Step 1 Introduction

Tonight we start anew at Step 1 and Principle 1.  Another year has began, and as one year rolls into the next we tend to reflect upon our lives and any changes we’d like to make.  New Year’s resolutions are common; what’s just as common is the breaking of those resolutions.  As we gather tonight to find hope and help, let’s take a few moments to consider that our hurts and habits need more than another New Year’s resolution; we need to realize that we may have some faulty beliefs that are hindering our recovery and that we may not fully understand or accept some truth about ourselves that hinders us as well.

Let’s begin with some faulty beliefs we might have…

What We Believe that isn’t true
My problem is no big deal, it doesn’t affect anyone else.  You may think that your addictive habit or your resentful response to hurts doesn’t affect anyone else, but be sure that it does, either directly or indirectly.  This is because these impact your relationships one way or another, maybe by causing you to ignore the needs of your family, for instance.  You may also think that you can handle it on your own, for the most part anyway.  If that were true, you wouldn’t be here, or wouldn’t be reading this.

I just need to try harder.  This is what the first couple steps are all about.  I don’t know about you, but my best efforts get me right back into trouble.  Our hurts and habits are mostly spiritual issues according to Scripture; Ephesians 6:12 says, “for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”  That is a battle you cannot win on your own.  The good news is that you don’t have to fight it alone, Jesus Christ has already won the victory for you when He died on the cross as the sacrifice for our sin and then rose to life three days later.  Having that victory is a matter of believing in Christ, committing to Him.  Living in that victory is a matter of submitting to His Holy Spirit and that is what the 12 Steps teach us to do.

I can keep this up on my own.  You might have some success for a limited time on your own, but those hurts and habits still lurk, still pursue, and they will come after you with a vengeance.  Ever notice that when we try to deal with one hurt or habit and seem to have some success, we usually just switch to another hurt or habit to replace it?  That is exactly what happens, and often once we have some new addiction and it starts to hurt, the old one comes back promising some relief only to bring compounded grief.  Along the way we usually develop some wrong beliefs too, wrong beliefs about our hurts and habits, about ourselves, about other people, and even about God.

I have a problem, but I’m still a good person.  We think things like, “Maybe I’m just defective, having a genetic predisposition for my addiction, or maybe I’m a just a victim, having been programmed to this activity because of my environment or things that have happened to me.  Maybe I’m just unlucky, having circumstances beyond my control that that lead me to behave this way.  Either way, I’m still a pretty good person, so God owes me leniency and forgiveness.”  But that is not the case.

Many times this all adds up to the faulty belief that…
If God loves me, He will fix my problem quickly and let me get on with my life.  That is nothing but mixing some truth and a lie which never makes truth.  Sometimes my wife makes me an omelet on Saturday mornings, but if she made it with two good eggs and one rotten one, the whole omelet would be rotten, right?  Would you want to eat an omelet made with a rotten egg, hoping the good ones would overcome the rotten one?!  I didn’t think so.  So, looking at that statement, some things are true and some are false.  It is true that God does love you and that God can help you recover from hurts and habits.  But, it usually isn’t “quick and painless” because if it was then we would learn nothing.  If you had a son that got into constant trouble at school for stealing things, but every time he got caught you simply paid for the item and he never got punished, you better have lots of money because he will be stealing for the rest of his life.  God loves you too much to let you go on without learning to change how you think and act, and those kind of changes take time.  That’s why it is also false to think that God wants you to just “get on with your life.”  Seriously, that’s what got you into the hurts and habits in the first place, why would He let you go back to that.  Instead, He want to give you new life, not that it is free of trouble, but one that lets you live in victory over life’s troubles.  Most of all, He wants you to love and trust Him instead of yourself.

Now let’s consider…
What we should believe, but often don’t.
God did create you and He cares for you.
Psalm 139:13, 16 says, “For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb…Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.  And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.”

Your hurts and habits were not God’s doing.
James 1:13 says, “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone.

Your addictive behaviors are beyond your control, but not bc you are defective, because you’re a victim, or because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Romans 3:11-12 says, “There is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one.”

Your habits addictive behaviors are due to the reality of being enslaved to sin.
Romans 6 tells us we are all slaves of sin outside of Christ, but 6:19 says, “…for just as you presented your members as slaves to uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness, for holiness.”

Finally,
It’s not a question of God’s love for you; it’s a question of your love for Him.
John 3:16 says, “For God so loved you that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever should believe in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.”  In John 14:15, Jesus said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.”  In Matthew 22:37 Jesus said that the greatest commandment it this: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.”  So, “cling to Him, your refuge & strength, our present help in trouble,” as Psalm 46:1 says.  Otherwise, you will keep on relying on yourself, or even worse, upon your addiction.

Conclusion:
Recovery is a life-long process: it is the process of learning to love God back, allowing Him to be our strength and help, and allowing Him to teach us the Truth about Him and about ourselves.  What you believe makes a lot of difference!