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Getting Real

Through Christ, God has already decided you are worthy of total freedom from every addiction. For me, that meant alcohol, drugs, sex, pornography, caffeine, and sugar. I know recovery. So I know that if you are ready, God wants you to be free! I just thought you should know that Father God thinks you’re awesome and is very proud of you for taking this journey we call recovery. 

In Bible college, I cried out to God and constantly looked for scriptures to help me get free. Early in my walk with Jesus, I found a very familiar scripture that anyone who fails again and again can cling to for forgiveness. Here is what I found: 

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). 

When I failed, I did what you probably did as well. I knelt down, crying for Jesus to forgive and cleanse me. Like you, I experienced true forgiveness. I felt the forgiveness of Jesus. I believed His blood had more power than my sin in which I was choosing to participate. I felt cleansed and this would last for days or weeks until I acted out in the sin again; then wham-o! The guilt and shame came back and I would be forgiven again. 

I think you get the picture. Most of you have lived the same movie: act out in your addiction patterns (sin), ask for forgiveness, and do it all over again. This pattern is all too familiar for most of us. 

Biblical principal one: Confession

I was confessing my sin to Jesus. He was forgiving me. Why wasn’t I getting better? 

Why wasn’t I getting free? Why wasn’t God helping me? Why was I falling again and again? Well, quite simply, I was using the wrong principle to get the result I truly needed. Instead of just hanging out with I John, I needed another scripture that I’ll share with you in a minute. 

I had a roommate in my dorm who was slightly different from me; a really awesome and gracious man of God. One day, I genuinely felt the Lord tell me to let my roommate know every time I participated in certain behavior. I was not excited about this at all, but my deal with God was to do 100 percent of what he told me to do, so I told my roommate what the Lord told me to do and he was okay with it. 

What made the difference? I started using the biblical principle in James 5:16: 

“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” 

“If” is really a critical part of this verse. This means “if” I confess, I can be healed or made free. If I don’t confess, I am guaranteed to stay sick, or in my case, addicted. I was utilizing the principle of confessing my faults (acts or behavior) to another Christian of the same gender, so recovery and healing came to my life and stayed. 

If you truly want to get free and stay free from your addiction behavior, be it alcohol, drugs, sex, codependency, work, carbohydrates, sugar, nicotine, or caffeine, you HAVE TO confess to another person. To be free, you have to be honest and accountable to another person of the same gender. Tomorrow we will continue our discussion on confession.