Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid: you are worth more than many sparrows. (Matthew 10:29-31)
Do you spend time in God's presence praying, singing praises to Him, and bowing before Him? These are things that each of us benefit from.
Do you feel too reliant on your own strengths or too proud to bow or sing to God? If that's the case then look with me at a real man in the Old Testament. The psalms of King David are songs that still give us direction and hope. David was a man who knew his own sinfulness yet was able to sing, "What joy for those you choose to bring near, those who live in Your holy courts. What joys await us inside your holy
God wants you to know you are welcome and valued before Him.
The joy you find in His presence each day will help you stay tuned in to His desire for you. Worship and prayer will remind you of how great and holy God is. You'll gain a new appreciation for how gracious God is to forgive you and allow you into His presence.
When was the last time you prayed and sang to Jesus? If it's been a while, try it. You'll experience something very special. You'll continue the process of being transformed into the image of Jesus Christ.
The challenge of feelings
All of us, especially those in recovery are aligning old feelings with new feelings. It can be quite confusing at times. When you heard above that you are valued before God, what was the first thing that entered your mind?
These “first thoughts” are so important to take note of because they reveal the inner life. This is what’s great about the step-study small groups—they ask us to bring to surface those buried feelings that can enslave us from experienced joy.
It has been said that faith comes before feelings. Allow your feelings to draw you to God, confess any known sin (wrong doings towards others past and present), make things right (amends), and accept that Jesus forgave you on the cross. Forgiveness has been given, we just need to go back to the cross and receive it once again. Come to God in faith on what Jesus already accomplished on the cross. It is Christ plus nothing!
We need to do our part—accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, confess our wrong doings, make amends, and walk by faith in what has been accomplished on the cross. Joy in His presence is available for those in Christ--and it is joy our hearts long for, not all the false substitutes the world offers.
Joy is not dependent on circumstances! The Apostle Paul makes this clear in his epistle to the Philippians--a letter he wrote while at the end of a two year prison sentence in chains, yet still full of joy in the Lord. Amazing...but this is also available to us if we walk by faith and believe.
The Steps in Practice:
I admitted I was powerless over my addictions and compulsive behaviors. That my life had become unmanageable.
I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. (Romans 7:18)
I came to believe that a power (Jesus Christ) is greater than myself and could restore me to sanity.
For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. (Philippians 2:13)
I made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God.
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. (Romans 12:1)
I made a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself.
Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the LORD. (Lamentations 3:40)
I admitted to God, to myself, and to another human being, the exact nature of my wrongs.
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. (James 5:16a)
I was entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. (James 4:10)
I humbly asked Him to remove all my shortcomings.
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)
2. Walk by faith in what has been accomplished on the cross.
Salvation is accomplished by the work of the Christ alone. His sinless life and substitutionary atonement alone are sufficient for our justification and reconciliation to the Father.
* It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1).
* Now the just shall live by faith…(Hebrews
* Jesus the author and perfector of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart. (Hebrews 12:2-3)
* For we walk by faith, not by sight. (2 Corinthians 5:7)
* While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:18)
* Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.
In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (1 Peter 1:3-9)
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