30 YEARS AGO & COUNTING !

July 4^th 2014 as posted on Facebook ; Today is a special day for me to celebrate freedom! Not the same freedom that all Americans are celebrating today, but a freedom that very few drunkards and drug addicts get to celebrate. And I do so only because of the Love and Grace of Jesus Christ ! Certainly NOT because of any false teachings found in any of our popular 12-step addiction recovery programs that typically keep addicts in the bondage of relapse for the rest of their lives or in the fear of relapse! READ MORE.....

30 YEARS AGO & COUNTING

A SUMMARY (NOT A TESTIMONY)

Addiction recovery meetings in churches, no matter how many, or for how long you attend them, will never be successful without the Truth and presence of God, and God’s presence cannot be found in the midst of false teachings and unrepentant and disobedient hearts. God has provided us with all we need to live a clean and sober life. He’s given us His Word, The Bible and The Truth, He’s sacrificed His Son on The Cross for the forgiveness of our sinful nature and drunkenness, and he’s given each of us the free choice to choose Eternal Life with Him, or death and destruction with satan. After 30 years of sobriety, and 28 years of freedom in the arms of my Savior Jesus Christ, I know that I cannot make that decision for anyone, but can only share His truth with those who will listen! My prayer is that you are one of them!     

30 years ago today I had my last drink! After having spent most of the previous 40 years drunk or high or both, I had had enough! God had a different plan for my life. Soon afterwards I began attending AA meetings to share God’s Good News with others who needed to hear it. It took several years of hostility and rejection to realize that very few in AA wanted anything to do with God’s Truth, so I turned my focus towards other Christians in Churches around the area. Little did I know that I would encounter much of the same hostility and rejection of God’s Truth in His own church! By many men and women who claimed to know Him, but refused to trust and obey Him! They had already been poisoned by a church that had been poisoned by centuries of false teachings by false teachers that had created a new age false church. A church that believes and teaches that one can be Saved without repentance, through a false Grace message! If you are one of these millions of lost souls on the “wide road” to destruction, who have been mislead into believing that “it’s OK to sin,” because of this, that, or the other foolish excuse, you need to re-evaluate your relationship with God! Grace is a gift from God to an undeserving person who is willing to repent, and turn from following the world, to following God and His Word!  Repentance is not a form of works, but a condition of Salvation. To continue in any sin, including that of “drunkenness,” and make excuses for it, is not a sign of repentance, but of disobedience! To disobey God, is to reject Him. Yes, we are all sinners for which the penalty is death. Each of us however, has been given the choice of a pardon by accepting Christ’s sacrifice on the cross as a payment for our sins “IF” we accept Him as our Lord and Savior! To accept Him we must change, and to change is to repent! There are many “IF’S” scattered throughout the Bible that tell us that “IF” we’re obedient, we will be Saved and blessed in a number of ways. And that “IF” we’re disobedient, we will suffer the consequences! “IF” we believe and profess our Faith, we will be Saved. God’s Word is perfectly clear! Man’s interpretation of it can be completely misunderstood! Man’s sinful nature completely twists what is right, into what is wrong, what is wrong, into something right, Truth into lies, and lies into truth! After centuries of this phenomenon, we must be very near the end as prophesied thousands of years ago.        

During the past 30 years I’ve attended thousands of addiction recovery meetings in dozens of churches and other facilities and listened to thousands of professing Christians claim to know and Love Jesus, yet refuse to show a mustard seed of Faith, and trust Him and His Promise to “set them free” from their addictions. Instead they will spend years in ignorance of God’s Word, rather listening to false teachings and man’s ideas on how to recover and be “healed” from a disease they don’t have, through 12 steps of futile, meaningless, and fruitless endeavors, that will only, and consequently lead to the suffering of continuous relapse.

To consider oneself a Christian, and then follow man’s blind advice and ignorance in a matter as important and deadly as drug and alcohol use and abuse and addiction, is suicidal! Yet during the past 30 years I’ve witnessed thousands who put more Faith and trust in the AA 12-step program, than in God’s Holy Word, The Truth! I’ve listened to thousands of people share their testimonies of misfortune and shattered lives as a result of drug and alcohol addictions, yet refuse to recognize and accept the blatant misconceptions and false teachings of the AA 12 step programs. Instead, defending them and continuing to participate in them, rather than surrendering fully to God’s Word and the Ministry of Jesus Christ!