Sensible Truth for a Transformed NewLife Xperience
Question: Have you surrendered to the darkness of human weakness and failure; or are you willing to submit to the One who understands and sympathizes with your weakness–who promises the hope of a new life and will empower you to get up out of your cave and step into the light? One way or the other, by choice, you submit every day. ABC Recovery is the strategy for a transformed life through understanding of Biblical truth as it speaks to your need to admit what you cannot control, believe in the One who is in control, and then get out of your own way and commit to God your dissatisfied life so that He can do what only He can do. Learn how to submit to God’s authority and let’s see what happens.
NewLife Xperience 101 is your vehicle on the road to recovery until you are living in the experience of new life transformed from a life of bondage to discontentment into a life of freedom in relationship with Jesus Christ. As you travel on this road, you will examine yourself—what promotes how you think, what triggers how you feel, and what motivates how you act. You will explore the character of God in relationship with Jesus. Through self-discovery of your own character and revelation into God’s character, you will grow in your faith since it will not be blind faith, but faith in who and what you come to know and believe.
In learning a thing or two about yourself, you will come to discover that you are preoccupied with all that is dissatisfying in your life—daily circumstances and relationships. You might even come to find that you are obsessed with you. The phrase “It’s all me” is accurate. It really is all about me. I might be in denial about that, but it is true. Whether I itch, or I hurt, or I want, or I need, or I don’t want, or I struggle, I am always into my business and probably into your business too, since what you and and do seems to affect me. You are addicted to you and I am in a state of ‘me’dom, meaning that I am addicted to me. ‘Me’dom is, in a phrase, my addiction to me.
Barack Obama said on August 16, 2008, “I was so obsessed with me and the reasons I might be dissatisfied that I couldn’t focus on other people…When I find myself taking the wrong step, a lot of the times it’s because I’m trying to protect myself instead of trying to do God’s work.” This sufficiently describes the ‘me’dom state of our human condition—nature.
The Truth about Addiction
Alcohol and drug abuse and dependence, sexual and relational addictions, food addictions and eating disorders, emotional obsessions, gambling addictions, technology addictions, and so on, are symptomatic of the MEdom self-centeredness that fuels your dissatisfaction and shapes your values and belief system. It is paramount for the effective recovery from all addictive thinking and behavior that the issue of conditioned selfish dissatisfaction is challenged on every front. To choose to not submit to a committed relationship with God to effectively confront the scientific reality of the brain gone rogue, independent of the perfect will of God, is tantamount to choosing to remain ill apart from the compassionate mercy of God who loves you and gave up His Son’s life for you to be far better than you are.
Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They asked him, “What do you mean set free? We’ve never been anyone’s slave.” Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave of sin” (John 8:32-34, modified). Sin is the Bible’s three-letter word for our selfish intentions and behavior.
The Apostle Paul wrote, “I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. 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. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?” (Portions of Romans 7, modified)
The Apostle Peter wrote, “They themselves are slaves of destructive habits. For a man is a slave of anything that has conquered him” (2 Peter 2:19).
The Rolling Stones sing, “Though I tried and I tried and I tried and I tried, I can’t get no satisfaction.”
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- What in your life do you find most satisfying? Explain.
- What in your life do you find least satisfying? Explain.
- If you could achieve satisfaction in your life, what would it look like?
- Which relationships in your life are most important to you? List them, including professional relationships.
- If your most important relationships in your life were to your satisfaction, what would they look like? Explain for each relationship on your list.
- What would you presume needs to happen for your relationships to be most satisfying? Explain for each relationship on your list.
- Are you equipped to do what is necessary to achieve satisfaction in all aspects of your life? Explain.
- Are you equipped to solve every problem needed to be solved to achieve satisfaction? Explain.
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The first of the Twelve Steps states that, “I admit that I am powerless and that my life is unmanageable.” Your NewLife Experience will investigate what has been going wrong and created problems for you so that you can step out of denial and ADMIT that you are lost and stuck, and in need of help.
The second of the Twelve Steps states that, “I came to believe in a power greater than myself and that He can restore me to sanity.” This is the step that has been secularized and watered down with the implication that my higher power can be almost anything from God, to some spiritual force in the universe somewhere, to the beauty that is in nature, to the fellowship of other people, to inanimate objects that hold meaning of some kind. An ambiguous spirit in the universe might be more powerful than you are. Certain forces of nature, such as gravity and the earth and the sun and such are certainly more powerful than you are. If enough people ganged up on me would be more powerful than you are. Inanimate objects like a train would be more powerful than you are. Which of these higher powers know me, and care enough about me specifically to help me in my need and will actually restore me to sanity? Your NewLife Xperience will help you to BELIEVE that God, who sacrificed His only son, Jesus, loves you and has resurrection power to save and restore you to sanity with the promise to transform your life by renewing your mind.
The third of the Twelve Steps states that, “I made a conscious decision to turn my will and my life over to the will and care of God as I understood Him.” This step too as been secularized and watered down to the point that God is a metaphor for spirituality, but not necessarily as divine authority. If one understands God as being within the person, her spiritual center, than she only need to focus on her human spirit and listen to her inner voice as the voice of “God”. Your NewLife Xperience will reveal to you that it is the inner voice of your human spirit that drives your selfishness and is never satisfied. NLX will help you to no longer trust your inner voice but to COMMIT to trusting God in relationship with Jesus Christ for every detail of your life for your benefit as you have come to believe Him to be exactly as He says He is, understanding His promises are true and real and applicable, and that they are meant for you. That is why the founders of recovery wrote, “…as I understood Him”. It is because of understanding and faith in relationship with God that recovering people are confident and ultimate set free to live.
The Apostle Paul wrote (Romans 12:1-2), “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, 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.” He wrote, “in view of God’s mercy”, meaning, “as we came to believe”, or “as we understood Him”, because faith in what and who we know is what drives recovery.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1 (NKJV)
Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see. Hebrews 11:1 (NLT)
Are you ready to begin? Alright, let’s get started with “ADMIT” and then move on from there into “BELIEVE” and “COMMIT”.
“You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:32
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If you are abusing alcohol or drugs of any kind…
You must make the effort to discontinue the use of alcohol and drugs in order to experience the full benefit of this course. The reality for those you abusing or dependent on alcohol and/or drugs is that these chemicals are in constant conflict with the chemical processes of the brain and are constantly working against you to sabotage any progress you are attempting to make throughout this course.
It could be said that this is a “which came first, the chicken or the egg” argument since recovery from alcohol and drug use, symptomatic of the underlying dissatisfaction confronted by this course, which needs to be dealt with to effectively recover from alcohol and drug abuse and dependence. With the exception of methadone programs for narcotic drug addicts, recovery programs require their participants to abstain from using, and typically drug test to ensure that they abstain. This may involve some serious withdrawal but withdrawal goes with the territory of authentic recovery.
If you are taking this course and are abusing or are addicted to drugs and/or alcohol, you are hereby, at the very least, encouraged to seek help/treatment for that problem while, or prior to, taking this course, in order to be of sober mind while taking the course. If you aware that you have an eating disorder and/or are participating in self-injurious behavior, you are hereby, at the very least, encouraged to seek help/treatment while or prior to participating in this course. If you are married or about to be married, and you are in a sexual relationship or are in an emotionally charged relationship that is not sexual yet, with someone who is not your spouse, you are hereby, at the very least, encouraged to seek help/treatment while or prior to participating in this course.
This is serious business… are you willing?
If you are sincere in your intentions and motives to experience recovery into a new life experience of freedom, you will experience deep conviction to change profoundly as you move through this course. NLX 101 will take into those deep places that are uncomfortable and even threatening. But if you are serious about life-changing recovery and are willing to “go there” you will have the opportunity to experience the transformative power of God’s truth and plan for your life.
The one thing this course requires absolutely is honesty; not partial honesty—half truths that wouldn’t pass a polygraph test—but full and complete non-compromising honesty. Integrity is doing the right and good thing when no one is looking. You may as well work through this course with integrity or it will not lead to the change that you are looking for.
And away you go!
