Celebrate Recovery Step 5 states that:

 

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.  (James 5:16a)

 

Where do you begin to write a love story?  How can you have a love story with a hatred so intense that jealousy can provoke death?  Is jealousy justified?  Yes!  Is hatred justified?  Yes!  Is death justified?  Yes!  Is mercy from God justified?  I believe mercy and grace can ONLY be justified by God.  Can mercy, grace, reconciliation, forgiveness be justified by man?  I say no.  Mercy, grace, reconciliation and forgiveness can only be justified if through an understanding of both God's anger and God's mercy.  If we can understand God's anger over our own horrendous sins then we will praise him forever for his completely unmerited mercy and grace.  When we are forgiven by man, through God, we will then be able to show the same kind of love to man.  Bottom line: It takes God.

If I hurt someone, is their anger justified?  Yes.  The same as God's is.  Can I be forgiven by those I love?  Answer: Can the angels win the pennant?  It can happen, as a young actor states in the movie, Angels in the Outfield.  And with God anything is possible.

The book of Hosea has talked to me more than any other book of the Bible I have ever read.  I have asked in prayer for God to open his word to my understanding so that I can understand his word more.  I have learned more this last month of God's feelings toward sin than years of studying.  I have been praying specifically for the fear of God in my life for years.  This does not mean to fear God, (which we do need) but means to see sin as God sees it.  The fear of God is to hate sin.  This is what I have prayed for.  I am now beginning to see and understand.  As you study I pray you too will find understanding.

In this one book, the book of Hosea, we will see, anger over sin, the heartache of God, the heartache of Hosea, the separation of Hosea from his wife Gomer, prostitution, financial bankruptcy, judgement, self recovery techniques that do not and will not work, denial, a beautiful prayer that does work, intense love, mercy, grace, reconciliation with God and the reconciliation of Hosea with Gomer his wife, and a God given prayer that works.

Hosea was a prophet of the people of the northern kingdom of Israel.  Hoseas ministry was from 755-722 B.C.  There were five different kings that ruled during this time.  Not to worry, you wont be tested on this history come Friday.  The name of one of these kings was Ahaz.  This guy was one bad dude.  It was Ahaz who brought to the kingdom the worship of false Gods.  I'm not talking about some guy claiming he's Jesus.  I'm talking about the worship of Baal.

Baal, lord, possessor.  Sun-god of Phenicia, and the supreme deity among the Canaanites and various other pagan nations.  His full title was Baal Shemaim (lord of heaven), the equivalent of the Greek Zeus.  Each locality had its own Baal and the form of worship varied from place to place.  The Baal worship that King Ahaz brought into this section, outside the S.W. corner of Jerusalem was Baal Moleck worship.  This worship started with Asherah or groves.  Idols were made of poles that would stand straight upright or erect in the ground.  Originally they were idols of the Tree of Life, but later were perverted to the origin of life carved with male organs into them.  The worship included orgies, horrible sexual sins, perversions and child sacrifices to Moleck.  The statue of Moleck was a figure with outstretched arms holding a large metal dish or bowl under which a fire had been set, causing the bowl to become white hot.  King Ahaz himself sacrificed his son to invoke Molecks blessing.  2 Kings 16:3, Leviticus. 18:21, Isaiah 30:33.  These are the sins that God's own people were involved in when Hosea began to warn the people.  The priest in God's own temple smiled on and enjoyed watching the people sin.  Hosea 4:8 The priests rejoiced in the sins of the people; they lap it up and lick their lips for more.  Hosea 7:1-4 God wanted to forgive but their sins were far too great.  No one could even live in the town without being a liar, thief and bandit!  The people never seemed to recognize or realize that God is watching.  The King was glad about the wickedness and the princes laughed about their lies.  They were all adulterers.  God wanted to redeem them but God said to them in Chapter 7:13, my people have deserted me: let them perish.  (They brought on their own destruction.)  They sinned against God.  Hose 7:13, They lie there sleepless with anxiety but won't ask my help.  Instead, they worship heathen gods asking them for crops and for prosperity.  The people of the nation put their trust in the king (their leader) to keep peace.  But Hosea 12:1 tells us they were chasing the wind, yes, shepherding a whirlwind - a dangerous game!  For she has given gifts to [both] Egypt and Assyria [playing one rival nation against the other] to get their help, and in return she gets worthless promises.  (Trying to make peace without trusting God.)

God pleads with them in Hosea 12:6 Oh, come back to God.  Live by the principles of love and justice, and always be expecting much from Him, your God.  But the people justify their actions of being crafty merchants with dishonest scales by saying, Ha, it works for us.  Hosea 12:8  I am so rich!  I have gotten it all by myself.

God has had it.  This is His case.  Hosea, Chapter 4:1-4 the Lord tells us, I have filed a lawsuit against you listing the following charges: There is no faithfulness, no kindness, no knowledge of God in your land.  You swear and lie and kill and steal and commit adultery.  There is violence everywhere, with one murder after another.  That is why your land is not producing, it is filled with sadness, and all living things grow sick and die; the animals, the birds, and even the fish begin to disappear.  God will touch your finances to get your attention, (for me he dried up my finances and used my wife to get my attention).  It worked- I went for help. 

God knows we play the blame game before we do it.  Hosea 4:4, "Don't point your finger at someone else and try to pass the blame to him!  I am pointing my finger at you."  Hosea 8:5, "How long will it be before one honest man is found among you?  When will you admit this calf you worship was made by human hands! [The thing you have made will not help you.]  It is not God!  Therefore, it must be smashed to bits."  If it is yourself you trust in, you will have to be smashed to dust.  Hosea 8:7 states, "When we have sown the wind we will reap the whirlwind.  My pockets have holes in them.   My cornstalks stand barren, withered, sickly, with no grain."  Hosea 8:8 states: "You and I, we are a lonely wandering wild ass." 

God will touch your finances.  Hosea Chapter 9:2, "Therefore your harvests will be small; your grapes will blight upon the vine.  The time has come, punishment has come; the day of recompense is almost here, and soon we will know it's so " states Hosea 9:7.  God set nature itself against these people and will do the same to you and me.

God sees our attitude and knows our hearts before we even speak the words to him in prayer.  In Hosea 5:15-6:3 God speaks, "I will abandon them and return to my home until they admit their guilt and look to me for help again, for soon as trouble comes, they will search for me and say: Come let us return to the Lord; it is He who has formed us.  He will heal us.  He has wounded- he will bind us up.  In just a couple of days, or three at the most, he will set us on our feet again to live in his kindness!  Oh that we might know the Lord!  Let us press on to know him, and he will respond to us as surely as the coming of dawn or the rain of early spring."

Let There Be Sorrow

Now, if you have stopped the enabling and your mate is on his or her way down, has hit bottom, watch and listen to their words, remembering words have meanings.  Pleading and begging with such words as I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry are not enough.

You can be sorry you got caught, you can be sorry you fell down and broke your arm.  True sorrow is for what you did before you got caught.  The sorrow would be feeling remorse about your drunkenness which caused you to fall down and break your arm.  Sorrow for being an addict and being controlled to the point of having caused pain and hurt by whatever or whoever, will have to be revealed for healing to take place.  True sorrow will be, I am sorry that I chose to do what I did.  I admit and take full blame, for what I did was wrong before God and man.  Any control we allow to dictate to us and control us that alters our thinking other than God is apostasy.  When we do not pray for guidance, we are putting our faith in our own abilities.

I allowed controls other than God to control me and my way of thinking.  I took what was programmed into my mind and allowed it to destroy my life.  I became a slave to my addiction of pleasing- a dependancy.  What are you using or allowing to be put on you to please or what control are you using or allowing to be used on you.

King David had committed murder and basically rape when Nathan pointed his finger at him and said, "You are that man," when confronting David with his sin of using his power and manipulation to take Bathsheba as his wife.  David had used his power to rape Bathsheba.  Bathsheba could not say no because David was the king.

David first confessed to Nathan.  2 Samuel 12:13, 14a, "I have sinned against the Lord."  Then Nathan replied, "Yes, but the Lord has forgiven you and you wont die for this sin.  But you have given great opportunity to the enemies of the Lord to despise and blaspheme Him."  Nathan states outright that the things that David had done can be taken and used by the enemy.  The enemy will take our sin, the way you and I handle things and use them to try to destroy the next and their next generation of children.  God understands better than we how this happens.  This is why he tells us to confess the sins of our ancestors.  Please listen up.  Stop the insanity.  David then goes directly to God and prays Psalm 51:1-4, "O loving and kind God, have mercy.  Have pity upon me and take away the awful stain of my transgressions.  Oh wash me, cleanse me from this guilt.  Let me be pure again.  For I admit my shameful deeds- it haunts me day and night.  It is against you and you alone I sinned and did this terrible [horrible, despicable, horrendous, mind controlling, manipulative, scaring thing that can cause a second and third generation to take on and follow] thing.  You saw it all and your sentence against me is just."  Psalm 51:6, "You deserve [100%] honesty from the heart; yes utter sincerity and truthfulness. Oh, give me this wisdom."

We must remember that it took an outsider, a second person (for me, it took Scotty followed by my pastor and counselor), to help David see how he had used manipulation and control and his own power to satisfy his lust.  David prayed as we must pray that God would give us the wisdom and total honesty in our heart.  We must be sincere in searching for truth and the total truth of how we have used the things we learned, programmed, or had programmed into our minds, that created binding chains of destruction in homes, into the lives of our children and into those lives that we have touched and continue to touch.  If we can not look at ourselves we will continue to find one relationship after another broken, one marriage after another broken and leave a path of destruction and heartache for our children to follow.  If we learn to justify our own failings our children will learn to justify their failings.  If we run from confrontation than our children will run from confrontation.  If we are quitters our children will be quitters.  If we do not forgive, our children will learn to not forgive.  That is why God wants us to confess the sins of our ancestors, to break the chains that are passed down to us.  Please think about what you are teaching your children.  This is the reason why I have been sending copies of my writing to my children.  I want the cycle of controlling addiction to stop with me, the way that we have been taught, the ways we have learned to handle things will continue to be passed from generation to generation if we do not receive wisdom from God and break that cycle.

Many answers can be found through the books Search for Significance and Untangling Relationships.  These books have helped me more than any two books I have ever studied.  They can be bought through the Southern Baptist Bookstore or your local Bible bookstore.  Please take the time to study them.  God wants to heal those who are hurting.  And God has anointed a man in Robert S. McGee and others who can help you.  (Robert S. McGee wrote Search for Significance.  Pat Springle wrote Untangling Relationships which was co-published by Word, Inc. and Rapha Resources, Inc.)

David continues by asking for restoration and a spirit of obedience so that he can teach others with the same problems Psalm 51:12-13.  It is revealed to David that God does not want penance but a broken spirit and a broken and contrite heart.  David then prays to God not to punish his people and asks for protection of his people against the sins he had committed.  We also need to turn to God as he reveals to us the things that we have done, that can be put upon those we love just by them following in our footsteps.  David was praying to God to stop the cycle of destruction.  David was searching and praying for wisdom, for God to show him how and what to pray for, so that he could teach others how to break the cycle.  When we can admit our faults as David did and ask to be shown how our destructive ways will be put on our loved ones, we will then be able to pray the cycle of destruction will stop with us.  I pray it will stop with me and that you will pray for wisdom and understanding that your destructive pattern will stop with you.

God gave me a hunger to help others when I was sixteen years old, but how could I help others when I was wearing blinders?  How could I help others when I myself was bound by destructive controls that left a wake of destruction wherever I went?  How could I help a person in need, a person with a splinter in their eye, when I myself had a board in my eye?

Pages 9, and 10 are dedicated to those whom I have hurt.  I truly from the bottom of my heart, loved and still love, but allowed a parallel of selfish self-seeking love to take control.  I am sorry.  Please forgive me. 

When I was a teenager I was fixing a bike and as I was trying to get a nut off with a hammer and chisel, a metal splinter went into my eye.  It was so painful that it felt like a log.  My eyes began to tear from the pain.  I had to feel my way from my grandmothers chicken coop into the house, because I could only open the uninjured eye for a split second.  My grandmother tried to wash it and looked into my eye, but could not see anything.  My Dad took me to an eye surgeon who found a hole just off center of my eye.  He thought that a piece of metal might have gone into the eye.  They put medicine in my eye to relieve the pain, and a patch over the eye, then he sent me to the hospital for an x-ray and told me if it has gone into the eye he would have to operate.  The x-ray did not show anything in the eye, but to this day I can still see a squiggly line just off center in that eye if I look for it.  Such a tiny metal splinter to cause such pain and leave a scar for life.  Quite a lesson!  When drilling a hole into a piece of metal I can create fine splinters (almost dust) that appear to be absolutely harmless, but if they were to accidently get into ones eye, it would feel like a log.