We made a decision to turn
our lives and our wills over to the care of God, therefore, we made direct
apologies to all persons we had harmed and we issued forgiveness to all those
who have hurt us. We did this out of happy obedience to our Lord Jesus.
We let the word of Christ dwell in us and compel us to do the right thing. For
serenity, we chose to live one day at a time,
trusting God to lead us one step
at a time, without needing to know specifically how all things will work out.
We choose to enjoy one moment at a time and we accept any hardship as our
pathway to peace. We chose to follow the example of Jesus, and we take this
sinful world as it is, and give up our desire or need for the world and its inhabitants to change. We trust that God will finish the work He began. Just
like we have faith that our guide on
a tour bus or cruise ship will show us
things along our journey, that we may come back refreshed and informed, we NOW choose to trust the Holy Spirit as our guide, and that He will show us God's will
and His superior ways. We believe that our position "in Christ" is unshakeable, and that we are covered by His righteousness, therefore, we do NOT need to
strive to be righteous. "Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and
all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore, DO NOT worry about
tomorrow." Matthew 6:33 - We agree that God is absolutely trustworthy,
and
that "The Counselor, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in My name,
will teach us all things." John 4:16 - By faith we walk through doors God opens and we listen for His voice.
Our Father, who art in heaven, will never depart from us and He is always working. Because we accepted Jesus as our Lord, He invited us to join Him. We know that
without Jesus we can accomplish nothing for the kingdom of God. So we watch to
identify what the Lord is doing and we choose to join Him in His work. Because the Father loves us, He shows us everything we need to know,
on a need to know basis. "It is God who works in you to will and
to act according to His good purpose." Phil 2:13. We understand that our
Master, our Lord Jesus works through His servants, and to serve God we must
stay as clay in the Potter’s hands. We realize that apart from God we remain as
ineffective as a cut off dead branch. We celebrate that God changes hearts,
that His word melts resistance, and that God draws us into happy obedience. We
choose to “confess our sins to God and to one another so that we can be healed”
James 5:16 – We desire to experience God and we ask Him to lead us so that we
can be of service for His good purpose. We acknowledge that we cannot stay the
way we are and be of any use to God. IF we are grafted into the Vine, IF we remain
attached to the Living Word, and IF we
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draw nourishment from the One Source of
Truth, we will be changed in the twinkling of an eye! “I am the Vine, you are
the branches. If a man remains in Me and I in him, he will bear much fruit;
apart from me you can do nothing."John 15:5 We know that we delight to experience God at
work in us, and that through our willingness to obey and follow Jesus, God
accomplishes His work through us. God
consistently encourages us to be pure in heart and motive. When the Holy Spirit
pricks our conscious, we respond by openly examining our ways as we test them
against His word. "Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar
and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift
there in front of the alter. First go and be reconciled to your brother;
then come and offer your gift." God
desires to hear our confessions and His word
requests that we express our
anguish, our sorrow, our hurts to Him and another human being. “The Lord gave us mind and conscious; we
cannot hide from ourselves.” Proverbs 20:27.
When God speaks to us, when God calls us to be honest and depart from
our familiar way of denial, for sanity and peace, we must leave our comfort
zone and trust God’s unfailing Word and love.
We must whole heartedly believe that God came down to rescue us from the
prison of shame and the slavery of guilt.
God sent Jesus to earth to bring the souls of His children out of
captivity. This is our time to make our
Exodus 3:8-10. We happily take off our
sandals and kneel, for the place of repentance is holy ground. God has seen the misery of
His lost daughters
and sons. He has heard the cries of their tortured souls and He is
concerned. Exodus 3:2-8. By faith Moses made major adjustments so that
he could join God in what God wanted to accomplish. Moses initially stuttered
in a crisis of faith “Who am I, that I should do this? O, Lord, I have never
been eloquent, I am slow of speech, please Lord, do not ask this of me.” Moses
then chose to obey and do what he was told because he trusted and relied on the
spoken word of God and the invisible, yet constant presence of God. In the name of Jesus we pray, dear God, you
know all things, you know our past, present and future use. In this step of obedience, we ask that You
give us the strength and the courage to confess anything that we have done that offends
Thee. Please help us Lord to identify another
kindred spirit, that You shall place in our path, to hear our confession of hurts,
habits and anything that hinders our relationship with God Almighty. AMEN. Having a sponsor or accountability partner
is biblical. “Two are better off than one, because together they can work more effectively.
If one of them falls down, the other can
help him up. But if someone is alone…there is no one to help him. Two men can resist an attack that would defeat
one man alone.” Ecc 4:9-12 GNB – We are all priests and we must discern wisely to
whom we choose to confess our short comings. They must have a growing relationship with Jesus.
They must listen and not judge. Do they show compassion and mercy, but not pity? They
must share their own struggles and their walk with Christ must match their talk.
A
sponsor has completed the 12 steps of recovery and an accountability partner is
someone who is currently going through the steps. “Get rid
of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling
and slander, along with every form of malice.” Eph 4:31
and remember this scripture “Fear not, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed. I
am your God. I will strengthen you; I will help you; I will uphold you with My victorious
hand.” Isaiah 41:10 -
Will
God fulfill His written promises?" Moses was forced to believe that God would do
everything He said He would do. This adjustment of belief is just as critical for us as it was for Moses. God will use our weakness to accomplish His will, and He will save us, restore us and use us to witness to others. God's
standards are vastly different than the standards of the world, the scholars,
and the church as we know it. Reversely, when a follower of Jesus Christ is
fully yielded to God, that same person can be overlooked as insignificant according
to world standards. When we feel weak,
limited
and ordinary, we must realize, only then can we be molded and used to
fulfill God's will through us. "Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God." Psalm 20:7 "Go down to the
Potter's house, and there I will give My message. So in happy obedience I went
to the Potter's house (His Word), and I saw Him working at the wheel. But the pot He was shaping from the clay was
marred in His hands; so the Potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as
seemed best to Him." Applied prayer: "Your will be done Father, not mine. I am but putty in Your hands" AMEN
