Written by Steven Gledhill for FREEdom From MEdom Project
Religion’s Regret
Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you. James 1:27 (NLT)
For three groups of people: those wounded by institutionalized religion to one extent or another; those praying for family and friends lost in their stuff and resistant to spiritual TRUTH; and those who are self-righteous enough to presume who is going to Heaven and who is not; this is for you. Whatever the truth is, truth is truth, and it is what it is. Whether we believe it or not, does not change what is absolutely true, and therefore real. May you pursue revelation from God: that which is true from His perspective.
There are scores of people that are opposed to Christianity. If you mention the word “God”, or speak of things such as church, Jesus Christ, or religion, some folks that are opposed to anything remotely “Christian” or religious tend to cringe. Many of these folks may tell you that they are spiritual, but in their own way. These 
folks that are adamantly opposed to religion are also known by their Sympathetic Savior. Even Jesus Christ had big-time concerns with the manipulative hold corrupt religious groups had on so many of those he loved in his days as a man on the earth, and those he continues to love today.
Oscar winner*, Trent Reznor, heads up the band, Nine Inch Nails. Mr. Reznor has earned millions of dollars anointed by a devout subculture into believing that ‘all things God’ is one big lie. The following are lyrics to Reznor’s song, “Terrible Lie” that I would not have known had my younger thirty-something brother not implored me to sit down and view a concert video of Nine Inch Nails singing this anthem for tens of thousands in attendance.
Hey God, why are you doing this to me?
Am I not living up to what I’m supposed to be
Why am I seething with animosity?
Hey God, I think you owe me a great big apology
Terrible lie, terrible lie, terrible lie, terrible lie!
Hey God, I don’t really know what you mean
Seems like salvation comes only in our dreams;
I feel my hatred grow all the more extreme
Hey God, can this world really be as sad as it seems?
Terrible lie, terrible lie, terrible lie, terrible lie!
Don’t take it away from me. I need someone to hold onto
Hey God, there’s nothing left for me to hide;
I lost my ignorance, security and pride
I’m all alone in a world you must despise.
Hey God, I believed your promises and lies
Terrible lie, terrible lie, terrible lie, terrible lie!
You made me throw it all away
My morals left to decay; How many you betray;
You’ve taken everything
Terrible lie, terrible lie, terrible lie, terrible lie!
My head is filled with disease; My skin is begging you please;
I’m on my hands and knees; I want so much to believe.
I need someone to hold on to, I need someone
I give you everything, my sweet everything;
Hey God, I really don’t know who I am.
Upon reading these lyrics would you be willing to venture a guess what the band name “Nine Inch Nails” is referring to? I am bringing this to light because your sons and your daughters, or your husbands or wives, or your mothers and fathers, might believe this about Jesus Christ. You get a sense that they live in a world that is dark and lonely, full of anger and bitterness. Maybe their friends are angry and bitter. The enemy of God is definitely hard at work to drag your loved ones down into the sorrow of shame and the depths of despair. Or perhaps this is your struggle with faith. However, for Reznor faith is a struggle. His problem, really, is with religious culture and institutions.
Reznor said this in an internet interview about his own experience in the culture he promotes, stating, “Yes, oddly enough, that album (Downward Spiral, 1994) began my own personal plummet into the depths of addiction and finding out that my way doesn’t work…After a while, you get too far down in the quicksand. You do loathe yourself because you’ve lost all self-respect. I remember thinking, ‘What is the point? I’ve had everything I’ve ever wanted in my life and I’m vomiting in the sink again. How did that happen?’ I had become a terrible addict. I hated myself. Every aspect of my life changed. I felt my whole life up until that point I had been swimming against the current. I came to realize what I was fighting for didn’t make sense anymore.”
The man who many say speak for a generation or two over the past twenty years admits that his way doesn’t work. He acknowledges that he was driven, even controlled, by a spirit of addiction. In his lyrics, it is clear that the spirit of Trent Reznor is confused. I have a hunch that in his unhappiness he doesn’t want to believe the lie and does not want to be controlled by it.
We all know people who are just plain angry and bitter. We know people who are disgusted with who they are, what they are, where they are, and why they are all those things. They cannot find their way in and they cannot find their way out. They are stuck where they are and it hurts real badly. Mr. Reznor, in his song “Closer” wrote,
You can have my isolation; You can have the hate that it brings
You can have my absence of faith; You can have my everything
Help me become somebody else.
God does help us to become different. He does help us to be transformed. He does so by renewing our minds (Romans 12:1-2). The Bible tells us that when we let go and give ourselves over to the care of God, he creates a new life within our life.
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NKJV)
There is a terrible lie at work within the “church” of religion in America and throughout the world. The church of religion is promoting a “god” religion that is not God at all, but is an idol in the name of Jesus, but made by man in man’s image of Jesus. This god of religion endorses principles of shame, fear and punishment to make its point.
Jesus was in serious conflict with the religious heads of state that essentially governed and lorded over the citizens. The Pharisees and scribes used religious policy to take advantage of the people legally, monetarily and morally. They used their heavy club of self-righteous legalism against the people for the purpose of tearing them down and diminishing their quality of life. Jesus, the week before he would be arrested and killed, called them out. He made it a point to bring down the “church” of religion. 
Jesus opposed organized religion as it was constituted at that time. He called the Pharisees blind guides, hypocrites, vipers and white-washed sepulchers full of dry bones. Anytime Jesus said “Woe” concerning the Pharisees, the meaning is that they were wretched and miserable, the lowest of low bound to hell.
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.” Matthew 23:13 (NIV)
Jesus Christ directly accused the institution of religion in his day of a “terrible lie.” He stood before the Pharisees in front of thousands of people during the Passover Week, shook his fist and cried out, “They believed your promises; your promises and lies. Terrible lie! Terrible lie!” Jesus said about anyone using the guise of religion to manipulate the vulnerable:
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’” Matthew 7:21-23 (NIV)
So many individuals and families have bought into the terrible lie perpetrated by the ideology of religion. This whole subculture that is anti-Jesus has embraced an image of Christ cloaked in the uniform of man-made religion. Since religious denominations and sects have shrouded Jesus Christ in their various colors of religious “doctrine”, he is perceived by the anti-religious subculture of society to wear their symbols. Anti-religious logic then dictates that those seething with animosity toward religion tend to discard Jesus as merely the mascot of the institution of religion.
I wonder how Jesus must feel about how institutionalized religion has built this idol that looks like him but on so many levels betrays what Jesus Christ is all about.
If you claim to be religious but don’t control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless. Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you. James 1:26-27 (NLT)
Jesus Christ died for the guilty. What is malicious is that through the ritualization of religion we have minimized the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Rather than imitating the lifestyle of the man, Jesus, so many of us feel threatened, that having to live as Jesus lived is a violation of our “right” to live whatever way we want no matter the cost to ourselves or anybody else. We don’t want even God telling us or showing how to live, even though he wants only good for us out of his bounty and love for us. Unfortunately, this mindset is prevalent in anyone not in relationship with Christ. A relationship with Jesus Christ is too often perceived as a threat to one’s quality and quantity of life. But when properly understood, a relationship with Christ is an incredible opportunity to upgrade one’s quality and quantity of life.
Jesus is sympathetic to those of you who have struggled over the years with the problem of religion. Christ wants for you to be driven by choice to have a relationship with Him. Religion favors a regimen of self-righteous rules and dutiful obligations so that you are driven by shame and intimidation to have a connection to a religious institution of some kind. Jesus extends grace to you. Recovery in Christ is promised to all who embrace a relationship with Him. There is life in relationship with God in recovery without the regret of religion. We do and give for each other from a place of love in healthy relationships because we want to, not compelled by obligation and duty from a place of fear of punishment.
LIFE in Relationship versus REGRET of Religion
Choice: “Want to” versus Duty: “Have to”
Giving (mercy) versus Earning (works)
Forgiveness versus Condemnation
Affection versus Punishment
Build Up versus Tear Down
Fearless versus Fearful
Joy versus Shame
Compelled by Love versus Compelled by Law
Family—Inclusive versus Institution—Exclusive
Reconciliation versus Regret
When you live to give your spouse and your children the best of who you are and what you have, is it merely because you have to out of a sense of obligation, or is it because you want to because you love them so much? Do you make it a point to condemn your children and hold them captive in their shame, or do you forgive them out of love for them with a desire to teach them the concept of forgiveness? Religion trends toward promoting punishment over reconciliation and mercy. If you don’t do it right you cannot be forgiven and shown mercy. If you don’t do religion right God’s grace cannot be extended to you.
That brings me to another point. We need to be careful not to judge others who believe that Jesus Christ is in fact their Messiah and Redeemer, but might not always be on the same page you are doctrinally. Jesus said he is the way to the Father and that no one comes to the Father except through him. Yet there are groups of people being judged who believe that about Jesus, because they know Jesus to be of God, but not necessarily himself God. They believe Jesus suffered and died for their sin; they believe he arose from the dead; and they believe he sits at the right hand of the Father; but may not fully comprehend him to be one with God as the visible manifestation of the person of God. Yet they do know Jesus Christ to be their Savior from their sin.
My question is this: What did the thief on the cross know about the deity of Christ? All the thief really understood was that Jesus represented hope that he wanted to share in. The thief recognized that he was wrong and that Jesus was right. The thief wanted in with Jesus in his final hours but didn’t know really where they were going together when Jesus said to the thief, “Today you’ll be with me in Paradise”.
If someone you loved and cherished, perhaps your spouse or your son or daughter, broke your heart and left you, went their own way, got into serious trouble, and were about to die in their mess, then finally came to their senses, decided to come back to you. When they come back, what are you thinking? What are you feeling? Are you concerned that they may not fully understand and appreciate the very essence of who you are? Or are you simply thrilled that they found their way back; that they were once lost and now they are found; that they were once dead in their mess and now they are alive?
The sound doctrine of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the great news that he sacrificed everything to include even the vilest of sinners who turn away from the ways of addictive sin through a lifesaving relationship with Jesus Christ. I’ll guarantee you this: Christ does not have an ego problem. He is certainly secure in who he is as God. If we engage God in relationship through Jesus Christ, we are saved, period. Christ didn’t suffer and die to exclude a group of his beloved creation due of a “technicality”.
This is not written to in anyway to trivialize the core components of salvation theology. It is written to broaden our perspective and appreciation of the scope of God’s love and mercy. Narrow is the road that leads to salvation, but…as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to be children of God, to those who believe in His name. John 1:12 (NKJV)…if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9, NIV)
Remember that the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the message of salvation is inclusive, not exclusive. Heaven will not consist of Jew or Gentile. It will not be made up of Baptists, Lutherans, Catholics, Methodists, Pentecostals, Episcopalians, Mormons, or Jehovah Witnesses. Heaven will consist of God’s children. The true Church of Jesus Christ are those who believe that he has forgiven them of their sin, and believe that he is alive to love and care for them. That is the Good News of Christ’s message. In heaven we will not be a family divided. Jesus called for unity of the people of God, and prayed to his Father often for the unity of those who believe in him.
Let’s not be like the brother of the prodigal son who, out of jealousy, became angry that his father would want to celebrate the return of his brother who had thrown his life away until figuring some things out. Let’s not resent it when a thief or a murderer, or a harlot, who upon coming to their senses comes back home and is invited by our Father to rejoin the family. Let’s rejoice that our God is so incredibly loving and merciful that even the “worst” of us can return home having had enough of that life, and choose to let it go for the life God has for all who submit to him.
Let us be careful and humbly examine ourselves; and then, having been purged of the worst that is in us, compelled by love, pray for our loved ones that we are concerned about and encourage them. The twelfth of the twelve steps says that as we are enlightened by the revelation of the mercy of God who blesses us in our recovery walk, we are compelled to extend this mercy and grace to every one of our brothers and sisters, inviting them into the family of recovery. You are not entirely free until this truth is embedded into the fiber of your recovery. God loves each one of us impartially and did not send his son to be sacrificed for a few. So show compassion to your brother and to your sister. Show compassion to your neighbor. Who’s your neighbor? According to the story Jesus told (Luke 10:25-37), your neighbor is the person you don’t necessarily get along with. He might even be the one you don’t agree with doctrinally. But when he hurts, being free means that you are able to help him pick up the pieces of his broken life, no longer bound by religious differences.
Being set free by the love of our Sympathetic Savior, the only one qualified to be our priest (Hebrews 4:14-16), we are no longer pre-occupied with the boundaries and restraints of religious applications and traditions, even though we are free to enjoy religious applications and traditions so long as they are consistent with the truth that Jesus said has indeed made us free. Jesus Christ is our access to God. Feel free to pursue him, even religiously if you’d like. Simply remember that is our relationship that God really desires, not our “religious” sacrifice (read Hebrews 10).
If you are committed to applying the strategy of authentic recovery as laid out in what you have read and hopefully will study, you will experience a relationship with God in the person of Jesus Christ that will change your life from now into eternity. You will also be compelled by love to share the blessing of real freedom every single time you have the opportunity to do so. Once you truly get it, you can’t help but to share it. In this relationship with Christ shared and enjoyed amongst an ever expanding family, we are free to love without reservation or regret. What amazing truth to be experienced by all. Pass it on.
Therefore, since God in his mercy has given us this new way, we never give up… We don’t try to trick anyone or distort the word of God. We tell the truth before God… The Deceiver of this world has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ. 2 Corinthians 4:1-4
Whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away… For wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 2 Corinthians 3:16-17
Oh, one more thing. If you are reading this and you’re not sure how to identify with or relate to God—after all, He is a big God—simply try to talking to God, out loud if you can, and let Him know what you are thinking and feeling. Tell Him what your issues are with Him. Tell Him why faith is difficult for you. Pray for revelation of truth; not just “truth” as you might want to receive it through a preconceived lense, but the real truth of who God is. Then trust Him to reveal His truth to you. Remember that truth is truth whether you are sure about it or not; whether you believe it or not. I believe with all of my heart that if you are open to receiving God’s truth as it is, that at the very least, you will come to “see” God as beautiful; and at the most, this revelation will only be the beginning of the marvelous experience about to come your way.
Strike It Rich… Oil that Is!
I think my neighbor has been brainwashed into believing he has oil in his backyard. He told me awhile back that a friend of his had struck it rich drilling for oil in his backyard. He said his friend’s life had been completely changed when he committed his life to drilling for oil on his land. Even his friend’s wife and kids were on board with this. I had never heard of such a thing happening in a suburb of Chicago, Illinois.
My neighbor said he went over to where his friend lives and saw the change in his friend’s life. His friend showed him how the drilling equipment, which consumes his friend’s backyard, is set up and how it all works. I asked my neighbor if he saw his friend’s oil with his own eyes. My neighbor’s friend did not show my neighbor actual oil but showed my neighbor all of the things he had obtained from the prosperity in his life and that, while life still had it’s share of challenges and problems that lead to anxiety and stress at times, as long as there is a continuous flow of oil, my neighbor’s friend said he would always be at peace and joy in his life. While my neighbor had not seen his friend’s oil, he saw barrels as far as the eye could see.
One of the challenges my neighbor’s friend has to endure is the constant conflict he has with his neighbors complaining that all of the oil drilling equipment in his yard is really an eye sore in the neighborhood. The village my neighbor’s friend lives in is filing one legal petition after another to get my neighbor’s friend to stop drilling and to get the equipment out of their quaint suburban neighborhood. The oil, however, has become the lifeline for my neighbor’s friend. He has advanced to bigger and better tools for drilling oil. Neighbors of my neighbor’s friend who are concerned about the value of their own homes are saying drilling equipment soars above the roof tops of the houses and that something has to change or they will intensify their legal efforts to shut down the endeavor. My neighbor’s friend tells my neighbor repeatedly that the changes he has made in his life he wants for everyone to enjoy. If there is what seems like an infinite amount of oil on his property it is most certainly available to his neighbors throughout the neighborhood and beyond. Instead, my neighbor’s friend’s neighbors simply think he has been brainwashed into believing there is oil but that it is no more than a figment of his imagination. How can there possibly be oil in suburban Chicago?
My neighbor is a believer, I suppose, because he has invested a whole bunch of his own time, energy, and resources into the tools necessary for drilling oil now in his backyard. I must admit that I am curious so I am watching him; quite closely I might add. My neighbor has ripped up is beautiful backyard and turned it into an expedition for oil. He has been at it for awhile now. His lifestyle has completely changed. His attitudes have changed. At times, I’m not sure this is the man I’ve known for so long. If you knew my neighbor, you would know that he was always on edge, anxious, and stressed. He wrestled with resentments and jealousy. He was selfishly ambitious. My neighbor, in the initial stages of his friend’s oil expedition, couldn’t stand it when his friend would tell him how “blessed” he was since discovering oil.
My wife says the same things about my neighbors wife, about she has changed into something she barely recognizes at times; and my kids say similar things about my neighbor’s kids. My wife says that my neighbor’s wife appears to be at peace with herself; that she is no longer consumed by money matters, and tends to shy away from gossip. Oh, did she love to spill the beans on everything she heard and seen. But all of that seems to have changed.
My neighbor is a new man. The countenance on his face reflects the peace and the joy that he has known in his life since being blessed with all of this oil. My neighbor is my good friend. We have been friends for years. We used to talk about our kids and the ups and downs of family life. We talked about our jobs and how much we would like to be doing something much more enjoyable and fulfilling. We complained about our wives constantly and had some laughs poking fun at them. We loved to talk about sports even though our teams in Chicago are rarely successful. Now, everything we talk about seems to come back around to talking about oil and how it has changed my neighbor’s life, and how he believes it would change my life, and that of my family, if I’d give it a chance.
My neighbor took me around to the other side of his house where now he has barrels of oil as far as the eye can see. I pushed up against one of the barrels. These barrels were full. Full of what? I suppose I’ll have to take my neighbor’s word for it that it is oil. I have never actually seen the oil. I have never seen my neighbor with any extra money from the oil profits. I have not seen my neighbor sell his oil. It’s all a bit mysterious. But my neighbor lives like he has all the money in the world. I don’t mean that he is buying all kinds of stuff or anything like that. He has his share of material possessions but they don’t seem to mean all that much to him, or to his wife, or to his kids, even to his friends who discovered that they have oil gushing on their property as well. They listened my neighbor, became convinced and drilled for themselves.
My neighbor lives within his means. It is how my neighbor lives that has made such an impression on me. It’s how his thinking has changed that fascinates me so. It is the peace in his heart and the joy in his face, and in the faces of his family and oil-rich friends that has so gripped me. He is at rest in his soul.
It is hard at times not to resent him for what he has; or to envy him. I want what he has. When I ask him how to have the peace and the joy, and the absence of shame and resentment in my life, and especially that sense of rest in my soul, he says that all I need to do is pray for faith and begin drilling for oil. He asks me repeatedly if I am naive to think that the abundance of oil begins and ends at the property line between his land and mine—between his life and mine? I hate it when he says that! I said to him, “It always comes back to the (bleepin’) oil! Enough already! That’s good for you… I am happy for you. It’s just so much work! I don’t need that right now! I have enough going on in my life stressing me out.”
Brainwashed by a Renewed Mind
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. Romans 12:1-2 (NIV)
Working at a prison with men who have been incarcerated for years, it is quite clear which of the men who will have the best opportunity for healthy change when they are released back into society. 
It is the men who have come into relationship with God; who recognize Jesus Christ as their higher power greater than themselves; greater than their addictions; greater than their guilt and self-condemnation; greater than their greatest fears.
Facilitating recovery groups in the prison involves cognitive-behavioral therapy and weekly twelve-step meetings. The meetings that heighten the intensity of group discussion are steps two and three concerning a relationship with a higher power—“God of my understanding”. There are men who believe in God the Bible—Jesus Christ—to be their Higher Power who can and will restore them to sanity, empowering them in recovery if they let Him. 
My guess is that at least half of the inmates believe in the one true God of the Bible as the only One with the authority to restore them into recovery by washing their brains and minds clean from the thinking of entitlement that led to addictive and criminal behavior. Perhaps more than half of the rest want to believe and are seeking something more than what they know but don’t know how to believe or what to believe in. The rest claim to be atheist.
The atheist group seems to resent incarcerated men of faith as religious zealots and don’t want to hear them “preach” about their God. They think about God merely in the context of religion, and don’t want to hear about it. However at the same time, they don’t mind hearing about the peace that their fellow inmates have in their hearts and minds IN PRISON.
“I am happier than I’ve ever been”… IN PRISON.
“I got my life back”… IN PRISON.
“I am finally free”… IN PRISON.
The only time I hear these statements is from the men who identify God as their Higher Power in relationship with Jesus. The irony is that while those that don’t believe, or refuse to surrender to Christ, resent the spiritual reality of the men whose faith is in Jesus, they do want the peace and the freedoms that these men are experiencing while in prison. They want so much to experience love and grace and mercy and freedom from shame and self-condemnation. When they wanted something “in the world” (that’s how they say it), they would simply take it, even at gunpoint. What their fellow inmates have deep in their souls cannot be taken from them. If they want it… really want it, they have to drill for oil.
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:4-7 (NIV)
What about you?
Are you drilling for the oil?
Is the oil flowing in and through your life?
Have you struck it rich?
Or, do you resent those who have oil flowing in their lives?
And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. Romans 12:1-2 (NLT)
Don’t waste your time and energy resenting the “religion” of those who have discovered oil and struck it rich. Ask them, “Where does the peace in your life come from?” “How do I find it for my my life?” Ask them how their thinking has changed. Ask them how their brains have been washed. Ask them where the joy comes from that seems to flow through them, and from them.
Jesus said, “Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.” John 7:38 (NLT)
I used the metaphor of drilling for oil since it is perhaps the most precious and applicable commodity in the world today. Oil seems to be the ticket for nations around the world to gain power and leverage. Jesus, however, used the metaphor of water since water is at the essence of life for all living creatures. He talked about Himself as the well of living water where once this water is in you, you will never thirst again. You will know and experience contentment—satisfaction, which is what it’s all about.
Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?” Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:10-14 (NIV)
Ask God to show up in your life. Ask Him to reveal His truth to you. Ask Him for a drink of water from His well of life. Ask Him to be real to you. Ask Him for the tools to drill a well so that he can bless you from it. Seek and you WILL find Him. He is near; closer than you know.
Authority of Transcendent God
What do you believe—really believe—about God today?
What we believe about God depends entirely on our perception of God—our God view, meaning how we see Him. We struggle to trust God when we do not really know Him in relationship. Do you trust people you do not know? It is one thing to meet people and become their acquaintance, and it is another thing to get to know them. To say, “I believe that God has all authority to empower me”… how do you know that?
We are helpless on our own. We can only be helped by a power greater than ourselves with the ability and authority to change how we think if we are going to have a chance at recovery from our problem. Even if we agree that God exists, what does that mean for us in our recovery from selfish sin addiction that leads to symptoms of every other form of addictive thinking, feeling and behaving?
Transcendent God
Dr. Stephen C. Meyer is a Cambridge University-trained philosopher of science, the author of peer-reviewed publications in technical, scientific, philosophical and other books and journals. His signal contribution to ID theory is given most fully in Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design.
Dr. Meyer talks about all matter in the universe as being singular in the sense that it is bound to a standard, or law, of cause and effect. What that means is that a singular universe under the law of cause and effect (the law under which we live by and are controlled by everyday) had to be caused in the first place from the beginning of it before anything could happen in it, to it, and because of it.
The sun happened in the universe. The magnetic gravitational pull of the sun caused the planets to orbit around it, and so the earth we live in orbits around the sun, following the singular cause and effect law of our solar system. We happen to live on the earth. At the earth’s core is it’s own magnetic field that repels against the gravitational pull of the sun just enough that it maintains the distance of some 93 million miles from the sun while it takes about 365 days to revolve all the way around it. To do this the earth travels at a clip of about 67,000 miles per hour. 
Because the earth has it’s own magnetic core, it has it’s own gravitational force that keeps us from floating off the surface of it into outer space everyday. While the earth is traveling 67,000 miles per hour around the sun, it is rotating on its own axis at a speed of just over 1000 miles per hour to spin a complete turn in twenty-four hours (the circumference of the earth is around 25,000 miles). Wow! We’re really moving. Do you feel that? Why don’t we feel that?
So while the sun happened to the earth, life happened on or in the earth, because of the sun . The earth’s atmosphere and stratosphere, and all that, happened to the life that is in the earth. Gravity and oxygen and carbon dioxide and nitrogen and water and food happened to every form of life that is in the earth since the beginning. We are alive today because of this singular cause and effect that is the law of the universe, and our sun, and our earth, and all of the life-giving and sustaining contents in the universe, sun, and earth.
Where did the earth come from? Where did the sun come from? Where did the universe come from? If the universe, and/or even the most rudimentary contents and processes that evoke cause and emit effect existed eternally from before the beginning, it would no longer be under the singular law of cause and effect, but would transcend that law into a creator of some kind. If the universe is transcendent than everything that consists within is transcendent, which of course, we know it isn’t and can’t be because of the evidence of cause and effect. Dr. Meyers explains that what separates God from the universe is that God is not singular but transcendent. God is transcendent and does not exist under the singular law of cause and effect. In fact, God created the law. God is the creator of the singular cause and effect law and system of the evolving, living, and working universe. The problem with evolution without God is that evolution would require the universe to be transcendent. Even the wildest evolutionary theories cannot answer where the very first thing came from, and how long was it stagnant before it began the process and activity of evolving. What brought whatever it was to life is and will always be the burning question.
Even the evolutionary forms of being in the universe had to be created by transcendent God. Whether creation took six days or six billion years is really beside the point. What matters when examining the the authority and sovereignty of God is to accept that God is transcendent and everything else, including the created spiritual reality, is singular; created and under the sovereign authority of Almighty God. The entire ever-expanding universe is under the authority of transcendent God. The worst disaster ever encountered on planet earth is not even noticed or felt in the context of the vast universe, yet as we explore the truth of Scripture, God is paying attention to the number of hairs on your head. You are but a speck on the earth. The earth is but a speck in the galaxy. The galaxy is but a spot in the universe, all created by transcendent God. Yet, God notices you. He notices every move you make; and every breath you take.
Authority & Sovereignty
Everything that lives in whatever capacity it exists does so under the authority of its creator. Every plant, animal, man, woman, and child lives under the authority of the Creator. This ultimate authority means that God is sovereign, which means that while God has put systematic process into motion according to the singular law of cause and effect, and allows for the “natural” consequence of cause and effect throughout the universe, from the most far away star to the systematic process in the human body to a speck of dust, God’s sovereignty can interject and intervene wherever and whenever it deems to do so.
Whenever we talk about, or pray for, for that matter, divine intervention, divine protection, divine inspiration, or divine providence, what is the meaning behind the word ‘divine’? We are talking about and seeking something other-worldly; something above and beyond ourselves; something and someone that transcends the singular cause and effect reality that we live in and cannot escape on our own. God is divine. His power, authority, and control transcends our physical reality; our cognitive reality, and even our known spiritual reality since we tend not to expand our spiritual concepts and precepts beyond what we are able to comprehend.
It is imperative to establish this truth in order to continue in the exploration of what it takes to successfully function in the application of authentic recovery that works empowered by God. If we live under God’s authority then when we pray for God to heal us and deliver us from our addictive mess it should occur without question, correct? Yes…and no. The blessing for us is that we have the free will to choose for ourselves. On the other hand, the problem for us is that we have the free will to choose for ourselves.
Does that mean that God created us to sin? Did God then create sin? No…and, no. We have our selfish sin nature because Adam sinned but Adam was not created with a selfish sin nature. Adam was created with a human nature. All this means is that Adam was not God. Adam, the human being, made a choice that was independent of the will of God since Adam’s will was independent of the will of God.
Lucifer (Satan) was an angel created by God to be majestic and splendid, as were all of the angels. The problem is that Lucifer also was created with a will independent of God’s will, and made a choice out of that “freedom” and independence that went contrary to the will of God. Because Lucifer was not God, he could choose to act contrary to the will of God and did so. He then persuaded one third of all the angels to choose and act with him contrary to the will of God.
When Adam sinned of his own free will from his human nature, even in the absence of a sin nature, he left for all humans who would follow him, a selfish sin nature. But before Adam sinned, Satan acted against God and was banished from heaven to this place called earth. From Satan’s hostility toward God came evil and every immoral thing. Then Satan took it out on God with an assault against His creation, including against Adam and Eve. Satan was someone with guile and influence that rather easily persuaded Adam and Eve to give in to their human desire and the rest is history. Adam and Eve had it all with what God had given them and yet they gave it all away. They forfeited the existence they could have had in uncorrupted fellowship with God, but as soon as they wanted to be God—MEdom—or at the very least, chose independence from God, they experienced the consequence they had been warned about.
When we pray for God’s help, healing, deliverance, provision, protection, and every other blessing, God desires to respond to us by blessing us, which is His will. However, we have the penchant for making cognitive choices in our independence that are contrary to God’s will, that lead to behavior that is contrary to God’s will. Therefore, our cognitive choices result in behavior leading us directly into consequences that prove contrary to God’s will for the universe and plan for us and the world we live in. As Satan fell from heaven, and as Adam fell from utopia, we have fallen hard and we need divine intervention if we are going to recover and get back up on solid stable footing again. Once you accept that God is transcendent, meaning that God is not restricted or confined to the singular law of cause and effect, and that the rest of all that exists does so under the law of cause and effect, then it stands to reason that God is above such a law. Since God is creator of all than it also stands to reason that God is the authority over all that He has created. Every sun and star, every planet, every piece of material in the universe—even the chemical makeup of the air space not consisting of visible material matter—is under the authority of its creator.
Fool or Free? Dead or Alive?
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?
