Is There a price to pay for freedom? Why are so few Christians not experiencing the freedom that is theirs in Christ? What has to take place before one can experience their freedom in Christ? 1
Freedom From Addiction is the first book and the basic book. It is also the longest. Helping Others is the newest and also the shortest, but it does address the problem and God s answer for addiction as well as how to help others. There is also a devotional and a biblical Workkbook. 2
It seems this is a good description of the church blind, lame and paralyzed. Blind to the truth that sets you free, lame emotionally (out of touch with their emotions) and paralyzed spiritually. Jesus asks?do you want to get well? Why would He ask that? The guy had been there for 38 years. Because most don t want to get well. They just want their situation to change and/or learn to cope with it. If things change a little people who seemed so desperate you never hear from them again if for instance their spouse or boss cuts them some slack. The person has to get honest and take responsibility for their problem to get help. It s easy to blame the past, another person, or a bad break. 3
The deception is that there is something that he or someone else can do that will set him free. All of the above can help him cope, but that is all. There Is no freed apart from Christ. And unless they point him to Christ there will be no help. Oswald Chambers said, The only valid ministry is to point them to Christ. Even if he goes forward in church service and has a spiritual experience and thinks he is free, when he walks out the door of the church he will still have to walk by faith in the truth to experience freedom. 4
People ask me if I have a ministry to help people quit drinking, doing drugs, etc. and my answer is Absolutely Not! If people are able to stop drinking and doing drugs on their own, they will take credit for it and they won t be free. Only Christ can set you free. Only Jesus can make the blind see physically or see spiritual truth. Only Jesus can make the lame walk and heal your damaged emotions. Only Jesus can set you free and deliver you from your spiritual paralysis. It is spiritual paralysis as you have already been set free, but many are deceived that they are not. 5
The man who has been healed is told by the Jewish leaders that it is forbidden to carry his mat he had been laying on and he is breaking the rules of the Sabbath. It is amazing to me that many Christians do not believe you can be freed from addiction. Years after I had gone through Christian treatment center we met with the Director and his wife for lunch and I shared my testimony of freedom. She leaned across the table and got in my face and said, You re not free! At the time she and her husband were going through the teaching of arguably the most respected Christian counselor in the world. She is certainly not alone in this belief. 6
If it is up to us it is not of God. If it is up to us it is works and not grace. If it is not all of grace it is not God. God doesn t need our help to do anything. In fact it has already been done. IT IS FINISHED!! You must understand that you died to the law, have been redeemed from and are no longer under it and there is nothing to do. 7
Whenever we decide what we are going to do to get free, do right, avoid sin and wrong we have gone astray and put ourselves under law, no matter how spiritual or noble it may be. It is pure blatant almost blasphemous belief to try to live the Christian life, get free or please God. Why do we try so hard to do what only God can do and has already done? What does Paul mean by the yoke of slavery? So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don t get tied up again in slavery to the law. (Galatians 5:1 NLT-SE) 8
Are we saying that you should not do anything or try anything or work any program. NO, but we are saying that if you are depending on what you do, you will crash and burn and go down in flames. It is as simple as this, If you have been set free and are dead to sin and freed from it and Christ is in you and is your life, then what you need is to BELIEVE THE TRUTH OF WHO YOU ARE AND WHAT YOU HAVE IN CHRIST! 9
Are you feeling that you haven t measured up as a Christian? Do you honestly think you will ever get to the point where your behavior will be perfect? By the way you are perfect, but your behavior will never be. Because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. (Heb. 10:14 NIV)..Do you feel guilty, ashamed and condemned because of your less than perfect behavior? I suggest you repent of not believing the gospel that Jesus has dealt with sin once for all. There is no more sin, guilt, shame judgment and condemnation unless the cross didn t work. 10
The price of freedom is yourself. As the scripture says you are not your own, but were bought at a price. What does this mean? It means we give up on running our own lives. That means we stop struggling, straining and striving to live life in the flesh depending on the ways we have learned to live life independent of God. It seems that we don t get there until we have learned the hard way, through suffering, pain and brokenness that our way only brings destruction and devastation. 11
It is so amazing to me that most struggling with an addictive behavior who get sober and clean for a day or two have it all figured out. When I (Mike) teach in treatment centers and prisons and they have been away from the drugs and alcohol for awhile they have a plan on what they are going to do to remain clean and sober. When I teach on grace and tell them there is nothing they can do to get free and if they don t change what they believe and how they think that they will be drunk or on drugs a few days after they get out they will argue with me. 12
This demonstrates the biggest barrier to freedom. Until a person realizes that there is absolutely there is nothing they can do to get free and gives up completely on themselves and their resources there is no possibility of freedom. You could say that pride is what stands in the way. Freedom from sin and its power has been purchased for us, but we only experience it when we give up on ourselves. 13
It is like when my wife come to me and says, my hair is a mess and I have got to get it fixed. I ve learned to agree with her as she is serious about this and is on a mission. So she goes to the beauty parlor and when she walks out, the problem is fixed, but she is unchanged as a person. Most want to deal with their addiction in the same way. Most want advice rather than an answer and then they can reject it if they choose. Very few want to change, but all want to cope and millions attend AA meetings to do that. Once a guy called me and said, I stayed up all night reading your book. He didn t want any resolution he just identified with me and wanted to rehash his situation. Never heard from him again. 14
So, what do we have to do? Die to self? NO, NO! We have already died and our problem is we are living in deception. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:3 NIV). No, you don t die to self, but you realize that you have died with Christ and you have been raised up as a new creation, who is dead to sin and freed from it. You come to grips with reality and by faith believe the truth. You don t do anything. You believe. DON T BE AFRAID, ONLY BELIEVE! 15
We are talking about the offense of the cross. It is offensive to everyone. Why? Because it says there is nothing good in you and you can accomplish nothing that is good, loving or redemptive. It says that you cannot get your act together, act right, improve or get better in any way. It says that you are so bad that God had to kill you by putting you in Christ crucifying you, and burying you. But He raised you up from the dead and Christ lives in you and is your very life. THAT IS THE BEST, THE MOST GRAND, GLORIOUS, GOOD NEWS YOU WILL EVER HEAR!!! 16
I have lots of spouses and parents ask me that question and my answer is when the come to the end of themselves and their resources. Most of the time the person asking that question is their biggest resource. They are doing it because they love them and want to help them, but are actually enabling them to continue in their addictive behavior. I believe the enabler is standing between the addict and God and God is unable to get a clear shot at them to bring them to the end of self and their resources. 17
Every person who has an addiction is under the law. Of course the law puts you under a curse and condemnation. That is a major deception as no Christian is under law, but under grace. But if you don t know that you re dead to the law and freed from it you will be under the law, depending on your obedience and performance to please God, get free and do right. That is where most Christians are. It s where I (Mike) was for the first 18 years of my Christian life. If you know and believe you re under grace you will be free. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. (Rom. 6:14). If you don t know you re under grace it is up to you to live the Christian life, please God and get free. 18
There is only person who ever lived that obeyed the law and that was Jesus Christ and He didn t by doing His best to obey the law. He did it by faith trusting His Father. The only way anyone will ever obey God is by faith. You may go through some motions, rituals and disciplines and look like you re obeying, but Martin Luther called that double sin because you were trying to look like you were obeying God, but you were not. As one pastor said, Doing your best for God is just another definition of sin. Everything that does not come from faith is sin. (Rom. 14:23). 19
Could it be as simple as knowing the truth that as a result of the finished work of Christ that He has done it all and there is nothing for us to do, but believe that Christ is our life and we are dead to sin, freed from it, and sin, guilt, condemnation and judgment are no more. YES! THAT IS THE TRUTH. If we will believe that truth we can relax and rest. We can experience peace, joy and freedom knowing that we no longer live, but Christ lives in us and all that is required of us is to believe the truth. What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God? Jesus answered and said to them, This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent. (John 6:28, 29). 20
Most likely the biggest stumbling block is that few Christians do not know that they are not under law, but have died to it and it has nothing to say to them and it is all of grace. So actually our stumbling block is pride. We still want to do it ourselves. I spoke at a church once and the pastor s wife asked me if I got free after I had been in a blackout, arrested for public drunkenness and woke up in a hospital not knowing where I was. I had to confess it was over two years after that sad, horrible and humiliating incident that I found my freedom. As AA says It takes what it takes. 21
To be under grace and know what it means is one of the most profound and liberating truths there is but few really understand and believe it. We admit it is difficult to believe as the whole world operates under law. We have all been taught and learned that it is up to us to make it happen. Even in the Christian life we are taught we MUST read our bibles, we SHOULD pray, we OUGHT to witness, etc. Are these all good things to do? Yes, but we do them in faith trusting Christ in us as our life for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. (Phil. 2:12). 22
If you believe all these things you will be free. Because they are true and you are free. In my written testimony I listed over 30 things that I tried to get free? None of them were bad or wrong things to do. Why didn t any of them work? First of all I was already free and I was operating in the flesh depending on what I did. 23
Many ask us What is going on in my life? Most of the time this is what is going on. God says that He is going to shake everything in our life that can be shaken so that what is left is what cannot be shaken. 24
It seems that everything has to be shaken before we will really turn to Christ and trust Him as our life and find our freedom. This shaking process is simply pain and suffering that leads to brokenness. How do we learn the truth that sets free? Not by knowing facts, getting biblical knowledge, fasting, prayer, scripture memory, etc. We have to learn that there is nothing we can do to free ourselves. Any truth we know comes by revelation and desperation leads to revelation. 25
As I (Mike) struggled with my addiction I was told that the above was the reason for my addiction. NOT! Most people struggling with a an addiction have been told all of these things. So it is either up to you to straighten up or chalk it up to a disease. However the problem that every person with an addiction has is much simpler than any of these. 26
As long as we think thee is something we can do we will be in bondage. And we will told that there are countless things we can do by many well-meaning people who have no idea what they are talking about. Do we believe that apart from Jesus we can do nothing? Do we believe that His power is made perfect in our weakness? When we believe that the chains will fall off and we will walk free. I (Mike) once counseled a millionaire who told me I guess I m too weak to get this Christian stuff. My reply was, No Jack, you re too strong to give up on yourself and trust Christ. 27
I was a seminary graduate, a former pastor, who studied my bible daily, memorized chapters of scripture and knew a lot of scripture, but I was in deep bondage. I had to change my theology to get free. When someone gave me some tapes by Bill Gillham I thought, I don t want to listen to these tapes. His theology doesn t agree with mine. Than I had another thought that I knew was from the Lord who said, Your theology isn t doing you much good. That got my attention and I decided to listen to the tapes with an open mind and found my freedom as he taught on Rom. 6. How s your theology doing you? Are you free? 28
But some say, Wait a minute, we re Americans, we never give up! We re selfstarters, we re go-getters, we re hard chargers, we re high achievers. We can make it happen. We can get it done. When the going gets tough the tough get going. Fine, but that s not the Christian life. What is the Christian life? My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Cor. 12:9, 10) 29
Freedom and Victory is for the weak and the failures who have learned to give up on self. Ted Turner once said, Christianity is for the weak. I would agree with that. The truth is we are all weak, including Ted. Brokenness is the price of freedom. Is it worth it? Best thing that ever happened to me. I wouldn t have a marriage, ministry or probably a life without it. All my life I had tried to get my act together and then it was as if the Lord said to me, Your act is no good. I crucified your act and you on the cross with Christ. 30
Mike Harden, the Director of No Longer Bound, a Christian treatment center, said I wouldn t take a million dollars for my brokenness, but I wouldn t go through it again for $2 million. Neil Anderson said it was the best day of his life and the beginning of Freedom in Christ Ministries and the fifty or so books he has written. God s plan is not to strengthen you, but to waken you. It s not to improve you, but break you. It s not to change your life, but for you to exchange it for Christ s life. You can t have your cake and eat it. Life is a system of trade-offs. You can t live two lives, your life and Christ s life. You can t get rid of your addiction and be the same person. The same old person will act the same old way. After I give my testimony sometimes a person will ask me, Do I have to become a drunk, lose everything and end up on the streets to get free. I reply No, but it helps. 31