Dear Friend,  

Believe it or not I am back to our series on Coming Clean.  Beginning this week I want to take the "Seven Steps to Coming Clean" and visit each step in greater detail.    

Again, please note that the Seven Steps in Coming Clean are an adaptation of the Twelve Steps used in the devotionals reading plan of the Recovery Bible. Those steps were adopted from the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.  I have decided to use seven because this is the number in the Bible, which symbolizes completion.  God created the world in six days and rested the seventh.  

It is our mission and our belief that through our individual choice to coming clean we will experience a liberation and freedom that comes as we become transparent before God and others.  As a result, the world will gain stronger families, less drug abuse, fewer suicides, reduced crime rates, and more productive consequences.  The following are the "Seven Steps in Coming Clean."

1. I believe that I am powerless to break the chains that hold me in bondage and prohibit me from Coming Clean.

 2. I believe that a power greater than myself can help me Come Clean and thus be liberated.

3. I have decided to turn my will and my life over to God as I ask Him for the power to Come Clean.

4. I have allowed God to search my heart and I have identified the critical issues I need to Come Clean about and those with whom I have to Come Clean.

5. I have Come Clean with God, family and those whom I have hurt over issues that are paramount to our lives.  The issues may be behavior-related to life values or to the prospect of misconduct and violence. Or the issues may relate to health and wellness influenced by addictions and illicit drugs.

6. I have asked God to give me a contrite heart so that I can come clean.

7. I have asked God to give me strength to be transparent before Him and others.  

But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong (1John 1:9)." 

As we confess the step one we realize that forever and ever we have been making promises to change our behavior.  If we are addicted to a certain substance we try all kinds of self-help.  We may even enter into a rehab. But when all is said and done there is no lasting healing.  Why?  If we are abusive with people close to us and/or some not so close, we can promise over and over again to never loose our temper again.  Yet, when something disturbs us, we allow our temper to flair, again.  Real life issues, like the scenarios above, have gone silent far too long mainly because we are afraid that once we admit that we are helpless the world will immediately judge us. After all, in a society that promotes individualism and self-achievement, any expression of pain is immediately judged as weakness. Therefore, how does it work?  How can we find the freedom in coming clean?

The answer begins with the Lord's instruction for us to 'confess our sins one to another'.  It seems amazingly easy.  Yet, it is insurmountably hard, mainly because of the reasons stated above.  Ever since evangelicals discovered that we do not need to confess to an earthly priest-because we have direct access to Christ-we stop confessing, period.

If we are to experience a change in our lives, our first step is to admit that in it of ourselves we are incapable of change.  I must admit that I am a sinner in need of a savior, and that I also need my earthly brother/sister.  If I come to realize this deep within me, then I no longer need to ask those around me to 'pray for my distant aunt' who 'has a cold' or 'lost a job' or whatever superficial prayer I am so good at making. I am now free to look at you and tell you what I am struggling with TODAY.  I can do this because by 'confessing our sins one to another' a safe place is created for expression and healing.  Our prayers are no longer superficial they are real.  And, since they are real, they are urgent and present.

It was not until I wrote Coming Clean and confessed to my daughter that the man she called 'Dad' was a horrible monster that OUR Heavenly Father had now changed into a true "daddy", that she found the freedom to write to me and express that she was not that darling little angel all fathers dream of and want their kids be; but, in her words a sly fox, who wanted to change.  To be able to accomplish this change she needed my tears, my understanding, and my love.  It was not until we hugged and cried and allowed God to change us that we were able to communicate.

Today, we share a relationship we never had before.  I do not judge her and she does not judge me.  We both realize that we have made bad choices and are now paying the consequences of our choices.  But we can TALK about them, we can cry about them, and we can ask Jesus SPECIFICALLY to help us overcome them.  This is freedom.  It begins with surrendering to Christ and admitting that individualism is not the answer, dependency in HIM is the answer.

My friend, surrender to Him today. Ask Him to give you the strength to come clean, and then, DO IT.  Trust God and believe in him for a miracle today. He is an amazing God who can do extra ordinary things through extra ordinary people.

God bless,

Jorge

Jorge Valdes, Ph.D.
Founder and Speaker

P.S.  We are still experiencing the blessing from the ministry at Angola.  The men are asking copies of Coming Clean.  We need to send 1000 copies.  If you would like to help make it possible, please send a donation to help distribute books to inmates.  Send your donation to the address listed in the left sidebar (top of screen).  Thank you.

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