G.A.R.T.H.
Getting Addiction Recovery Through Honesty
Week Four: You Must Make A Self Examination
Welcome to G.A.R.T.H. you have come to the right place if you are seeking love, healing, and understanding.
We are a Christ centered program that heals with the truth;
Here at G.A.R.T.H. we seek to support all that are interested in freedom, restoration, and full recovery from the bondage of addiction. We desire to participate in helping those that are hurting and in need of accountability and counsel. Our hearts reach out to those that struggle with the loss of control in their lives due to dependency. We are a brother, a sister, and a friend in the time of need. At G.A.R.T.H. we seek to lend an open ear and the wisdom of God to enable the captive to overcome. Our 12-step program requires the individual to examine him or herself in truth and through honesty accept the tools needed to begin the process of healing. So with this short mission statement we welcome you and look forward to assisting you in full recovery and restoration.
This is Step Four: Each Step that we will cover will go deeper into the examination of what causes us to be addicted and what can help us overcome. Please join us in this step one study of Addiction Recovery Through Honesty.
Amazing Grace
Amazing grace how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost but now am found
Was blind but now I see
Twas grace that taught my heart to fear
And grace my fears relieved
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed
Thru many dangers, toils, and snares
I have already come
Tis grace that brought me safe thus far
And grace will lead me home.
When we've been there ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Then when we first begun.
Welcome to week four of Addiction Recovery. We are grateful that you have made a decision in your life to live a new way. This will require honesty, willingness, and a total surrender of yourself to a greater power that is able to make a difference in your life. We pray that you are blessed as you participate, and that in these coming weeks change will become very noticable to you. Let us begin week/step four. Read the following and the join me in the short prayer below.
STEP FOUR - You must make a self examination
We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
“Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord.” Lamentations 3:40
“Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry.”” Colossians 3:5
The so-called "Rat Race" and our business makes it very convenient for us to go on living without slowing down long enough to take a good look at our lives, where we've been, where we are now, and where we plan to be in the future. It's now time to stop! Sit still! and No that we now must look at what is inside of us!
What is under our skin?
Under My Skin
“I the Lord search the heart, try the reigns, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.”
Jeremiah 17:10
“Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord. Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.” Lamentations 3:40,41
Good Evening beloved, today we are looking into the fourth and fifth steps of AA/CA/NA/SA etc.
The 4th step reads, “Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.”
The search of what’s under our skin is much deeper than most biology or anatomy books would have us to know. To really understand what lies beneath the skin we much search deep within the recesses of our minds and the deep hidden secret places of our hearts. As we read… “I the Lord search…” and then also “ Let us search…”
Beloved if the Lord searches and knows our ways then we must know that nothing is hidden from him so with this understanding let us invite him to reveal to us what he finds. Beloved nothing is hidden so he knows it all. Let us pray now that he begins this searching and shows us also how to search within ourselves, let us pray now… prayer begins,
O’ mighty God search our hearts and reveal to us the deep hidden things about us that we have suppressed and have kept from revealing so that we may recover in honesty for we know that truth sets us free. Lord Your truth and the truth about ourselves will set us free! In Jesus name we pray, Amen!
As it is written: “and ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free!” John 8:32
Typicall we have asked that those who are participating read from their Bibles and answer questions, but for now we will be reading from this course and the scriptures provided and will ask you questions at a later time.
Read the following:
Beloved we have come to this class for truth, recovery from anything begins with truth!
Everyone turn with me to Galatians chapter five, we will be searching through this list to see if we recognize any of this in our minds or hearts. Remember to be honest, honesty sets us free.
Gal. 5:19 “ Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revilings and such.
To make this more clear lets address each one of these a little further:
· Adultery- Not being faithful to God or your spouse
· Fornication- Being in bed with another God or others being married or not.
· Uncleanness- Doing nasty things with another God or other(s)
· Lasciviousness- Wantonness or lust of the eyes or the flesh
· Idolatry- Putting other people or things above God
· Witchcraft- Denying and rebelling against the power of God
· Hatred- Hating others and walking in hate instead of love
· Variance-Disagreements and disputes
· Emulations-rivalries, ambitions to be better than others
· Wrath- Uncontrollable anger and rage
· Strife- Arguing with others
· Seditions-separation or resistance to the law and its authority
· Heresies-opinions contrary to Gods word, denial of his truth
· Envy-resenting others for their advantages and desiring to take them for ourselves
· Murders-unlawfully killing a person be it in word or deed with malicious intent
· Drunkenness-given to habitual excess of alcohol and intoxication
My friends have you recognized any of these in your life?
Remember to be honest as we are instructed in step 4 to make a searching and “fearless” moral inventory of ourselves.
A “fearless” moral inventory would have us searching our morals, does morality play a part in our lives and the well being of our futures?
Conformity to ideals of right human conduct comes by taking a fearless moral inventory of our self.
What governs right human conduct?
Friends almost everyone has an opinion on what is right, the bible says, “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes.” Proverbs 15:12 and also that “ there is a way that seems right and good to a man, but this way leads to destruction.”
And if opinions against God are heresy then our opinions or ideas of what is right are actually wrong and are not the moral standard by which we should live.
Right human conduct is derived from one source only and that source is God all other sources are heresies (opinions against him).
Beloved God is always searching our hearts and knows all that is in them, as it is written; “I the Lord search the heart.”
If he already knows us and already has a full account of all our deeds then why will we hide it? The same thing happen to Adam and Eve in the garden after the fall lets take a look at how they hid from God.
Genesis 3:8 “And they heard the voice of God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.”
You see friends Adam and Eve knew that they offended God, they knew that they had sinned against God but when they were being confronted they hid.
This is one of the most important aspects to recovery. To search ourselves after we have come to the knowledge that Jesus is the source of power that can change us. In searching ourselves we have admitted our need for change and our desire to get an upclose reality view of who we are and who Christ says we are. NO MORE LIES!
Are you being confronted by God today? Don’t try to hide your ways of sin by denying the problem. Remember we all fall short and God already knows, but we must realize this of ourselves by being honest.
“Confess your sins and he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins” 1John 1:9
In making a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves we cannot hide from God or ourselves any longer. We cannot cover up the problem and make attempt after attempt to hide it any longer. We must confess who we are and what we do!
Ok who is ready to look at themselves squarely at the center of the issues? At the center of the issues is selfishness and pride. These two incorporated with the lack of understanding of what is right and/or the denial of what is right has led to the problem at hand. That problem is the loss of control/insanity.
Of the list of the natures described from Galatians 5 who can say that they do not or have not exhibited these behaviors in their time of excess and loss of control? If you say this then you are lying, your still hiding from yourself and from God. The truth is, as God clearly tells us in Romans 3:10 and Romans 3:23
“As it is written, There is none righteous no not one.”
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
Beloved God knows, perhaps many others do too and it could be that you are the only one who denies it!
Search yourself for the truth! Take inventory of your life and behavior and then line it up with God’s word instead of man’s ideas
Read Romans chapters 1 and 3 before proceeding to step/week 5
Thank you for participating in week two: Having faith in God. If you have any questions or would like to give a comment please send them to us using the feedback form below. God bless you!
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