Phoenix Rising » Blog Archive » How To Get Better June 12th, 2007

[…] His website is podcasting him teaching through his book "A Scandalous Freedom". […]

dennis June 12th, 2007

I have really been enjoying this podcast. This last one really brought it all home for me. Throughout the teaching I have been thinking, " I know God isn't mad at me. If He is mad at me then He lied about the cross but Jesus and Paul both said alot about our behavior as christians." I know that Steve wasn't saying that those scriptures don't say what you think they do and that we should rip out the book of James like Martin Luther supposedly did. He just hadn't addressed that part of the bible until this latest podcast.
I had a big smile on my face becuase I have said excactly the same thing he said in the last couple of minutes. If a pagan lived his life as close to the bible as possible then his life would be better. Some truths in the bible are universal for christians and pagans alike. I mean we are not bound to the old testament diet any more but If you eat a lot of bacon you shouldn't complain about being fat and high cholesteral.
Someone once told Adrian Rogers that if we are truly freed by the cross then we could sin all we want to and we replied " I do sin all I want to. In fact I sin more than I want to."
This week also addressed my own problem of my frustration with trying harder and failing. I know God is not mad at me but until I read preveous posts I believed He was dissappointed in me. Erik, that was an excellent answer and It made so much sense I can't believe it never occured to me. The more I learn how much God loves me the more I want to love him.

Joshua June 14th, 2007

I'm not just kissing your old white butt here Steve but its amazing that every week your podcast speaks light into the specific darkness in which I am dwelling. You obviously have mapped the human heart and understand its topography. This particular topic has been the achilles heel of my entire spiritual journey. I am only just figuring that out and in large part because of this podcast. I have been through the burn out cycle i.e. living for Jesus is the only thing that makes sense so I must do this or that which exhausts me because I can't sustain that level of performance so I scorch out and sink into depression where I find that living for Jesus is the only thing that makes sense etc. etc. so many times i could puke. I had a specific vision of what Christ required of me based upon how I saw other Christians living (evidently I am surrounded by legalists) or how I misinterpreted scripture. And at the end of each energetic but short lived sprint I would use the, "all our deeds are as filthy rags", verses to justify my descent back into spiritual fecklessness. As it stands now, seven podcasts in, I feel encouraged that though I am not quite ready to be kicked out of the nest I am at least standing on the edge of it so I will return and look anxiously towards the day when I will soar. Thank you Steve.

Brother Chris April 28th, 2008

I have a question concerning the paradox of our desire to be "perfect", of all the things that the Lord healed me of, I am still addicted to alcohol. The longest I have been able to be sober was 3 months, and it was the most miserable 3 months I have been through. I turned into a very mean, incredibly impatient ogre.I have wwept buckets of tears in prayer asking God to heal this disease in me, but when I listen to your statements, it's as though your saying that it's okay that I am still an alcoholic. Other Christians and Preachers that I have spoke to have all said the same thing, that I must quit drinking, that I must suffer with the cravings and the shakes and everything else for the sake of what Christ has done for me. I just don't know what to believe concerning this problem, would you please clarify what God expects of me. Why won't He heal me of this?

Steve Brown April 28th, 2008

Brother Chris,

Your question scares the spit out of me.

Do you know why?

There are a number of reasons. First, I want you to be sober. The booze problem is killing you and the cravings and shakes aren’t what a believer ought to have to face. Not only that, being a drunk isn’t a good witness. And then, I’m a “do it yourself” American and want to say, “Go to AA, get some counseling and deal with it. You’re not helpless.”

Your question scares me because I understand. There are prayers that seemed quite reasonable to me…ones I never understood why God didn’t answer the way I wanted him to. If I were God, you would be healed. If I were God, I would “rear back” and pass a miracle, and your cravings would cease, the shakes would stop and you would be sober for the rest of your life.

But I don’t get a vote and, not only that, I can’t tell you that God will do it for you that way if he won’t. Maybe he will and maybe he won’t. That’s way above my pay level.

But the main reason I hate your kind of question is that my answer to it contradicts what everybody else is telling you, doesn’t seem very practical and causes me to wince because it runs counter to everything I’m told about discipline, responsibility and obedience.

Not only that, I could be wrong.

I just don’t think so.

First, let me suggest that God’s love for you has nothing whatsoever to do with your drinking. He won’t love you any less if you stay drunk and then die. And, not only that, he won’t love you any more if you get sober for the rest of your life and die. If you’re a believer, in both cases, he will welcome you Home.

There’s a principle that you may have discovered in Scandalous Freedom: The only people who get any better are people who know that, if they don’t get any better, God will still love them.

Second, I can’t think of anything more that will bring someone to the “end of himself” than the kind of problem you have. I have friends and family members (every male in my family was an alcoholic) who told me that until they hit rock bottom, they never got any better.

That’s a spiritual principle too: You never know Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you’ve got. When Jesus is all you’ve got, then you’ll discover that Jesus is all you need. As horrible as the booze problem is, at least you don’t have any illusions about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. You know better.

And then third, I would suggest that almost all good stuff happens as a side benefit of something else. You need to run to Jesus…not because he will make you sober and nice, but because he accepts screwed up people and loves them. Learn to allow him to love you unconditionally and without reservation whether you get sober or not. You may find that sobriety is the result of letting Jesus love you more than it is your deciding to do something for Jesus because of what he’s done for you.

Frankly, you haven’t been too successful in that department.

Okay, that’s the only answer I have that has to do with God.

But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t other answers. The booze simply isn’t good for you and you ought to do everything you can to deal with it. You can’t do it by yourself. So, as your friend, let me say that you should be involved in AA or maybe even a residential program that supports sobriety. You need to have friends around you who love you enough to hold you accountable. (And, by the way, they need to be friends who’ve been there…not friends who have never experienced the addictions you feel.)

And you need to quit blaming God for not answering your prayers. You made the decisions to get to where you are and you are probably the only one who can make the decisions to get out of where you are.

Easy?

Of course it isn’t. I can’t even quit smoking my pipe…so I’m not throwing rocks.

But I did just stop and pray for you.
Bless,
Steve