THE THREE RING CIRCUS OF ADDICTION RECOVERY!

THE THREE RING CIRCUS

OF ADDICTION RECOVERY!

We can divide addiction recovery into three circles or elements or groups. First, there’s the majority, who believe that their addictions are a disease, and that AA type 12-step programs are the only answer to “curing” that disease. Then there is another group that still follow the concept of 12-step recovery, but that there is some undefined “higher power” that can “heal” their disease and change their life, but they have no idea of who or what this “higher power” is, so they make up a false idol to worship. And finally, there is a VERY SMALL group who has discovered The Truth, and that Jesus Christ is the ONLY way to Salvation as well as sobriety!

The first group, the majority is by all probability, going to spend much of the rest of their lives doing what is known as the 1, 2, 3 step, relapse dance. While many may have come to recognize their denial, and how it’s kept them in their addictions, they just move into a different type of denial, believing they have a disease which requires their lifetime membership and attendance of AA meetings. Many simply switch from one addiction to another! Or become dependent upon, or addicted to the AA program itself! And as lifetime loyal members, refuse to listen to any common sense or Truth. According to scripture, even if they find sobriety, most likely they will remain on the “wide road” to eternal destruction, otherwise known as hell! For those unfamiliar with God’s Word, I’m referring to Matthew 7: 13-15. Which in essence tells us that only a few will be going to Heaven.

The second group is not really very far behind the first, unless, and until they come to realize that their “higher power” is The God of The Holy Bible, who sent us His Son as a sacrifice for our sin, who, if we choose to follow and trust Him with our lives, He will free us from our addictions.

This leads us to the third group. A group which I have come to believe is in a very precarious and dangerous place. A group that has been led to believe centuries of false teachings and doctrines that have destroyed the church. The practices of most churches today cannot be distinguished from the behavior of the world! Sin is being accepted and tolerated, even excused as normal behavior, leaving the world and the lost that are in it, to believe that we’re all saved! Or, that repentance is no longer necessary for Salvation. This leads us back to addiction recovery in the church, where secular 12-step addiction recovery programs are being used in vain to minister to the millions who are suffering from addictions to drugs and alcohol! These false teachings blindly negate the very need for recovery by denying or overlooking the absolute need to repent! There are many people in church recovery groups who profess to be Christians, yet have no idea what repentance means to their sobriety or their Salvation. It’s nothing more than a 10 letter word. Many think that God’s Grace is a free ticket to continue in their sinful behavior without consequence, never taking note of, Romans 6:1-3; What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? ² God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? ³ Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Many more believe that all scripture pointing to the fact that we’re “all sinners,” or Paul’s struggle with his sin in Romans 7, are excuses to sin!  

This brings us back to Matthew 7: 13-15, ¹³ Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: ¹⁴ Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. ¹⁵ Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. ..…“and few there be that find it”!  Will you be one of the few? One of the few who will hear Jesus Words, “His lord said unto him, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant”: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.” in Matthew 25:21?

The ringleader of this circus of course is satan. In all of his many disguises he deceives the world today just as he did in the garden in the beginning of time. His audience has changed, but not his tactics. Adam and Eve were basically innocent and uninformed other than the direct instructions and warning from God, their Creator. Today, we’re anything but innocent, and endlessly informed and warned since birth of right and wrong, and the consequences of making the wrong choices. Yet we choose to make those wrong choices over and over again ignoring the warnings and knowledge of the consequences. Even professing Christians, who know God’s Word, allow satan to deceive them with obvious lies that lead them away from God and His Truth! There have been millions, if not billions of innocent people over the centuries who have been deceived by satan cloaked in robes, disguised as preachers and teachers in their churches with every imaginable false teaching and doctrine designed to lead them away from God’s Truth! The “few” who will get to, and through the narrow, strait gate, will do so only because they sought a close personal relationship with Jesus Christ, which led them to hunger for an understanding of His Truth, and a desire to follow that Truth and please Him! The few who repent and turn from their sin, rather than make excuses to stay in it! The few who hunger to serve God and share His Truth with the lost, not seeking any rewards here on earth, knowing ours are just inside the narrow gate!

Amen