This Week’s Recovery Application Challenge
Please click TWIRL 034 for this week’s lesson prior to proceeding with this application challenge.
Between The Rock and a Hard Place
Please pay attention to the liberating transformative truth as you read this critically important Scripture from Romans, chapters 7 and 8.
4 So, my dear brothers and sisters, this is the point: You died to the power of the law when you died with Christ. And now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead. As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God. 5 When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds, resulting in death.6 But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit.
7 Well then, am I suggesting that the law of God is sinful? Of course not! In fact, it was the law that showed me my sin. I would never have known that coveting is wrong if the law had not said, “You must not covet.” 8 But sin used this command to arouse all kinds of covetous desires within me! If there were no law, sin would not have that power. 9 At one time I lived without understanding the law. But when I learned the command not to covet, for instance, the power of sin came to life, 10 and I died. So I discovered that the law’s commands, which were supposed to bring life, brought spiritual death instead. 11 Sin took advantage of those commands and deceived me; it used the commands to kill me. 12 But still, the law itself is holy, and its commands are holy and right and good.
13 But how can that be? Did the law, which is good, cause my death? Of course not! Sin used what was good to bring about my condemnation to death. So we can see how terrible sin really is. It uses God’s good commands for its own evil purposes.
14 So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. 15 I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. 16 But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. 17 So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.
18 And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. 19 I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. 20 But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.
21 I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. 22 I love God’s law with all my heart. 23 But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. 24 Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? 25 Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.
1 So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. 2 And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death. 3 The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. 4 He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit.
5 Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit. 6 So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace. 7 For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God’s laws, and it never will. 8 That’s why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God.
9 But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to him at all.) 10 And Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God. 11 The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.
12 Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do. 13 For if you live by its dictates, you will die. But if through the power of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.
Ambivalence is the reality of wanting two or more things with equal intensity that are in direct opposition to one another. The net result is a resistance to one thing or the other when one is pulled in the opposite direction by the other. Perhaps you have heard the expression, “Torn between two lovers…”, which is what Paul is talking about when dealing with the power at war with his mind. He wants to do in recovery that which is good, healthy, and right—not because he has to but because he wants to for his own benefit. Yet he is being pulled by a force with equal or greater intensity by that which is self-centered and in opposition to the will of God.
- How is this true in your life?
- How would you describe being motivated by the desires and urges of your selfish sin nature (what the Bible refers to as the flesh)?
- How is living according to the dictates of the flesh manifested in your behavior?
- What would you say it means to obey God?
- Does obeying God carry a negative connotation for you? Explain.
1 Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days. 2 Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered porches. 3 Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the porches. 5 One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?” 7 “I can’t, sir,” the sick man said, “for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me.” 8 Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!” 9 Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking!
13 The man didn’t know, for Jesus had disappeared into the crowd. 14 But afterward Jesus found him in the Temple and told him, “Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you.” John 5:1-9, 13-14 (NLT)
- How has obeying God been a demonstration of God’s mercy in your life? In other words, how might you say obeying God has actually spared you from something negative in your life?
- What does it mean to your life, this internal conflict between living in obedience to the flesh and obedience to God in the Spirit?
- What do you hope to accomplish in recovery? What does your life look like should you accomplish your goal?
- What would you admit that you are selfish about that, when you are honest and not lying to yourself (denial), tends to get in the way of your recovery God’s way? Include activities, thoughts, feelings (i.e.: ambition, greed, pride, resentment, jealousy, anger, disappointment, frustration, shame, etc.), and fantasies (i.e.: lust, daydreaming, rehearsing worst-case scenarios, grandiosity, etc.)
- What do you have to gain or have gained pursuing selfishness? List them all and be specific.
- What do you have to lose or have lost pursuing selfishness? List them all and be specific. Identify individual relationships affected by name. In other words, don’t generalize by indicating “my family” or “my children”.
- What do you have to gain or have gained in recovery God’s way (ABC Recovery Steps, 12 steps)? List them all and be specific. Again, identify each individual relationship by name.
- What do you have to lose or have lost in recovery God’s way? List them all and be specific.
- Next, Score each item on each of your four lists between 1 and 100. You’re scoring them, not ranking them. So, several on the list can receive a score of 100 or 50. Then, add up your scores in each category. Combine the scores for questions 4 and 7. Then combine the scores for 5 and 6. By doing this you can measure your degree of ambivalence and discover how much or little you may be resistant in your recovery.
- Assuming the likelihood that your score for 5 and 6 is substantially higher than your score for 4 and 7, why do you still pursue selfishness to achieve satisfaction or to minimize dissatisfaction? Could it be that you are addicted to you?
- Take time to meditate on this and pray that God will be powerful in your life and that His influence will be powerful in your mind to how you think and behave.
It is God working in you to will and to act according to His purpose. Philippians 2:13
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