Greetings again, friend; welcome back to your course, so good to be here with you today!
Review
We learned in our previous lesson about the absolute necessity for heart change. If we don’t have a heart change, we will go from one program to another, studying and learning, trusting in sponsors, programs, etc., yet not finding genuine freedom. A heart change remedies this.
So, how do we get a heart change?
God: The Source of Heart Change
We will begin to answer that question in this lesson. But first, let me share with you that before I received a heart change, I was so deeply involved in drunkenness and drugs, which then fueled impurity issues, that I ruined one marriage and was well on my way to destroying my second one.
I know that if it weren’t for my job as a pilot, I would have thrown caution to the wind and probably died a gluttonous drunk just as my step-dad did. I was deeply ensnared in sin; if I can be set free, so can you.
Through a series of events, my wife Jody and I found ourselves at a church where the pastor was also a biblical counselor. We started attending regularly and going to counseling. What my pastor did to help me was unlike other counseling I had received. He helped me see the gospel!
I’ll share more of this story with you throughout the course. For now, suffice it to say that God has changed and is changing my heart. My marriage is now decades strong, and my heart is free. And while God used my pastor and others along the way, the glory for the transformation of my life goes to God alone, for only He can change a human heart.
I’m glad you’ve come to this course, and I am praying that it will be a means of God’s grace in your life, but understand this: no program, friend, mentor, pastor, etc., can change your heart; only God can. Turn to Him and ask Him for this. He will do it in His time.
Question 1. Do you see the need for a heart change? Please use this space to ask God for it.
Log in / create an account to enroll or continue where you left off.
In the previous lesson, we heard David crying out for God to wash him and cleanse him from his sin (Psalm 51:7). This soul-cleansing is what is needed for us too. We need to experience a deep scrubbing, a washing of renewal (Titus 3:5), a purifying of our hearts (Titus 2:14).
The reason for this is that over-drinking, drugs, and cigarette smoking are defiling; they damage our bodies and minds, but even worse, they leave dark splotches on our souls, like black ink on canvas. Alcohol sparkles in the glass or bottle, drugs promise an escape (a rush or a high), cigarette smoking promises satisfaction or stress relief, but once sin masters us, it leaves us enslaved and full of shame and guilt.
And that shame and guilt are like an undertow that drags us back out into the ocean of substance abuse. This rip current of shame and guilt is the very thing that worldly recovery groups are trying to get us to overcome through “working the program” to reach the final step and feel better about ourselves.
Question 2. What has been your experience with guilt and shame? Please share.
Log in / create an account to enroll or continue where you left off.