f
o c u s
To cut to
the chase, let us start this web page with this concept. There is this world, but
also, there is the Kingdom of God, in the mind of god. Most
understand that the noahhite concept came to be because there was an
obsession about one scripture - 2 Peter 3:8, over sixteen years ago; "But
beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing. One day is with the Lord as a
thousand years, as one thousand years is as one day," of
which we are now in, relative to the millennium rule of Christ.
Two
other translations of that scripture, along with other adjoining and
pertinent scriptures are as follows:
1 This is now, beloved, the second epistle that I write unto you; and in both of them I stir up your sincere mind by putting you in remembrance;
2 that ye should remember the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and the commandments of the Lord and Saviour through your apostles:
3 knowing this first, that in the last days mockers shall come with mockery, walking after their own lusts,
4 and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for, from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
5 For this they willfully forget, that there were heavens from of old, and an earth compacted out of water and amidst water, by the word of God;
6 by which means the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:
7 but the heavens that now are, and the earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.
8 But forget not this one thing, beloved, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness; but is longsuffering to you-ward, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. (ASV)
1This is my second letter to you, dear friends, and in both of them I have tried to stimulate your wholesome thinking and refresh your memory.
2I want you to remember and understand what the holy prophets said long ago and what our Lord and Savior commanded through your apostles.
3First, I want to remind you that in the last days there will be scoffers who will laugh at the truth and do every evil thing they desire.
4This will be their argument: “Jesus promised to come back, did he? Then where is he? Why, as far back as anyone can remember, everything has remained exactly the same since the world was first created.”
5They deliberately forget that God made the heavens by the word of his command, and he brought the earth up from the water and surrounded it with water.
6Then he used the water to destroy the world with a mighty flood.
7And God has also commanded that the heavens and the earth will be consumed by fire on the day of judgment, when ungodly people will perish.
8But you must not forget, dear friends, that a day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day.
9The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise to return, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to perish, so he is giving more time for everyone to repent.
(TB)
So,
now to our topic of this web page, are we focused? Are we willing to chair
meetings? Are we willing to read a portion of our fellowship
literature to open a meeting? Are we willing to share in meetings,
carrying a message of hope? Are we willing to give a person a ride
to a meeting, when they ask for same, especially if we are not fond of
them? Are we willing to take a
person home, after the meeting, if it is going out of our way? Are we willing to clean up the
meeting room and clean the ashtrays, at the end of meetings? Are
we willing to help paint the club house on maintenance days?
But now
to the meat of the matter. Are we really willing to learn how
to carry the
message to others; anonymously? Even if they are in jail, prison, correctional
facilities, detox, treatment facilities, ad infinitum? And dear
friends, that is just the barest absolute beginning, of our path to God,
so that his Spirit can be breathed into our being, through a miraculous
and mysterious procedure, which absolutely requires the spiritual
awakening, before that process can even begin.
Then he said to me, “This is what the LORD says to Zerubbabel: It is not by force nor by strength, but by my
Spirit, says the LORD Almighty. Nothing, not even a mighty mountain, will stand in Zerubbabel’s way; it will flatten out before him! Then Zerubbabel will set the final stone of the Temple in place, and the people will shout: ‘May God bless it! May God bless it!’”
(Zechariah 4:6-7)
But let
us think about some other requirements.
Now, dear brothers and sisters, I appeal to you by the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ to stop arguing among yourselves. Let there be real harmony so there won’t be divisions in the church. I plead with you to be of one mind, united in thought and
purpose.
(1 Corinthians 1:10)
And if we
are going to work in harmony, how can we be involved in politics? Or
even worse, how can we be for labor or for the capitalists? So,
are we liberal, or are we conservative? But let us hopefully
understand the following truth, especially as it relates to the world
scene; terrorism, killings in courtrooms, etc.
What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Isn’t it the whole army of evil desires at war within you? You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous for what others have, and you can’t possess it, so you fight and quarrel to take it away from them. And yet the reason you don’t have what you want is that you don’t ask God for it. And even when you do ask, you don’t get it because your whole motive is wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.
You adulterers! Don’t you realize that friendship with this world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again, that if your aim is to enjoy this world, you can’t be a friend of God. What do you think the Scriptures mean when they say that the Holy Spirit, whom God has placed within us, jealously longs for us to be faithful? He gives us more and more strength to stand against such evil desires. As the Scriptures say,
“God sets himself against the proud,
but he shows favor to the humble.”
So humble yourselves before God. Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you. Draw close to God, and God will draw close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, you hypocrites. Let there be tears for the wrong things you have done. Let there be sorrow and deep grief. Let there be sadness instead of laughter, and gloom instead of joy. When you bow down before the Lord and admit your dependence on him, he will lift you up and give you honor.
(James 4:1-10)
Does that
sound liberal to you?
The most
important focus for all anonymous fellowship people is about recovery, which changes the focus from what the
world is doing, or has done, and what we did that is wrong, and needs to
be corrected in the first nine steps.
Recovery
is not about what the white man did to the natives - American Indians - on
American soil. It is not about what the KKK did to Negros during all
of the lynching years. It is not about what Hitler and his henchmen did to the
Jews. Nor is it about what the Soviets did to all of the people in
their prison camps, called gulags. And it is not about what the
terrorists are doing either, eventhough the Holy Spirit assures me that
God will clear the current terrorist mess up, in His good time.
Anonymous
Recovery
is about doing our own inventory, and being willing to find what we did
that was wrong, by our own conscience, and being entirely willing to let
God straighten out our past, through reconciliation of making amends for
our wrongs, not theirs!
For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. And
the government will rest on his shoulders. These will be his royal titles:
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His
ever expanding, peaceful government will never end. He will rule
forever with fairness and justice from the throne of his ancestor David.
The passionate commitment of the LORD Almighty will guarantee this!
(Isaiah 9:6-7)
Now
let us take a much longer view of why we need to remain focused on
anonymous recovery, in our daily lives. This world, for some reason,
stays focused on how successful people are, and how important it is to win
the super bowl, or the world series etc. Or the media focuses on how
bad all of the child molesters are, and why stiffer sentences are needed,
to protect the children, or the vanishing of a high school graduate in a
foreign country, or a death on a cruise ship, or the trial of a celebrity,
to the point of revulsion. Read an article recently that stated
a quote about the news industry, "If it bleeds, it leads."
But
no one likes to be
associated with a loser. In the eyes of the world, the biggest loser
of all was Jesus Christ, because he was crucified, without so much as saying a
word, and not even saying anything bad about those that did crucify him.
Then Jesus began to tell them that he, the Son of Man, would suffer many terrible things and be rejected by the leaders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, and three days later he would rise again. As he talked about this openly with his disciples, Peter took him aside and told him he shouldn’t say things like that.
Jesus turned and looked at his disciples and then said to Peter very sternly,
“Get away from me, Satan! You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.”
Then he called his disciples and the crowds to come over and listen.
“If any of you wants to be my follower,” he told them,
“you must put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross, and follow me. If you try to keep your life for yourself, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will find true life. And how do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own
soul in the process? Is anything worth more than your soul?
If a person is ashamed of me and my message in these adulterous and sinful days, I, the Son of Man, will be ashamed of that person when I return in the glory of my Father with the holy angels.”
(Mark 8:31-38)
Personally,
I agree with the slogan, "Aim high, be all you can be." That
is sound advice. However, when the conversion process begins
- required spiritual awakening bringing to the forefront the rebirth
process, those that have achieved the highest status,
through the legal means of a hard work ethic, have the longest and hardest
falls. That is the good news of real anonymous recovery, if indeed,
a new-life
is to be lived. :-)
When we sincerely took such a position, all sorts of remarkable things followed. We had a new Employer. Being all powerful, He provided what we needed, if we kept close to Him and performed His work well. Established on such a footing we became less and less interested in ourselves, our little plan and designs. More and more we became interested in seeing what we could contribute to life. As we felt new power flow in, as we enjoyed peace of mind, as we discovered we could face life successfully, as we became conscious of His presence, we began to lose our fear of today, tomorrow or the hereafter.
We were reborn. (bigbook
page 63)
