17 YEARS CLEAN AND SOBER

Reference: Romans 12:1, 2

All of us want to change. We have found an area, or, as with me, many areas, of our lives that are unmanageable or out of control. We want to “do” life differently, but you just can’t seem to make it stick. We try and try but always find our self back at step one. Trying over and over and failing. Falling to our temptation again and again, asking God for forgiveness again and again. Promising Him we will do better and finding our self back in the same place all over again. I want to try to unravel a way to experience real and lasting life change. And it is NOT about trying harder. It’s not about self will. It’s not about physical strength or endurance. It’s about a completely new way of thinking.

Let’s talk about how to begin this process of life transformation.
I was raised in what seemed from the outside to be a “good home”. If you would have looked in from the exterior you would have seen a woman who had 4 children, from a good Catholic marriage and was now getting divorced and living once again with her loving mother and father who had built a 4 bedroom house in a very nice neighborhood to raise their grandchildren. Looks pretty good, right? Truth be known, the house was filled with anger. My mom was angry that her marriage had failed and she had 4 daily reminders of her malfunction and disappointment. My grandmother was fuming at the fact that she had to raise children over again. The end result, day after day of abuse. Sometimes getting “disciplined” multiple times every day. Continual verbal mistreatment. Not being cussed at, oh no that kind of language was not allowed in our house. We were in a “Christian home”. We went to church every Sunday. My mom even played the piano and organ in the church. And there was the neglect. Not enough love in our home.  Hugs or words of encouragement were rare at most.

So at the ripe old age of 9 I decided to try marijuana. That was all good but I couldn’t escape the vices that bound me at home so I tried to run away. A nine year old run away. You would think that someone would read the “smoke signals” of a nine year old and realize that there is a problem here but it got swept under the rug. “If we don’t talk about it maybe the problem will go away”. A couple of years pass and I started to get more and more into smoking weed. I started to experiment with harder drugs and it wasn’t long before I discovered heroin.
I found that I could dull the pain of my life experiences enough through self medication that my anger and all the pain that I felt inside could actually become tolerable.

In and out of jail. In and out of the hospital. Almost dead from a fight I was in at age 17 and then at 18 I was standing before The Honorable Judge facing 5 to 99 years on delivery of a controlled substance charges. Went to the pen for a few years, got out, got married, went to college, tried real hard to walk the line. That lasted about a year and I was right back to the same things that had got me to the lowest point of my life. Divorced, lost everything and was angry that I could not make my marriage work. Bouts of depression, heavier drug use, Serious Alcoholic!!! Nothing was working. Relationships failed, sex wasn’t doing it, drugs weren’t working well enough, couldn’t get enough to drink so I tried suicide at one point. Nope, that doesn’t work either. I felt that I was a total failure at life.
So, I don’t have enough time to tell you the whole story of depravity and being a hopeless and homeless junkie alcoholic. But that was my life. Everything I owned in a trash bag so I could move at any moment.
I tried to quit and clean up but only could last a day or two.
17 years ago years ago I decided I couldn’t do this on my own. My 5 year old son, who was in foster care at the time because of my dependencies and habits told me on the phone one night to take my problems and put them away. To a 5 year old that’s just how easy it is. To a 41 year old who has been messed up for 30 years it’s not that easy. To the God who created me and everything around me it is that easy.

I said my prayer, told God that I can’t do it, that I need forgiveness and HELP. And He heard my prayer. He answered my prayer. He saved my soul from the hellish path I was on. And if that wasn’t enough He gave me hope that I could be CLEAN from all my unrighteousness.
I struggled back and forth. Each time staying clean for a little longer than before. Each falling point I would go back to God in shame and ask forgiveness and start trying again.
On Nov 3, 2008 I had a job, had been clean for a good while I was driving through White Oak TX. God’s Spirit tugged at my heart and inspired me to stop at the Family Dollar and buy a Bible. I was saved for over a year and didn’t even have a copy of God’s Word. I went to church and paid my tithes. I even regained custody of my son In December 2007. But when I purchased that Bible it changed my life.

I found out what it truly means to sell out to God. To take up my cross daily and follow Him. (Luke 9:23) And to “renew my mind” (Romans 12:2)
Before now I didn’t understand why I had so many hang-ups, that I was always searching for the fulfillment that only God can give but was looking to drugs, alcohol and multiple sexual relationships. Only to discover that God always had a plan for me. Only to find out that God has always wanted His BEST for me. And all it took was for me to say, “I’m gonna trust you.”
That’s why Romans 12:1 says

Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service.

That’s what God wants from us. To present your bodies as a living sacrifice. King James Version says this is your “reasonable service”.
So…It’s one thing to give God the best He wants from you.
Question is….How do we get the Best from God?
Cool thing about the Bible is He answers that question in verse 2

Do not be conformed to this world, but continuously be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you may be able to determine what God’s will is—what is His proper, pleasing, and perfect will

See, when we break this verse down it has a negative and a positive command and the result is a purpose clause.
Negative…Stop letting this world mold and make you
Positive….Be transformed by the renewing of your mind
Purpose…. So that YOU can experience the good, pleasing and perfect will of God

Jesus already did his part for you. At this point in all of our lives His job is done until He returns one day to judge the world. When you said your prayer and accepted Christ’s forgiveness and made Him Lord of your life, the angels in Heaven rejoiced and you were given your title as a Child of God. Problem is we want to stay right there. We have “fire insurance” from hell and we are happy. We never experience the fullness of God. We never get God’s best for us.

So, what the Apostle Paul is saying here is for us to stop letting the world system and values shape and pattern your life. And when we say world system we are not referring to the geographical area that we live in. We are referencing the a system of values, a world view, a mindset that is energized by the enemy of your soul and who’s goal is to kill, steal and destroy. To mess your life up! To ruin your relationships. To separate you from God. To make you emotionally depressed. To make you physically go into areas that will wreck your life. The whole goal of the “world system” is to destroy you.
Paul is saying is to stop letting this world system squeeze you into its mold and make you act and react like everyone else. Obviously this was happening to the Church in Rome a thousand or so years ago and it is still happening today.
Imagine becoming a Christian in ancient Rome. There is an Empire with a Supreme Ruler; there are theaters with nudity, Gladiator fights at the coliseum, brothels everywhere, drunkenness and bars, idols to other god’s at every turn. You can have any kind of sex with any person anywhere. It’s a violent culture.  Babies are killed because they are born female instead of the dominant male species. (any of this strike a chord and sound familiar?)

Paul is saying to stop allowing the values of this world to mold and make you what Rome wants you to be…and the same is true today in our culture. The application of this scripture is clear. Be separate from the world’s values.

1 John 2:15-17
Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

So many times we look at Christianity as a list of rules and regulations…do this and don’t do that. A whole list of external things that you either can or can’t do. The powers that push and pull at your heart and mind are more than external. What I want you to see is that it’s far deeper than that. It’s really about relationship. Love is a relational quality.  Where are your relationships and your relational qualities. Do you love the world or do you love God?
Are you lusting after and wanting the desires of the flesh? Simply put the desire to feel. The lust for pleasure. It can come out in overindulgence in just about anything. Sex, food, drugs, relationships. Now let me say that almost all these desires are legitimate. But what Satan and the world wants you to believe is that you can get fulfillment of legitimate desires through illegitimate ways that will ultimately destroy your life.
The lust and desire of the eyes is the desire to see and have what we should avoid. The passion to have.
The boastful pride of life is the passion to be. It has to do with position and affluence. I have to be a somebody and I will do or say whatever it takes to get me there. Not just in the business world but among our peers. I have to be accepted.
Simply said the world system seeks to seduce us from our love for Christ by pleasure, possessions and positions. Sex, salary and status.
There is a system that comes about with every magazine cover, billboard, tv commercial, movie, where you work that tell you if you could possess that, if you get this position at work, if you make this much money, if you could have these things that security and meaning and happiness and purpose can all be yours….if you will conform.
The checkout line at the local grocery, there is a human race that is SCREAMING at you with the world system. You have your groceries and you are in the Express Lane behind the person who obviously couldn’t read the 12 items or less sign. You are a little agitated and you look at the magazine rack and there is every magazine cover telling you who you should be. And if you’re a guy your probably look at the COSMO cover before you read the cover of Men’s Health. And all they are selling you is sex. Guys are looking at the cover of Men’s Health and thinking, “Man, if I had abs like that the women would love me.” And the girls look at COSMO and start to think that is what they should look like and how am I going to get that body. And what we are being sold by the world is that you have to be attractive and beautiful and sexual. A multibillion dollar industry in the USA is health and fitness clubs. And all you were trying to do was buy some groceries and you are bombarded with the world’s image of what we should look like. Some of us realize that we may never achieve that body so we look at the next magazine cover and it is PEOPLE and we want to achieve more. Maybe if I do more I can be somebody.
How in the world did we go from actors and actresses on TV to 90% reality shows? We have people who do illegal things or create false stories and for what? A little notoriety and fame. If I only had a little glory then I would be a somebody. And as you get a little older you may start looking at the cover of FORBES or FOUTUNE Magazine. Man if I had that……..And when we look a little closer at these people who have the sexy body, the most fame or money, we also see the highest rates of depression, relationship problems, drug and alcohol problems….WHY, because they have bought into the “world view” that these things actually satisfy. Those that have it will tell you that they are empty.
Stop being conformed to this world.
Start being renewed in the Spirit of your mind.

The mind is on the inside, right?! This change is not an outward or external change. It is an inward renewal process. Just like the caterpillar that wraps up in the cocoon and through metamorphosis changes into a butterfly this is not change that we can apply in our lives. It has to be done internally. It has to be done by the Spirit of God working in us and through us for His good pleasure. It’s supernatural. Not self effort and trying harder.

It’s the Spirit of God, taking the Word of God and renewing your mind.

That’s where you begin to take on the character traits of Christ. Where you are loving and gentle and kind and peaceful and centered on others and their needs and becoming self disciplined. And the fruit of the Spirit which is really the life of Christ progressively becomes more how you think and how you act and how you react.
Not trying your best to live like Jesus. It’s allowing the Holy Spirit within you to transform you from the inside out.
You know, I tried for years and years to soothe the aching and loneliness I experienced. I tried to dull the pain. And believe me, the pain is real. Each of us experience our own pain and we live it out in our own way. But very few of us ever experience God’s best for our Lives.

Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future”.

God’s best is as different for each of us as we are individual. But He does have a plan, and a future and your future is full of hope in Him. You can have a life full of peace, live life to the fullest and experience God in your life like never before. To get God’s best you have to say no to the world system and say yes to God’s word and the renewing process.
What TV show, movie, magazine or web site do you need to let go and let God renew your mind.
You know, back to the lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh and the pride of life. This isn’t anything new. If we could take a video camera back to Genesis chapter 3 we would see that Adam and Eve were tempted with the lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh and the pride of life. Fast forward to Matthew chapter 4 and Jesus is being tempted by the Devil. How? the lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh and the pride of life. They lost, He won. How? It is written, It is written, It is written. Each time He reached back into Deuteronomy and recited from memory scripture that defeated the Devil. One such verse was, “Man shall not live by bread alone but by EVERY word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”
You can’t just flip a switch and say now I’m like Jesus. It doesn’t work that way. It is a supernatural process that takes place when you take in God’s written word and through the Spirit of God it becomes alive in your life and you start to talk and act and think differently.

2 Corinthians 3:18 and we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

Notice “are being”. We are all a work in process!
So what is my part in the mind renewal process? Mind renewal has 3 important parts. First it is a continual refocus on the Romans 12:1 perspective.

Colossians 3:2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things

When you come to that moment when you sell out to Jesus all things become new. Life is beautiful, you are forgiven and you are ready to take on the world. Then Monday morning comes and you realize that although you have been changed and spiritually you have seen the light, your boss is still the same person and your kids are still the same kids and your car has a flat tire and so on… And all of us have different issues that tend to keep us conformed to this world.
But remember that transformation is not about self help or strength but about God’s grace and mercy and us setting our minds on God’s view instead of the world’s view. Allowing Him to change us from the inside out.
Second it is daily reading of God’s word. Feeding your spirit man or woman with the milk and bread and meat of the Word of God. It starts a process of thinking differently. Looking at things in a different way. When you are being tempted these words will come back to you just like Jesus did. Then you find yourself overcoming temptations and your life starts to seem to have more value and you and you start wanting to learn more.
Thirdly the renewal process as it starts to produce fruit in your life you share with others what God is doing in your life. How you are overcoming struggles that not long ago you couldn’t even stand up to. This is the point at which God will supernaturally do His work through the Holy Spirit and bring the scriptures back to your mind.

John 14:26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all the things that I have said unto you

Your mind can be renewed. Your thought patterns can transformed. You can receive God’s best for you and live a life fulfilled with every blessing that God has in store for you. A life with a future and hope. The life God intends for you to live.

And it all starts with the most simple of things. The beginning of this new life and transformation is prayer.

Something like this:

Heavenly Father, I feel the need deep within me to change. I want to but don’t know how. I start by asking your forgiveness for all my past sins. I confess that I am powerless over the sin that consumes me daily and I need your help to change. Father God, please forgive me, empower me through your Holy Spirit and give me a fresh start. I believe that your son Jesus lived and died for me and was resurrected so that I can be made new. Thank you for this new life, a fresh start and thank you that through Jesus all this is possible. It is in His mighty name I pray, amen.

And now I welcome you to the family of God. As His child you become heir to inherit your space in heaven and to all His great and precious promises here on earth.

Please find yourself a Bible believing and teaching group of believers, get a copy of the Bible whether in print or digital and read it daily. And pray. Be honest with God about your needs and desires.

Also delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Psalms 37:4