Wednesday, October 31, 2012 -- Life With God In Recovery -- Step 4 -- God's Inventory Items

Step Four, is a positive step because it asks us to identify those things that fall short of what God says a person needs in order to have a satisfying life.  We are guided to name in ourselves those things in our daily way of living that conflict with God’s principles so we can remove them. 

So, what are the lifestyle issues and behaviours that God asks us to inventory about in our lives?   Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.  For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.  The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.  (1 John 2:15-17)

What is God talking about when we are asked to inventory around lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride of life?  The five senses; taste, touch, smell, hearing, and seeing, all report to the mind – which, left on its own, is the enemy of God.  Lust of the flesh and lust of the eyes are the ways Satan uses our senses, through the longings and desires they trigger in us, to act selfishly and inappropriately. “Lust of the flesh” is anything that pampers our desire to have, to indulgence, to feed that part in us that `wants what it wants, when it wants it, how it wants it’.  The “lust of the eyes” hardly needs clarification.  We live in a world that is set up to visually stimulate us in order to entice us to want and to obtain at any cost.  The only criteria we are given to consider is whether we would be happy or satisfied.  We live discontent because we don’t have everything our eyes have lusted after. 

The pride of life is the belief of self-entitlement or stated in the language of our day, “protecting my rights.”  We believe that simply because of what we have accomplished, or what we know, feel, or look like, that we are entitled to certain things.  “I need it.”  “I deserve it”  “I have a right to it” are often the type of words behind these temptations.  These are the work of the enemy and they threaten God’s gift of life for us in recovery.  They are worth a careful look in our searching, fearless, and moral inventory.

For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world. (1 John 2:15-17 (NLT)

Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him.  (1 John 2:15-17 MSG)

God invites us to find true satisfaction by looking beyond these things because they pass away.  However, God knows, and He clearly tells us, that if we do His will then we will have the life we long for and will have it forever.