...so what's the answer
When I said all that stuff yesterday about my infatuation with myself... that self-love issue I have... my obsession with myself... about living in my own little world of self-importance... I started musing about where to take all that today... where do I go with it... then this thought came through my brain... so what's the answer?.... why don't you simply talk about... the answer.
That's fair enough... so I thought I'd take a shot at the answer... actually the only answer... I had tried all the self help stuff... the discipline stuff... the take back control of my life stuff.....obey all the rules... do the right things... stop doing the wrong things... none of it worked... until I finally discovered that it was totally impossible to change myself... I had just struggled along... trying to be better... like we all do.... trying hard to stop doing all the things that were destroying my life.
The first thing I had to see... was that human beings are always going to be human beings.... even when we find God and suddenly discover a whole bunch of stuff that all of a sudden just stops... like so many of my addictions that were simply gone... they disappeared... God had come into my life and I just discovered a new me... unfortunately I plugged that into the doctrines of what had just occurred... I was taught that I had been born again... a second time... a spiritual birth...taught that I was a whole new creature... my old man was dead and I had put on the new man... I had been dead in trespass and sin but now resurrected to a whole new life in Christ.... it was no longer I who lived but Christ lived in me... for me to live was Christ....
All those things were true.... great teachings... but Philip had only experienced that life in three areas ..... how come there were so many areas where I didn't change... so many ugly responses in so many other areas... how come I was discovering whole new areas of junk in my life that I never even knew existed before... well.. let me tell you about that.
My three addiction areas of immediate change were: alcohol... nicotine... womanizing... the answer had come into my life... His presence in just a very small way immediately eliminated those things... I haven't been drunk in 43 years... I was an alcoholic... I am no longer an alcoholic...
I haven't had so much as a desire even for a cigarette since that day... I was smoking about 3 packs of Camels a day... had no withdrawal... nothing... the Presence just took it away... I became a one woman man that day... the Presence of Jesus began a process of His living His Life in me.... I saw myself as a new creature.... I even stopped being Philip the Foul Mouth that day... it just stopped... one day I just realized my vocabulary had changed.
What I did not understand that day was that I had become all those things.... because I had given myself to all those things. We become what we give ourselves to. I wish I had understood more that day... or been taught something besides a doctrine or two... because I gave myself that day to the doctrines... gave myself to religion... and became what I gave myself to... I became a religious nutcase... a self-righteous pharisee... better than the rest of the human race... didn't know it back then... but I know it now....
I am so blessed that the Presence didn't leave me there... more on that next time.
:)
That's fair enough... so I thought I'd take a shot at the answer... actually the only answer... I had tried all the self help stuff... the discipline stuff... the take back control of my life stuff.....obey all the rules... do the right things... stop doing the wrong things... none of it worked... until I finally discovered that it was totally impossible to change myself... I had just struggled along... trying to be better... like we all do.... trying hard to stop doing all the things that were destroying my life.
The first thing I had to see... was that human beings are always going to be human beings.... even when we find God and suddenly discover a whole bunch of stuff that all of a sudden just stops... like so many of my addictions that were simply gone... they disappeared... God had come into my life and I just discovered a new me... unfortunately I plugged that into the doctrines of what had just occurred... I was taught that I had been born again... a second time... a spiritual birth...taught that I was a whole new creature... my old man was dead and I had put on the new man... I had been dead in trespass and sin but now resurrected to a whole new life in Christ.... it was no longer I who lived but Christ lived in me... for me to live was Christ....
All those things were true.... great teachings... but Philip had only experienced that life in three areas ..... how come there were so many areas where I didn't change... so many ugly responses in so many other areas... how come I was discovering whole new areas of junk in my life that I never even knew existed before... well.. let me tell you about that.
My three addiction areas of immediate change were: alcohol... nicotine... womanizing... the answer had come into my life... His presence in just a very small way immediately eliminated those things... I haven't been drunk in 43 years... I was an alcoholic... I am no longer an alcoholic...
I haven't had so much as a desire even for a cigarette since that day... I was smoking about 3 packs of Camels a day... had no withdrawal... nothing... the Presence just took it away... I became a one woman man that day... the Presence of Jesus began a process of His living His Life in me.... I saw myself as a new creature.... I even stopped being Philip the Foul Mouth that day... it just stopped... one day I just realized my vocabulary had changed.
What I did not understand that day was that I had become all those things.... because I had given myself to all those things. We become what we give ourselves to. I wish I had understood more that day... or been taught something besides a doctrine or two... because I gave myself that day to the doctrines... gave myself to religion... and became what I gave myself to... I became a religious nutcase... a self-righteous pharisee... better than the rest of the human race... didn't know it back then... but I know it now....
I am so blessed that the Presence didn't leave me there... more on that next time.
:)
