by Steven Gledhill for FREEdom from MEdom Project
And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless and you are still guilty of your sins. In that case, all who have died believing in Christ are lost! And if our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world. 1 Corinthians 15:17-19 (NLT)
For one to reject the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, rather than embrace it, would be utterly foolish. To embrace Christ’s sacrifice of obedience unto death on a cross, is to sacrifice ourselves unto a life of surrender, committed to doing the will of God just as Jesus did (Romans 12:1-2). There is the one who believes in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the Son of God resurrected, as the vehicle to power and authority in this life. There is also the one who will agree with the historical evidence that Jesus lived as a prophet who died, but that’s it; the belief is that he is still in the grave. That one denies the history of the empty tomb as evidence of Christ’s resurrection. One is right and one is wrong. There is no middle ground, here. There is belief and there is disbelief. Because there is so much at stake; either the believer or the unbeliever is a fool.
What’s at stake? Imagine that your life is a house and you, of course, are inside the house since it is your life. The self-centered thinking, intentions and behavior that drives your life is a blazing fire. The house that is your life is on fire. The house is burning down and you are trapped inside with no way out as flames rage all around you. You are suffocating from smoke inhalation and it is so hot your skin is already beginning to burn. Fire is everywhere! The smoke is so thick. You are blind and lost and doomed to perish.
Suddenly, from the flames a fireman appears. He hears you crying out for help. He is fully equipped to rescue you. Jesus Christ is that fireman who can and will rescue you if you choose to go with him. If you were really trapped inside of a burning building in a panic certain of the outcome unless someone seeks you out and finds you, would you ask the fireman if he could wait for a while longer for you to get your things? Of course, not. There wouldn’t even be a thought. The fireman grabs you and you are going wherever he leads until you’re free. In that moment, it’s all that makes sense.
I may not articulate to my thoughts that I need to be in control but when things get out of order in my life it causes intense discomfort. It can be so unsettling when things slip from my grip. It’s like this: The more I pursue control in life, the more I feel the struggle to control what I have no control over. My life is a house and everything in my life it turns out is on fire, and no matter how hard I try I cannot seem to put the fire out. Flames are all around me, raging out of control.
The problem is that I tend to ignore the signals in my life that warn me that I am not invincible; that I might even be experiencing some trouble. If my life is a house and my selfish addiction is the fire that can burn my life to the ground, then how critical is it to my health that I recognize the signals that my selfish addiction has set my life on fire? If the alarm’s batteries are dead then perhaps it’s time to recharge my batteries.
Jesus took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village. Then, spitting on the man’s eyes, he laid his hands on him and asked, “Can you see anything now?” The man looked around. “Yes,” he said, “I see people, but I can’t see them very clearly. They look like trees walking around.” Then Jesus placed his hands on the man’s eyes again, and his eyes were opened. His sight was completely restored, and he could see everything clearly. Mark 8:23-25 (NLT)
When the fireman gets a hold of you, you might have some difficulty initially seeing through the clouds of smoke before you. Life does that to us. Our circumstances can make the picture a cloudy one. But as Jesus Christ begins to rebuild the house that is your life, He lets the light of truth into your house. Since there is still self-centered sin in your life, it seems as though your house is still smoldering, even burning at times. However, through the clouds of smoke that is the circumstances in your life, the sunshine of God’s truth and love is continually breaking through. Jesus is the truth we can plainly see when the Son is in our eyes.
So the question is what does it mean to fix your gaze on Jesus; switching your emphasis from lifestyle patterns of addictive sin toward lifestyle habits of recovery? Fool or free? Dead or alive? The answer is in the ABC steps to the kind of real authentic recovery that will transform your life. That is why this recovery plan, straight from the Word of God, is what I refer to as transformative recovery. Are you ready to take the plunge into a new life of real authentic life-long recovery?
