 |
||||
|
||||
 |
|
|||||
 |
Second Step in Staying Clean Dear Friend, Last week we began to untangle the process of staying clean. As I previously suggested, if coming clean is a difficult task to achieve, staying clean almost seems insurmountable. No matter how hard we work at it, and no matter how many resolutions we make, we will always fall back into the same trap. Yet, we are assured throughout the Scriptures that what is impossible with man is possible with Christ. Today we will delve into the second step: "I choose today to Stay Clean and live a life free from the entrapment of sin." In the first step I shared that as we choose to Stay Clean and live a transparent life before Christ and those whom we love, we are able to live a life that liberates us from the bondage of sin. It is not something our loved ones can do for us, or something a doctor can prescribe in a pill, it is a willful choice that we must make. Life is a process of making choices. Therefore, to make the right choices consistently we need to examine what holds us back from making right choices as oppose to what motivates us to make wrong choices. The day I made the choice to get out of the Cartel and to turn my life around I had no idea how I could ever accomplish it. Although I had left the cartel and no longer sold drugs I was still living a life style that kept me in bondage; a life style that was separating me more and more from my loved ones; a life style that one day made me realize that I did not please God. But, how could I ever change? I had resolved time and time again to change; yet I kept going back to the same old routine. What could I do to make it right with God? The first step for me was resolving that in and of myself I could not change. I wanted to change, but all I did in reality was change behaviors, and the end result was always the same: empty, discontent, and a burning desire to die. I finally realized that it was the everyday choices I made that kept me in bondage. Whether the bondage if being in a federal prison or the bondage of an empty void feeling it was all the same. My karate instructor told me time and time again that what made him different from me was not the Bible or him going to church every Sunday, the difference was in an intimate relationship he had with a very personal savior named Christ Jesus. Although it took a while, it finally hit me like a wall of bricks. It was very strange to me and very difficult for me to grasp. At that time I was unable to have an intimate relationship with people that I could see, so how was I going to have an intimate relationship with someone I did not see or even know if HE was real? Suddenly it dawned on me. It was not about me. This process of changing was not something I could do. It was all about being in an intimate relationship with a very real and present savior, Jesus Christ. I began to look back through my life and to analyze all the choices I had made and the consequences that followed. This led me to the realization that whatever it took I could not go back to the place from where I had come, so I chose to surrender to Jesus Christ. My choice to live a life free from the entrapment of sin meant I had to surrender to Him who is able to change my heart, allow HIM to do a work in my life, and to give me a new heart that would enable me to make the choices that would free me from the bondage caused by the previous choices I had made. My friend, just as the book of Jeremiah promises us, He will give you a new heart and you can live a life free from the entrapment of sin. "The day will come, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah . . . But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel on that day, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds, and I will write them on their heart (Jeremiah 31: 31-33) God bless you. Jorge
Jorge Valdes, Ph.D.
|