Step Nine Making Things Right

Monday May 13, 2024
 

Making amends is a responsibility we must take seriously if we want to protect our sobriety. It is not simply offering an apology for bad behaviour and making restitution wherever possible.  Making amends is about doing all we can to set things right and making it possible for the ones we have injured to receive healing. 


Don’t be concerned for your own good but for the good of others. I, too, try to please everyone in everything I do. I don’t just do what is best for me; I do what is best for others so that many may be saved. (1 Corinthians 10:24, 33 NLT)

Taking the first step in making amends with others would be impossible if God had not first demonstrated the way for us. 

Over and over again we failed to keep God’s commandments and yet, while we were still in rebellion, God sent His Son Jesus into the world to atone for our sin so we could be reconciled to Him. Jesus completed the work necessary for us to know peace with God, and now God calls us to extend that peace to others.  As we begin the work of restoring our troubled relationships, we can reflect on God’s way of reconciliation. 

For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. (2 Corinthians 5:19 NLT)

To make amends requires that we do whatever we have decided to do for the good of the person we have harmed. This is not intended to be a one-time event.  It is meant to be our pattern for living each day. Our goal is not just to feel better about ourselves but to lift others up and lighten the load they carry. 

Prayer:  Loving God, Thank You for forgiving me for all the times I have failed You.  Help me to forgive those who have harmed me and also do what is necessary to take responsibility, and make amends, for the harm I have caused others.  Help me to live today in ways that lift others up and lighten the load they carry. Amen

Audio for Step Nine Making Things Right

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