Being a lifelong educator and gardener I find my analogies to life come mostly from these two arenas.  When a child is struggling with a difficult subject, they usually don’t tackle it with vigor.  They are usually timid about it and believe they can’t learn it.  They need one to one compassionate help to see that they can understand the subject/content but they need help personalizing the learning different than the whole class is getting.  This morning I am feeling like this is what God is giving me of late.

Learning to live as a new creation is something I’ve longed for, for years.  I didn’t know to call it a new creation.  I just wanted to be free of my past.  Little did I know the amount of work it would take to address all the beliefs I have had about myself and the world around me.  I said in yesterday’s blog that the topic of homosexuality is one I don’t relish.  I know that God is wanting me to use my story to help others with theirs–whether it is escaping from the victim side of it or from the sin side of it.  This morning and yesterday afternoon I was processing fears and more fears about it in my mind.  However, during my devotional time God has replaced those fears with His Amazing Light.  He reminded me that He is with me fully: within and around me.  What He will lead me into will be done with Him and for His purposes.  So, today I am standing inside and outside.

I just want to say that I know this topic of homosexuality is a hot one in society today.  No one loves the person that struggles with this anymore than me.  It is the simple truth that this topic is a sin nature like so many others.  Learning to live with a sin nature as a struggle rather than as an identity is what God is teaching me.  Society needs to understand this as well as each individual who has the struggle.  I am ready to help the individual, not sure what to do about our society.  This will take much more clarity from God and The Team:  God, Christ Jesus and The Holy Spirit.

Yesterday’s entry did not happen as any reader would know.  I had to be to a breakfast meeting in town by 7:00 am for the Aslan work.  In spite of rising early, I just didn’t get it done.  That meeting was followed by another one at our church which I wanted to attend in support of Celebrate Recovery.  At that end of that meeting I was asked by our sr pastor’s wife if I could talk with her a minute.  She and her husband are putting together a weekend conference for this fall to address strongholds Satan has in people’s lives.  She asked if I’d be willing to work with them.  Of course I’m willing I said.  Then she told me the topic she’d like me to support is homosexuality.  Inside I went to my knees but I stayed standing on the outside.  I’ve talked about this influence on my life for a few years now and I’ve had a few months of living as a “new creation”.  Why would this be paralyzing?

My bible reading is in II Timothy.  This morning in chapter 3:12 it says: “Indeed all who delight in piety and are determined to live a devoted and godly life in Christ Jesus will meet with persecution.”  Joyce Meyer, the one whose Bible edition I’m reading, has a footnote with this verse.  It reads, “If we will stay standing on the inside, God will take care of the outside.  If we do what we can do, God will do what we cannot do.”

Of all the abuse: sexual, verbal, physical, I withstood growing up, the fact that the sexual was homosexual still sickens me.  Its the one thing I want to put back into denial.  In the past weeks of new creation living, this item has been fairly silent in my life.  These past few days have assured me that God is wanting me to stand with him on the inside and on the outside addressing this topic.  I can see this morning that homosexuality is a struggle and not something that owns us.  That is what Satan wants me and others to believe.  I want to be a human voice for God in this.

These past few weeks of actually living in the new creation has given me something I didn’t know could ever be possible on this earth–true freedom.  For a paralyzing moment yesterday I didn’t think I had that freedom any longer.  However, God has helped me sort through my fear and His Strength so I can see I will never live alone again.  It is in His Strength and His work I will be doing whatever He asks from this point forward.  Thank you Father, Christ and Holy Spirit.

The graciousness of God, His Son and His Holy Spirit is amazing.  I was given a word picture this morning of this Threesome dancing in heaven each time the Holy Spirit is allowed by one of us to infill us with His Holy Presence so we may become in Christ’s likeness.  I had never thought of such an event taking place.  I know scripture talks about the angels rejoice when one comes to accept Christ in their lives, but to even think that The Almighty God is also rejoicing with His Own Team just makes me want to cry and smile all at the same time.  God has been digging deeply into intimacy with me this week.

I realize that the struggles of this week have been with Satan fighting to keep ownership of all the beliefs I’ve had regarding my personal self-worth.  I spent the day yesterday with the counselor who helped me so much just a few years back with the PTSD therapy and more.  We were at our state capitol meeting with legislators interested in our Aslan Academy work. She even asked me if the present battle was my intimate belief of me.  Of course, it is.  However, God showing me His love for me and Christ’s love for me is helping me to believe the intimacy of His Precious Holy Spirit is also for me.  I find myself welcoming Him and then doubting Him all within the same day.  I know this is all my old beliefs being uprooted by His Presence in my life.  The beauty is that He-the very Spirit of God is winning.

Intimacy is a gift I want to learn to accept and give.  I know it is far more spiritual than flesh but I want to accept it and give it in each part of me.  So, I am in a part of this journey that has always been fear invoking for me, but this time I’m staying and not fleeing.

Today’s journey starts with an unexpected awakening for me.  Last night I was teaching the Celebrate Recovery lesson on “Spiritual Inventory”.  It is all about working through the hurts of your past identifying who was involved in them.  It then takes you into looking at the hurt you caused and identifying who was involved in them.  Last week’s lesson was Inventory and this week is Spiritual Inventory.  For the first few years in CR I didn’t even note the difference in the titles.  For me it was just insight on completing this emotionally labor-intense task.  The key word is Spiritual.  In order to teach last night’s lesson I needed to understand why Spiritual was added to the title.  As I’d been prepping for the lesson I began to understand.

Doing the Inventory in Celebrate Recovery makes one fully exposed–raw.  How else can all that must be exposed to the healing Light of God be cleansed and healed?  However, for anyone to be this honest he must have help and trust.  This is where the Spiritual part comes in.  None of us are that honest on our own.  However, God’s gift–The Holy Spirit–called The Helper, is our intervention piece.  It is with His empowerment and trust that we can be brave enough to take this step of full exposure.  The outcome is always rewarding because the weight of this is gone and the cleansing provided is miraculous.  One also finds “no condemnation” too.  Instead, one finds greater acceptance and love.

So, I taught this last night and it seemed to go well.  No one knew except God that I personally had my one sentence moment of mistrust in the lesson.  The script of the lesson has the teacher thanking God for our past so it can now be used as a Godly tool to help others unravel their own past and find forgiveness and peace.  I can thank God for using my past and at times I have thanked Him for the past.  However, deep down I haven’t thanked Him truly.  I knew this morning that this troublesome area had to do with The Holy Spirit and me.  He is said to be Christ’s gift–God’s Helper to us.  The new creation in me couldn’t respond and I needed help knowing where HE–God’s Helper was in the years of abuse.  So, I asked.

It was amazing to sense the love and compassion that came over me.  He outlined so specifically Who He Is and who I am to Him.  In flesh I felt alone, but in spirit, He was fully with me.  He is healing this wounded area I thought was abandonment due to my worthlessness to Him.  He is assuring me it is quite the contrary.  I never expected to have this conversation with The Holy Spirit but I’m so glad we did.  He Loves Me and I’m more assured than ever this is true.

Today is truly part II of yesterday’s blog.  I didn’t know at this time yesterday that the temptations of the previous night weren’t finished.  Throughout the day I had the lingering questions and suppressed anxiety that the thoughts of inability were still me.  By the middle of the afternoon I’d talked about this with Kathy but the struggle was increasing instead of diminishing.  Last night was the beginning of the men’s study called 7 Pillars.  It is the in-depth study for those struggling with sexual addiction.  It follows the Conquer series.  We guys have a close relationship so I was able to tell them about the day’s struggle because it was by then turning into sexual temptations.  I was reminded by the leader that Satan’s deceptions are real.  I know this very real truth, but I needed to hear it from the outside–my inside was spiraling.  It helped to anchor me.

This morning as I took my book: The Nature of Freedom: I was to tell God what I’m most excited about when moving into the freedom of the new creation.  I told Him about yesterday (as though He didn’t know) and how I really longed to get much better acquainted with The Holy Spirit.  Over the past several months I’d found myself truly getting to know Him, God, and His Son Jesus much more intimately.  I don’t have substance for The Holy Spirit and He seems so mysterious.  My Bible reading was in I Timothy 1-3 where Paul is outlining for Timothy about leadership and how a leader is to live.  I could see much more plainly how living this way was possible when you are living as a new creation.  I have always struggled in my mind with this, knowing I “was a hypocrite”.  My living might look good but I was the one who wasn’t good.

As I finished the bible reading I went to my own journal where I was able to tell God how much I did wish to know His Holy Spirit like I did Him.  The struggle of yesterday had been haunting for me.  As I asked Him what He wanted me to know from Him this day, He told me, “Earnie, a might lesson was held yesterday.  You struggled, you stepped, I intervened, you confessed the struggle and I have shed Light.  Who did you see–My Holy Spirit.  He is the Light that allows you to now see the difference between the past weeks when you lived in peace as the new creation and the anxiety that comes when you are tempted to move back into the old self which is dead.  Now that you have seen this clearly for the first time you can leave the battle with us, for it is ours to fight–which by the way–We’ve already destroyed with our Light.  The lingering fears and moments are the evil attempts to sway you.  Be strong in US–your TEAM (God, Jesus, Holy Spirit).

What was amazing was that I could now see the difference between living the old life I’ve always struggled with and living in the new creation I’d experienced the past few weeks.  I was also able to see how Satan was trying to re-establish himself on the throne of Grace where Christ resides and where The Holy Spirit has cleansed.  So much of this truth lies in what I am learning to believe about God and me.  I am truly a child of the King in the new creation.  The struggle has always been trying to live as a child of the King in the old self. I’ll be better prepared for the next attack.  Our God is amazing!  Lets be strong in the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY.

I awoke half way through the night last night and my mind was filled with all kinds of thoughts about my inabilities and inadequacies.  This doesn’t often happen to me, but when it has happened in the past I would desperately keep them a secret and try even harder to ensure no one saw them.  I’d be anxious and highly on guard to know what I was missing.  They would fall in line with what I believed about myself primarily from dad’s early comments to me.  Last night however, I wasn’t in a state of panic as always before, I was in a state of confusion.  I didn’t understand why this “new creation” was being hit with these “old man” items.  I told the thoughts I was a new creation and they weren’t me any longer–in fact, I must have told them that many times.  Eventually I went back to sleep.

This morning I needed to find out from God what all this was about.  I wasn’t in a state of panic or anxiety, but I was still in the state of confusion.  I couldn’t understand why this was still happening with the new creation.  It was in the asking that God brought about the clarity He wanted me to know.  In Ephesians 6:11, Paul is telling the people of Ephesus to “put on God’s whole armor that you may be able successfully to stand up against the strategies and the deceits of the devil.”(Amplified Bible)  God went on to remind me that being a new creation doesn’t make me unable to be tempted to sin or tempted to be deceived by Satan’s undermining.  So instead of falling prey to his deceitfulness, I was able to counter the lies with God’s truth.  My abilities are centered around God’s abilities and His strength.   I don’t ever need to believe these old feelings anymore.  If God is placing me in a situation He will provide the ability and strength to do what He wants.

The last piece of understanding for me is that this was spiritual and not flesh.  I’ve always applied something like this to flesh.  In my flesh I was, I thought, incapable just as my dad would say.  However, God is awakening me to the spiritual torment of Satan and I can stand in it knowing He has provided a way of escape just as He says in I Corinthians 10:13.

God is truly amazing.  In our pastor’s sermon yesterday he talked about God’s Name:  Alpha & Omega.  If God isn’t the beginning and the end of all I do, He isn’t my God.  In between these two places I’ve put myself or something else in God’s place.  This sermon resonated with God’s present work in my life.  All through my life I’ve put limits and walls around parts of me.  In much younger years they were done to protect me I thought.  In my working years I thought those walls not only protected me, but they also shielded me from any further abuse.  In my present time I am learning that there can be no more walls.  These walls had built caves or dark rooms where I found my own sin.  In God’s penetrating light I can see all of this so clearly now.  Instead of walls God has given me His armor.  This armor is found in the Ephesians 6:10-18.  This armor goes on the new creation God has made in me.  I had tried to put this armor on the old self which never worked because the old self was dead but I was still trying to live in him.

I find all of this so amazing!  I’ve been intentionally working on my recovery out in the open for nearly 10 years.  I’m finally getting it.  The Nature of Freedom, by Graham Cooke, is also a valuable tool in my awakening.  I had just written “remaking” instead of “awakening” in the previous sentence.  As soon as I wrote it I felt God’s Spirit nudging me with the fact that I’m not being remade, I am being awakened to the new creation He’d given me so long ago.  I was the one trying to remake me.  God is now showing me what this new creation is and how I’m to live in him.  There is so much greater freedom and peacefulness in this.  In my book, The Journey from Error to Heir, the last section is Finding Freedom.  Someday I will need to add an additional section–something like:  Living in Freedom.

To God be all Glory!

Yesterday proved to be an interesting day learning about the new creation I am and how this works into my nature.  We were having company last night to celebrate a friend’s birthday.  He and his wife plus his sister visiting from out of state came over for dinner.  In the afternoon I had gone into town to my daughter’s home so she could cut my hair.  Afterwards I thought it would be nice to get him a gift.  I’m not so generous but Penny’s had great sales going.  I bought him a nice shirt I thought he’d like.  I was amazed how he seemed to enjoy this and he thanked me a couple times during the evening.  This was truly the new me listening to nudges from the Holy Spirit.

After they’d gone home I was loading the dishwasher while Kathy came in the kitchen.  Our dinner had been food she typically isn’t eating on her diet.  She was now preparing something she was going to eat which her diet allows even though she’d partook with the dinner.  I asked why she was eating more as though I were her control agent?  She told me it was allowed as though she were responsible to me.

This morning’s devotional was about repentance in the new creation.  I instantly knew I had to repent for trying to control Kathy’s eating.  The interesting piece to this and why I’m confessing this in my blog, I didn’t attach my behavior to my old self.  This is simply my new creation (which is still human) being willful and not responding to the Holy Spirit’s nudge, allowing Him to be Kathy’s agent.  I know I am not in charge of Kathy and I don’t want to be.  She and God are a good team unto themselves.  She and I are a good team when God is at the helm of us too like in last night’s dinner with friends.  I’m liking being a new creation and living in it more fully awake to what this actually means.  I have so much to learn but God is a mighty good Teacher when I’m listening to His Holy Spirit who is at my helm.

This morning I am awakened to more about being a new creation.  It all started with my devotional saying that when we walk with Jesus as our Savior, He will bring forth memories from our past that need to be dealt with. These may be troubling ones but He is now with us and will guide us to deal with them through His healing process.  I instantly recalled many He has done this with for me. Then, as I did the piece in the book:  The Nature of Freedom, I was asked to write about God’s Righteousness as a new creation.  I know that God sees me as this new creation due to accepting Christ in my heart where He places The Holy Spirit.  At this point I began my Bible reading:  I Thessalonians 5.  In this chapter the 19th verse says to not quench the Holy Spirit.  I’ve been reading the Amplified Bible where Joyce Meyer adds footnotes at times.  She writes something that clarified a confusing item for me.  Here she writes:  “Many people do not understand that we are tri-part beings:  spirit, soul and body. We are a spirit, we have a soul (composed of our mind, will and emotions), and we live in a body.  Our new birth begins in our spirit, is carried out through our soul and is finally visible to other people through a demonstration of God’s glory in our lives.”

If someone had made a quiz about these details I’d probably passed just fine because the facts I could produce.  If someone would have asked me to write an essay about how all of this manifests itself in real life I would have put facts and not been able to add the manifestation part.  What God awakened for me this morning is that He has seen Jesus in me since the time I gave my heart to Him at the age of 10 or 11.  I have been a new creation to Him since then.  It is only now 56 years later that I’ve begun to truly understand this magnificent reality.

I said yesterday that I had this peace about the relaxed day ahead of me.  In past I would be anxious because when a day like that would come I’d be overwhelmed with temptations and thoughts of my inability to conquer them.  I only saw me dealing with them as the old self. God’s picture of Christ in me was something I didn’t see.  Now that God has been having me write out in the book: The Nature of Freedom, I’m seeing what I’ve always missed.  The old me was dead to God but he was active and alive to me.  I am the one who has been needing to let him die.  I thought my old self would finally die when my body did.  Little have I known that I can let him die now. As I learn more about my new creation I am able to surrender my old self to death. My past can die long before my body does if I am able to take the steps God is guiding me through now.  I’m going to stay on this journey.

Have you ever wondered what a new creation does when nothing is scheduled for the day?  Well, I am wondering that too.  So far I’m taking my daughter’s car for an oil change and Kathy is working on a little get together with some friends.  That’s it!  Always before I’d be anxious about temptations and what I’d need to do so they wouldn’t overwhelm me, etc.  Today is not that way.  I don’t know this freedom well, but it is fun to sense it without the fear.

Yesterday afternoon I met with one of the men I sponsor.  He and I talked about working through the book:  The Nature of Freedom.  When we talked about the help it has been for me–he cried.  He desperately wants this freedom too.  Living in the new creation we are given is something all of us need to awaken to so much more.  I sure want to stay on this path to freedom.  It is so amazing.