Step 6

 "Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."

Romans 5:3-5

I want to make a quick point as to why these 12 biblical steps to recovery are so important, and why I am making such particular explanation of them.  First of, these 12 steps saved my life when I needed them in my own recovery from alcohol and drug addiction.  As a product of this process, not only did I receive healing and peace from my past, but I was given a new lease on life because of a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.  So often these 12 steps are associated with addiction recovery, but I have news for you.  We are ALL in sin recovery!  The world is desperately broken and we are all in need of recovery from hurts, circumstances, and pain caused by the sin in our lives.  Now that I have stated that, we are brought to the sixth step of this process today.  In the sixth step of the recovery process we become entirely ready for God to remove our character defects.  Up to this point in the steps we have called our problem by name and admitted to it.  We have turned our wills to the surrendering power of Jesus.  And we have just received major healing in the last two steps by admitting to our shortcomings and past mistakes and hurts.  We have just admitted all of our past wrongs, and those done to us that hurt us, to God, ourselves, and a sponsor or mentor we trust.  When we got these hurts off our chest our mentor or sponsor listened without judging, and prayed for us so that we may receive the healing that God promises in James 5:16.  After completing this far into the process we should be beginning to really experience the peace the Lord offers when we surrender to His will and His way of living life.  We are starting to trust God and realizing that all of those things that seemed so big in our heads and took up all that real estate in our minds, emotions, and feelings, aren't so big.  We are seeing that God is a God of hope and peace and that He wants us not only to be forgiven, but to be HEALED.  This brings us to where we are today.  The verse above has something to say about how we correct our character.  Now that we have experienced some freedom from our past we are motivated to become more godly, more Christ-like.  We are told in the scripture above that the way godly character is produced in us is through persevering through the trials and hurts in our lives.  At this point in the process, this describes exactly what we are doing, persevering.  As we continue to push through, with the help of good godly mentors and sponsor who have our best interest in mind, we are beginning to build more godly character.  We are beginning to trust God, have our faith increased day-by-day, as we continue to receive the fruit of joy, freedom, and comfort from His promises.  As we trust the Lord and endure in His will for us, we are starting to produce hope.  Not only hope within ourselves that life can be restored and lived well, but we give hope to others as they see Christ in us!  Keep pushing, keep striving, keep persevering!  This is the way to godly character, and the way to produce the hope and joy that we are so seeking for in our lives!  Love you all!  Praying for you and yours!  Have a blessed day, it's your choice!