Written by Steven Gledhill for FREEdom from MEdom Project
Anyone reading this struggling with smoking cigarettes? Anyone trying to lose weight or stick to a healthy diet? Anyone trying to cut spending and stay on budget? Anyone trying to quit or cut back on alcohol consumption? Anyone trying to stop their drug use? Anyone feeling conviction about exceeding their pain medicine dosage or staying on prescription medication that might not be so necessary? Anyone feeling some guilt or shame about pornography, or with the positive attention and perhaps affection exchanged with someone that is not your spouse? Anyone out there having a hard time controlling your temper or with lying or gossip? Can’t get off the computer or away from the television?
“I hate that I smoke but I love the feeling and satisfaction it brings.”
“I hate that I overeat but carbs and preservatives are so satisfying.”
“I want to have money but spending it and having stuff… also so satisfying.”
“I’m a fool and embarrass my family when I drink but how else can I have a good time or relax?”
“Illegal drugs? Awful but how do I survive without them?”
“I don’t like that I can’t get off this medicine but how else do I manage my pain?”
“My spouse won’t give me the attention I need so what’s wrong with some harmless attention from…? I make sure it stays innocent.”
“I can’t stand the way I can get when I’m angry but it’s so hard to keep cool in the heat of the moment.”
“I don’t watch that much TV, do I?”
“Once I get going playing video games or chatting online, I can’t stop. I hate it that my kids can’t get off their computer or their phone!”
“How do I stop? What do I do? I love the Lord! I want to do the right thing!”
Yes we need to begin in Romans Chapter 7, beginning in verse 14, reading through the end of the chapter. Then we will look at what God will do to rewire this brain of ours back to the way He wired it to begin with before we went and scrambled the thing into something brutally selfish.
14 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.(NLT)
The first two steps of the Twelve Step model state the following:
1. We admitted we were powerless over addiction* – that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Step Three of the Twelve Steps says, “Made a decision to turn our will and lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.” Many will say that this is the Commitment or Surrender Step. I have said that and will continue to say it. It is probably more accurate to state, though, that Step Three is the decision to surrender. It is steps four through twelve that one acts out surrender and commitment in recovery.
This decision is predicated on the belief in a power greater than ourselves who can restore us to sanity. As we come to understand who we are in relation to who God is, the decision is remarkably sensible to turn our unmanageable lives—our mess—over to the ONLY ONE with the authority to renew and restore us through His plan of surrendered recovery. It is so sensible that to decide anything else only adds to the insanity of our addiction to selfish obsessions.
Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death. James 1:14-15 (NLT)
“Gives birth to death“… how insane is that? When we come to understand how our brains work—selfish to the core—with automatic thoughts based on chemical reactions in the brain, fueling beliefs so irrational that they generate feelings that drive behavior willing to risk so much for instant gratification (reward), we do so at great risk and cost. The result is loss: lost peace, lost hope, lost trust, lost love… lost life. I am often asked, “Why do I settle for that?” It is our nature. When we seek to know ourselves through an honest inventory of ourselves, hoping to identify the exact nature of what is wrong with us, the more our self examination breaks down to our deeply rooted selfishness. We can try this and try that to fix ourselves, but it’s like pulling weeds that break off but the roots are too deep and they always grow back, bigger and badder than ever.
We have taken the brain that God created in us to be good, and allowed evil to come in and spread like a cancer until we are rotten to the core in our selfish thoughts, beliefs, and behavior. How does that change? It changes when we come to believe that we are powerless to our selfish motivations and intentions, come to believe in what can and will do to wash our brains, transforming them into something new, and the commit daily to letting Him brainwash us since He has afforded us the opportunity to enter into relationship with Him as an act of our will.
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world (‘aeon’ or ‘age’) but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:1-2 (NIV)
– To read more about the translation of this passage, click “New Age Living (and oh by the way, your feet smell)”
While God’s love for us is unconditional, the quality of relationship we have with God is conditional. This is evident throughout Scripture. Relationships always have a when-then quality to them. When one thing happens in relationship, then another thing happens in response. To experience the life of transformative recovery empowered in relationship with God, we need to be about the when in the relationship. God will then change us into something new.
Pastor Fran Leeman unveiled from Scripture some truth I had not seen before. He said that the Greek word for ‘world’ in Romans 12:1 is ‘aeon’ (pronounced ee-on). The word means age. Apostle Paul is writing that we are not of this age who have come to believe into relationship with God through Christ Jesus. We are no longer tied into the fate of this age once transformed into new life, so why reach back thinking as though we are still what we were. God desires to change our thinking by the renewing of our minds so that we come to believe and live in the new age of the coming of the Kingdom of God, which has come by way of resurrected Christ.
This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NLT)
There is what we do in this transformative relationship, and there is what God does. What we do is offer our bodies to God sacrificially with our actions–our behavior. It is what we do with our eyes and our ears. It is what we do with what goes in and what comes out of our mouths. It is what we reach for with our arms and hold on to with our hands. It is where we go with our legs and where we stay with our feet (Romans 12:1). It is with our bodies that we give in to selfish urges and fall into addictive patterns, and it is with our bodies that we quit giving in to them.
The Greek translation of 'transform' is 'metamorphoo', like a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly
There is what we do from the outside in when we offer ourselves sacrificially to God by the way we behave with our bodies. Then there is what God does in us from the inside out to completely transform us by the full renewing of our minds—literally rearranging our brain chemistry so as to empower us to live better and to think and feel healthier. God exchanges our desires and intentions with His desires and intentions. We then can resist self-centered addictive urges through the power of prayer and actually live in freedom, proving that God’s plan for us is perfect and beautiful. (Romans 12:1-2)
“Be transformed by the renewing of your minds” (Romans 12:2). The word “be” is a passive verb, meaning that it is not something we do but rather something that is done to us when we act sacrificially with our bodies committed to God’s way of behavior. Then what God does is completely transform our character and our thinking by rearranging the way our brain works, restoring it to what He created in the first place. The promise is of this transformation is that when we live according to our new God-given desires and objectives, both our behavior and what we think about and feel is healthy again. We are better having become well. We then prove in this new life that God’s plan for us is perfect and beautiful. This is how we can know and experience God’s will for us.
When we offer our bodies, meaning our physical strength to God as a living sacrifice, no longer committing our bodies to addictive patterns of behavior;
Then God completely transforms (metamorphoo) our hearts and our souls by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:1-2). Then we can love God with our whole being, and our neighbor as ourselves.
When we commit to change externally from the outside in, changing what we do (Romans 12:1-2a),
Then God changes us internally from the inside out, changing who we are and what we think (Romans 12:2).
When we delight in the Lord in our action,
Then God gives us the desires of our heart (Psalm 37:4) by changing what we want according to his will and purpose.
When we rejoice, celebrating our recovery in relationship with Christ, offering praise and presenting prayer requests with our mouths, as well as showing considerate acts of service with our physical ability;
Then God replaces our anxiety with peace to our souls, guarding (covering) our hearts and our minds by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, empowering us to do anything (Philippians 4:4-7, 13).
When we commit to doing the will of God,
Then God changes our intentions and motives, according to His will (Philippians 2:13).
When we take responsibility for our behavior, repenting of our guilt (godly sorrow),
Then God mercifully removes our shame (worldly sorrow) and pain (2 Corinthians 7:10).
When we seek to know and see Jesus through prayer and a lifestyle committed to his will,
Then Jesus Christ will turn our sorrow into joy (John 16:20-22).
When we are committed to action according to the will of God, as his will takes over in us converting our intentions into doing what he intends we do,
Then we can ask him for anything and he promises to grant our requests (John 15:7).
When we commit to behaving according to the will of God, imitating the model of recovery set for us by the life of His Son Jesus,
Then we have joy overflowing as true friends of God (John 15:9-16).
“That is why the Christian is in a different position from other people who are trying to be good. They hope, by being good, to please God if there is one; or, they hope to deserve approval from good men. But the Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us; just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines in it.” —C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
These promises from the Bible reveal a when-then relationship. When we are committed to turning away from the things of our addictive flesh—outside-in change, then God is faithful to transforming us from the inside out. The original Greek translation for the word ‘transform’ is metamorphoo, meaning to metamorph from one thing into another; like a caterpillar changing into a butterfly. As God transforms our character into a new person by changing how we think, it is like starting a new life. We not only do what is healthy, mature, responsible, and godly, we want to willfully do that which pleases God. Whenever we do what pleases God it is always to our benefit, never to our detriment. That doesn’t mean we never have problems again. It means that we have his powerful support to manage and resolve problems and conflicts. When we commit our will to do the will of God, doing recovery God’s way, we do much better.
It is entirely possible with God’s help that when we pray with our mouths, and read the Bible, God’s written word, with our eyes, that our minds will be changed. We read in Romans 12:2 that the perfect will of God for you and for me is realized as we come to trust him completely and commit to our recovery his way. This is God’s way of challenging us to prove that his will for us is ideal. What an opportunity we have to experience all that God has and wants for us. Our lives make sense again as we commit to the sensible will of God and experience what God has for us in every facet of our livelihood.
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