Awakenings-Addiction & Recovery

For around the twentieth time I have watched the movie Awakenings with Robin Williams and Robert De Niro. Needless to say I love the movie. Normally I watch it when I am getting burned out on ministry, discouraged, starting to get a hard heart, etc. (Oh no I am revealing who I am if I have watched the movie around 20 times in 20 years.) However this time I watched the movie with the men at Fairhaven House, our clean & sober homes. We used it for a time of entertainment and as a teaching tool. The movie makes you laugh, cry, think, etc. I absolutely love it.

If you have not seen the movie it is a true story about several people who at an early age had a disease and they became catatonic. They have been put into a mental hospital. The movie centers around one of the patients named Leonard (Robert De Niro) and the neurosurgeon (Robin Williams). The neurosurgeon (Dr. Sayer in the movie) decided to try a medication to see if he could 'wake' Leonard up.

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I know some of you are just reading this email and not the passages each day. That is great! There are some good nuggets from the Scriptures each day. If you were to read the passages each day you would be reading around three chapters of the Bible each day. This may seem not much reading, but in reality it is only a few minutes a day. Even in my very busy schedule I find the time to read the chapters each day (believe me, everything tells me I don’t have time). I want to challenge each of you to try for the month of March to read the passages each day. Yes, you will miss some days.  That is OK, at least you got more Bible reading than what you may have had in the past.  

Why read the entire passages each instead just my commentary? So, you can get the context of the passages. So, you can see if what I am saying is correct. So, you can gain your own insights. So, you can get more familiar with the Bible. So you can renew your mind by reading he Word of God.

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In our previous study we listed several verses regarding bearing good fruit. It is obvious from these verses that followers of Jesus Christ should bear good fruit. There are dire consequences for those who do not bear good fruit. Most of the verses are addressing behavior and actions more than they are addressing doctrine. 

Many who are legalistic and critical believe their job is to be fruit inspectors and point out the sins, errors, and faults of everyone (of course they say little about their own sin). As we address this topic, we want to make it clear that there are certainly times for ministry leaders to confront sin and address errors and faults of those under their leadership. However, many of those who are critical and legalistic are not leaders within any ministry. They have taken upon themselves to be fruit inspectors and in the midst of their 'confronting of sin', they do it in a hurtful, hateful, and judgmental manner. Many times what they are really addressing is issues of preference rather than of doctrine. They normally make assumptions about a persons motives and their heart condition.  (More)  

The following are verses regarding bearing good fruit. It is obvious from these verses that followers of Jesus Christ should bear good fruit. There are dire consequences for those who do not bear good fruit.

Almost all of these verses are addressing behavior more than they are doctrine. That certainly does not give justification for false doctrine. There are certainly several verses regarding confronting false doctrine. But in regards to fruit bearing, the main emphasis is behavior and actions.

Yet many who are judgmental, legalistic, or critical love quoting these verses. They believe their job is to be fruit inspectors and point out the sins, errors, and faults of everyone (of course they say little about their own sin). What is interesting is there is hardly anything in all of these verses talking about any person being the fruit inspector. It is clear that God is to be the fruit inspector, not man. In the next lesson we will talk more about fruit inspecting.

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The following verses on judging are addressing various issues and some of the verses would only be applicable to a specific situation. However, any sincere reader would have to agree the overall principle of Scripture is that we are not to judge others-especially when it comes to what is in their heart and their motives.

The overall principle that can be found in these verses on judging is that we will reap what we sow-if we sow judgment upon others, judgment will come upon us. This does not mean that we should never judge behavior or actions. We will discuss this aspect of judging in our next post.

Matthew 7:1-5 (NASB95)
¹ "Do not judge so that you will not be judged.
² "For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.
³ "Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?
⁴ "Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' and behold, the log is in your own eye?
⁵ "You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye."

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Our next set of Bible Studies will be on the topics of Judging, Pride, Legalism, and Gossip. You might wonder how all of these be related. Think about it. Those who are known for judging the heart and the motives of people are usually very prideful-they think they are the ones with the truth and they are called by God to not only point out the sin of others, but to judge the heart and motives of others. Normally these are people who are very legalistic in their beliefs (even though they would just say they are standing for truth). Invariably these individuals will then gossip with others who have the same traits. An example of these type of people were the Pharisees.  (More)  

Do any of our readers need some changes in their life? Of course. If we are honest, everyone of us have need to make some changes in our life. So, the question is not if we need to change. The question is are we willing to change? Are we willing to go through the process of change? Are we willing to pay the 'price' to change? Is changing for the better more important to us than staying the same way?

Here is a reality. Most people do not change much. As yourself, how different are you from 10 years ago? Do you have the same flaws as you had 10 years ago? Yes, there may have been many changes in your life, but are some of the same flaws there? Yes, maybe you became a Christian 10 years ago and there have been some drastic changes in your life, but some of the flaws of the past are still there.

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