The Inside Job

• Posted by Keisha Merchant July 14, 2010 - 1,022 views

   

  An “Inside Job”  “Social acceptability does not equal recovery.”  But the Lord is faithful, who shall establish you, and keep you from evil.  2 Thessalonians3:3

  Today is a reflection on the inner work of our lives.  It is obvious that working against our own pleasures that may not be healthy is the greatest challenge we will have to face in life beside God’s wrath.  God’s wrath comes after the lost battle of our own self control.  It is within this opportunity that we spend our own lives to study to show ourselves approved by God.  In the network of social acceptability many people think that recovery is based on people acceptance.  We spend our daily lives in a rude and cruel society that people test and challenge our kindness as weakness.  It is within our lifetime we face the revenge of our heart that keeps us falling back into the pain killers that destroy us in the end, the pleasures that bound us in our own slavery to sins, errors and regrets. 

  “One of the first things that happen to many of us in recovery is that we start to look better.  We get healthier; we bathe; we dress more appropriately.  And without the goading of active addiction, many of us finally stop stealing, lying, and hustling.  We start looking normal—just by removing the drugs.”  N.Anonymous, Just For Today

   It is with this that we fail to really work on the inner person.  It is within this false healthiness that we live without ever facing the true challenges in life, separation against our creator, resolution to our souls.  We never change from our social status with God as enemies to fellowship, friends.  God never knew us, due to our ignorance to not come back to him for true recovery.  We never study to show ourselves approved by God, nor do we ever learn to do well in the sight of the Lord through grace, acceptance and eternal mercy that we must show to others and our own selves.  It is within our life time we miss the opportunity to be truly recovered, but we settle for looking as though we are recovered.  Our minds are still filled with condemnation, wrath, and hell fire, as though our fate has never changed from the law to love. 

  Our lives become a mastered mask that we keep all the secrets and darkness from spilling, but it spills.  Our fate relies in the relationships we have.  It is within our inner life we struggle to get approval from God because we accept the social acceptance as though that was our true recovery.  Our cells and prisons are not the main stream disapproval or our bodies illness, but it is the illness of our mind, imagination and subconscious fears that taunt us and we have not recovered from the wrath of God.  The idea that we fight day and night with our creator because we are bound by sin we choose death over life.  It is within this reflection I have learned that as babes we feed off of milk, the desire to be pleased and in that desire; idols of pain killers, addictions and all forms of distractions keep us from sifting through emptiness and vanity.

  The day we choose life is the day we choose true recovery.  We begin with the work of salvation within.  It is working through our very existence of who is our creator and why do we need to be slaves to sin.  It is within this work we learn to eat the fruit of the spirit Galatians 5:22 and cast out falsehood that we depend on so much to feed us daily because it appears as though it is easier to drink and live off of pleasure rather obedience to study the spirit of Love.  It is within our own self-discipline we become our greatest teachers and pupils of self to learn self control, moderation, balance and finally endurance to heed to the greatest love gifts of humanity, friendship with God, and our creator.  Until then, we live in falsehood, and recovery is not equal to social acceptability.  True Recovery is friendship with God and pardon from his wrath and rapture in his new covenant as adopted into the everlasting good news to be saved from our addictions and mortality as some would say corruptions.