - through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind i myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin." Yet still there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to The Spirit. For the law of The Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.
And we could go on for hours and cover the whole of the bible and get the same answer, that it's all about Jesus and it's not about us to be able to accomplish anything good in and of ourselves. Paul also said in many ways many times that the onus was on God, not on Paul. For instance Paul would say, "He (Jesus) is able to keep that which i have committed to Him against that day." "For i am persuaded that neither death nor life..., nor any other created thing (including himself) will be able to separate him or us (who belong to Jesus) will be able to separate us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus. Far too many Christians are spending too much time staring at their naval thinking that they will soon be able to discover something useful in there..., instead of letting Jesus teach them to stare only at Him and let Him take care of the Rest. This is not a switch that we can flip but rather a process of further dependency on The Person of Jesus.
So in summary, Paul's Testimony was still "i can't but Jesus in me can, and so it was Jesus and Him Crucified, and "i ran better than the rest, yet not i, it was the Grace of God that was in me." So by Grace (that comes from God) we are saved through faith (that comes from God and we use it to connect with Him by faith through Jesus The Door). So then by Grace we are saved, it is the Gift of God to Salvation, and so Grace is the door to Jesus by Faith, and Jesus IS The Door, The Only Door to The Father, by the drawing, wooing, and sealing of The Holy Spirit, and Grace also runs the race. So by Grace we are saved, Grace gets us all the way across the finish line, and Grace also runs the race. If this were not true then Paul's Testimony would be false, and we know it is true, and he would certainly know best aside from Jesus Himself.

Being Dependant and Dependencies:

Substance Abuse:

So there’s obvious reasons why someone would want to take it..., but often a substitute for Grace, because Grace, True Grace from God is out of our control and our getting enough of it is dependent on God. So if we succumb to wanting to take matters into our own hands then we basically want to be in charge of our own “grace” so to speak, but we can’t have our own Grace and God’s Grace, One is feeble and the other is amazing. And besides, His Grace is maturing, whereas our man made “grace” is retarding and makes more immature rather than a step further towards real manhood or womanhood which is with more “self” control which comes only by The Holy Spirit and Only on God’s terms. Now I'm not talking about on the road to recovery or medical reasons, but lets be honest, God is likely for most, weaning them off of their dependencies one by one and helping them to be more and more dependent on Him for their needs and satisfaction etc.

Less Dependancies and More Dependent on Jesus:

Remember you’re playing god when you try to meet your own needs, He’s bringing you into even more dependency on Him and less dependent on yourself or others or substances, and He’s doing that. And hopefully you are learning to go along with Him. But if not, then there is still Grace Sufficient for you and the task at hand if you will let Him get that to you through a better connection to Him which is by faith which is relational, and He is driving that, and we are learning to respond better and better as He reveals more of Who He Really is in our lives personally.

He's in Charge, We are Not:

He is also in charge of teaching you personally by His Spirit what to have more confidence in and what to have less confidence in..., and certainly going towards substances or other people to meet your “needs” are steps away from true confidence and towards a lie, but going or leaning towards Jesus even if you don’t think you have the strength or motivation, just the leaning towards Him is often enough for Him to know you’re serious and He reaches out and grabs your shirt so to speak and takes you the rest of the way etc. Look, I'm not saying you shouldn't seek help from others etc, but it's not wise to have a knee jerk reaction and go to people as a course of habit and depending and committing yourself and your way to God as a last resort. So learn to go to Him sooner that's all, but it's a road He leads us down that is more and more dependent on Him and His sufficiency as time goes on and the tasks get bigger. And it's not like the bigger the task the more capable we become as much as it is that we become more and more intimately dependent on God and His Power and Love and Grace to work it all out..

He is "For" You and Not Dependant on You!:

He is “For” you, so it’s not helpful to focus on self effort, in strength or in weakness, but rather it’s all about Him, and His Strength and His “Limitations” and since He doesn’t have ANY, then way better to depend on Him rather than any other if at all possible to lay it all down at His feet continually.

Share the Big News, He Saved you To and For Himself by Himself:

So Jesus not only saved you for Himself, to Himself, by Himself, but He also is in the process of saving you “from” yourself, which means He has taken a personal interest in you. And all that should encourage you. He doesn’t do that with many people because most people don’t let Him in and they don’t let Him teach them..., they’re too busy trying to grow themselves up their own way or with religious rituals, rather than just letting Jesus have His way. We’re not any better than anyone else, nor more deserving either, it’s just that at some point He gets us to realize that we get a different result when we let Him do what Only He can do, and we really can’t do anything in comparison. So we learn to take hands off, and we learn that Jesus is Hands On. And that’s the way Life IS.

BEACH ON EARTH