What is Christianity?

There has always been Power: Good Power and Evil Power. They coexisted in a place called Heaven. Then Good created angels as helpers for Good and they also were very clear that they chose to acknowledge Good as their Boss. However, at some point Evil began to convince some that Evil was the better Power and that they were to acknowledge it as their Boss. Good punished these angels that turned to obey Evil by making them leave Heaven. They came down to earth to rule.

Then Good found that all the love in Good wanted to have something besides the angels to love and have a relationship with, so Good decided to make humankind to love. But first Good had to make a place for these human beings to live. So Good created by using his Good Power all that we now call the Universe and everything in it. 

The essence, character, nature of Good is Creator. Good creates because that is what Good Power does. Good’s motive is Love. Contrasted to Evil, a Power whose nature is the opposite. Evil robs, kills, destroys.  Good creates beauty, life, and love. Good makes actual, visible, tangible, real Good’s nature, beauty, life, and love. When all that Good creates is experienced, the experience is one of knowing Good.  The same is true of Evil. When what Evil creates is experienced then it is Evil that is experienced. Evil creates using lies as disceptation. This is a false reality, a delusional reality.  Evil creates hate. 

Good took a big risk, fully aware of the consequences, but the positive outcome was so wanted that the risk was taken. Good created humankind like Good, with all the characteristics of Good. The risk was that humans were given the ability to make choices. Like the good angels that chose Good as Boss or like the evil angels that chose Evil as Boss, so humans were given the ability to choose. The love in Good wants humans to choose Good so a relationship made in love could happen. Good loving humankind and humankind loving Good. Good knew that there would be some who would use their choice-making ability to make Evil their Boss and would be punished by not being allowed in heaven when they died.

The Book of Genesis in the Bible, The Good Book, describes the process that the Good went through to make where we live. Creation. 

The nature, the function of love needs an object to love. Love is a power to change when it is returned. Love wants to be loved back. Good wanted to create these relationships with all that the Good Power made. 

Good also made humankind to be able to recognize Good in all of Creation. The diversity of creation, the plethora of beauty, the intricacies of each kind all testify of the essence of Good.

Finally, we know Good as God – Father, Son, Spirit – and we know Evil as Satan – Devil, Lucifer, Enemy. 

Always the choice…..

What does this mean for those of us in recovery? 

Because in the beginning God created humankind in God’s image. This means that not only were male and female both created in God’s image, also that God’s attributes, characteristics, and expression was given to humans. As God is creator, planner, organizer, and implementor so then are we. The tasking by God to Adam of tending the garden, utilizing the God given abilities to accomplish that assignment is one example. The other was the naming of all other living creatures. This was the beginning of language and of organizing the creatures according to similarities. These descriptions then defined what they were. 

However, Adam and Eve were told not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But they did. So we now have the ability to judge/discern/decide if X is ok or X is not. Is it good or evil?

How can we successfully use these God given abilities?

We are tripartite beings: body, soul, spirit. 

Before salvation, we are of the world, the flesh, and the devil, we are a flesh-self. We are ruled by our self. We want what we want when we want it! Our flesh-self is our sin-nature. 

Our body wants what it wants, to avoid pain and seek pleasure.

Our soul with our mind thinks what it thinks based on the person’s reality, correct or incorrect. Our emotions feel what they feel, correct or incorrect. 

Our will chooses to act based on one’s thoughts and feelings, correct or incorrect. We always want to be in charge. 

Our spirit is seeking connection/understanding beyond ourselves. We are motivated to be spiritual beings. We are looking for God.

When discover our need for a power greater than ourselves, we can choose Good or Evil. 

When we chose Good, God, Jesus; when we acknowledge and confess that our flesh-self, our sin-nature, that wants total control – not Good control – and ask for forgiveness and commit our lives to Good, to God, then we become Christians. We now belong to God forever. We are free of the control of Evil. We are safe and loved. Now our spirit is connected to the Holy Spirit that comes to live in us.

Evil:

Satan is disguised as an angel of light and uses the weapon of creative illusion.

It tricks people into believing a false reality. It is creator of lies. It cannot tell the truth. 

Characteristics: 

1. It has no conscience, is arrogant beyond comprehension. It wants to take our power from us. It wants to be like God, independent from God nor accountable to God. 
2. It has no empathy; the suffering of others is an inconvenience and a source of pleasure.
3. It delights in doing harm, destroying people and relationships.
4. It comes to rob, kill, and destroy. 
5. It destroys hope through powerlessness.
6. It destroys love through ambivalence. 
7. It uses addiction to create bondage, delusion, and death.

Warfare:

All cultures have come to same conclusion, that there are cosmic forces in conflict. We are caught in the cosmic crossfire of a battle between God and His angel army and Satan and his demonic (fallen angel) army. Between Good and Evil. 

Jesus came to expose the warfare and ultimately to demonstrate its defeat. He came, as God in flesh form, to redeem us; to bring us back to Himself.  He demonstrated His God power through healings, deliverances, and miracles. These demonstrations were God’s love in action. God has always known that only His power can defeat the power of evil. We can’t. However not only can He but He will if we ask Him to take control of our lives. To do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. His agape love, unconditional love and acceptance, of us is His motivation. He wants to love us out of the bondage of evil and into the freedom of life lived with Him in charge. He took the risk of giving us free will, knowing that some will come to Him and some with turn away and not accept the offer. This gift of deliverance is called Salvation. We receive this free gift by first acknowledging our flesh-self’s drive to be in control. Our way is the only way. That is called sin. When we confess or acknowledge that this drive not only has us victimized by evil, but that it also has us separated from God. When we own that truth, we can go to God and confess our sin-separation and ask for the forgiveness that will bring us into relationship with God forever. God as the Holy Spirit then comes to live in us, joined to our spirit. We now have a spirit-self. We begin the process of transformation/ sanctification/ regeneration. We are free. We change from the inside out.

Theology is the discipline of learning about and talking about God, about His nature, purposes, and actions. To think systematically about what the Good Book reveals and teaches us about the nature, activities, and agendas of God. The Old Testament in the Good Book is a history lesson of God interacting with His chosen people. He called out a group of people to teach them about Himself, what He expected of them and what He wanted to do to take care of them. These people were the Jews. When they failed to follow direction and sinned the remedy was a sacrifice of blood shed on the altar in the Temple. This history lesson reveals that these special people could not consistently chose to follow God. They would fall back into the world’s ways, victimized by evil.  Then God would discipline them, hoping to bring them back into obedient reliance on Him. Sometimes it worked, but ultimately it failed. They just could not do it. So God entered history by coming as Jesus to not only demonstrate His love, nature and motives, but also to be that sacrificial blood shed for us, thus paying the price for us when we could not do it for ourselves. It is on the basis of His sacrifice, that we come for forgiveness, cleansing and transformation. 

Throughout the history of the Church, there have been four Creeds written as statements of the theology of Christianity. The Apostles’ Creed is the most well-known and accepted one. 

Apostles’ Creed:

I believe in God,
the Father almighty,
Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended into hell.
On the third day he rose again from the dead.
He ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.
From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting.

Amen.

Oxford Group:

Wesley revival began in England and came to the U.S. establishing churches, movements and raising up leaders. From that revival came the Oxford Group with its statement of theology and its application.

The 12 Steps of Wholeness that were adapted by AA:

1. I now see that I, of myself, am powerless, unable to control (manage) my life by myself. 
2. I now realize that my Creator, God the father, Son and Holy Spirit, can restore me to wholeness in Christ,
3. I now make a conscious decision to turn my entire will and life over to the care and direction of Jesus Christ as Teacher, Healer, Savior and Lord. 
4. Having made this decision, I now boy God’s call in Scripture to make a fearless, ethical, moral, and Scriptural inventory of my entire life in order to uncover all my sins, mistakes and character defects, and to make a written list of every item uncovered. 
5. After completing this inventory I now will to “walk in the light, as He is in the light” by admitting to myself, to God, and to at least one other person in Christ the exact nature of these wrongs.
6. Having agreed with God about my sinful behavior, I now ask His forgiveness through Christ and openly acknowledge that I am forgiven according to Scriptures. 
7. I now repent (turn away) from all these behaviors in thought, word, and deed and ask God to remove each besetting sin, through Jesus Christ. 
8. I now make a list of all persons I have harmed in thought, word, and deed, and a list of all persons I believed have harmed me and will to make amends to all of them. 
9. I now go directly to those persons to forgive and to seek forgiveness, reconciliation, restitution, or release wherever and with whomever possible, unless to do so would cause further harm. 
10. I now consciously and prayerfully continue to “walk in the light” by unceasingly taking personal inventory of all my temptations and sins, and  by keeping constantly open relationship with God, myself, and other persons. 
11. I now continue in regular Scripture study, prayer, worship, and fellowship to increase God’s will in my life.
12. Recognizing the impact of God in my life I now intentionally share these principles and their effect, with others as God’s Spirit leads, and will to practices these principles in all areas of my life. 

They held to six basic assumptions: 

1. Human beings are sinners.
2. Human beings can be changed.
3. Confession is a prerequisite to change.
4. The changed soul has direct access to God.
5. The age of miracles has returned.
6. Those who have changed can help others change.

This is the foundation for the freedom of recovery that is available through the 12 Step model.