"If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and He will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. But when you ask Him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. Such people should not expect to r
eceive
anything from the Lord. Their loyalty is divided between God and the
world, and they are unstable in everything they do." James 1:5-8 NLT
When we first begin our recovery and a relationship with God many of us are on a fence with one side being all about this new way of life and the other about where we just came from. As much as we want to be "all in" our recovery and our relationship with Christ it's hard not to still be attracted to the life we lived for so long. Eventually most Christians grow out of this to the point that we only feel an occasional tug from the other life. We see it for what it truly is, an animalistic existence that is self destructive in nature and brought us mostly misery, where as our new life has brought us peace, freedom and joy and a life finally worth living.
However, some of us can't ever seem to get off the fence. We are either substituting our issues with something else or we can't completely get away from our original issue. In other words we got off the drugs but can't stay out the casino or maybe we don't drink anymore but we still going to bars. Whatever it is we just can't seem to shake the attraction to our old way of life so we stay on the fence unable to really grow spiritually and are still in pain without even realizing it.
God is offering us a way up and a way out, a way off that fence. He knows that as attractive as that life might be, the pain is slowly killing us. He wants us to stop "catching hell and calling it fun." All that is required is for us to completely surrender to Him. Even our best days on the other side or even on the fence can even begin to compare to being secure in this new way of life. In Christ there is real peace, real freedom, real joy, real love, real acceptance, and even real fun. Even when we encounter painful situations or make mistakes there is real comfort and real forgiveness. Maybe its time for us to stop living in an illusion and buy into whats real.
When we first begin our recovery and a relationship with God many of us are on a fence with one side being all about this new way of life and the other about where we just came from. As much as we want to be "all in" our recovery and our relationship with Christ it's hard not to still be attracted to the life we lived for so long. Eventually most Christians grow out of this to the point that we only feel an occasional tug from the other life. We see it for what it truly is, an animalistic existence that is self destructive in nature and brought us mostly misery, where as our new life has brought us peace, freedom and joy and a life finally worth living.
However, some of us can't ever seem to get off the fence. We are either substituting our issues with something else or we can't completely get away from our original issue. In other words we got off the drugs but can't stay out the casino or maybe we don't drink anymore but we still going to bars. Whatever it is we just can't seem to shake the attraction to our old way of life so we stay on the fence unable to really grow spiritually and are still in pain without even realizing it.
God is offering us a way up and a way out, a way off that fence. He knows that as attractive as that life might be, the pain is slowly killing us. He wants us to stop "catching hell and calling it fun." All that is required is for us to completely surrender to Him. Even our best days on the other side or even on the fence can even begin to compare to being secure in this new way of life. In Christ there is real peace, real freedom, real joy, real love, real acceptance, and even real fun. Even when we encounter painful situations or make mistakes there is real comfort and real forgiveness. Maybe its time for us to stop living in an illusion and buy into whats real.
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