Getting to Know God - Free in Christ

Getting to Know God - Using God's Strength

  What using God's Strength DOES mean:

• Learning that God actually cares about me and wants me to be free and to build a relationship with him.

• Acknowledge my efforts in trying to break this addiction have been futile 

• I could use help from the ultimate higher power - God himself.

• Realizing that "knowing God" is really developing a relationship with God 

  • By learning spiritual principles and building ties with other humans who also know God - so we can support each other with God's truths.  

• Turn my guilt over to God - and accept an a gift I do not deserve, God's forgiveness - because the price for my "sins" has been paid.

  • This means I learn about reconditioning my mind from destructive thought patterns and behaviors over time by learning and applying the truths God offers.

• Realize it will take time and commit myself to understanding there are no quick fixes.  

• Be willing to live each day and focus on the next step God wants me to take - I don't have to solve my whole life's problem today.  I can allow God to take control of my future and just focus on the next steps that are clearly before me.

• Realize that as I move away from addiction, I will face many of the things I am running from or trying to escape from through my addiction.  As a result, I will have a variety of emotions and feelings - negative and positive.

• I can open myself to the help of others (like the 250-plus members in FIC) and open myself to Gods help and focus on living one day at a time.

  What using God's Strength does not mean:

• It does not mean living by some restrictive list of do's and don'ts

• It does not mean I have to be judgmental of others 

  • (Christians should repent from a life of sin.  Knowing God means I take personal responsibility for my own life (not of others).  

• It is not merely religious system.

• It does not mean I have to speak with Christian lingo.

• It is not just a moral system.

• It does not mean using "religion" as an escape from the realities of life.

• It does not mean my life has to be "boring".

• It does not mean I have to be a "Bible-Thumper".

• It does not mean I have to be so holy that I can't relate other human beings.

• It does not mean I have to think I am better than everyone/anyone else.

• It does not mean I have to be self-righteous.

• It does not mean I have to be unforgiving to others, or slam them verbally.

• It does not mean I can't be a critical thinker.

...he [God] devises ways so that a banished person may not remain estranged from him... (click blue text to see complete verse)