Scriptures of Recovery: 1 Timothy 1:15-16: Jesus Saves Sinners

1 Timothy 1:15-16, "Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners - of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in Him and receive eternal life."

When I first came into church, I knew that I was different. I was in a room full of people and I knew they were not like me. They had not been abused like me as a child. They had not done drugs like me, drank like me, sold drugs like me, struggled with depression like me, gone to prison like me, etc. I felt completely out of place and knew that I was being judged by them. I was extremely nervous and uncomforable at first. Then some things happened to change that. This passage is one of those things.

Paul tells us that this passage should be taken at face value. It is not only “trustworthy” but also deserves “full acceptance.” He is giving a double guarantee that what he is saying is true, and what he is saying is huge! He is saying that Christ came into the world to save sinners, not to condemn or look down on them. This is echoed in several other scriptures from Jesus Himself:

Luke 5:32, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

Mark 2:17, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Matthew 9:13, “For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

"So He has only come for the sinners and not those who haven't sinned'" was my first thought. Then I remembered Romans 3:23, which says, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” To support that Romans 3:10 says, “There is no one righteous, not even one.”  So Christ came to save all of mankind, for we are all born into sin. The righteous and healthy Jesus talked about were the Pharisees and others like them who falsely believe themselves to be without sin. 

When Paul talked to Timothy he wanted to remind him that although Christ came to save sinners, there was no one that was not redeemable. Even someone like himself, who had hunted down and persecuted Christians, was still able to be saved. That is why Paul says “of whom I am the worst,” so that no one would lose faith in their ability to receive grace.

Paul said that although he deserved death, Christ’s grace covered him just as it did everyone else. He was sending a message to have faith and confidence in salvation, for if he could be pardoned so could anyone and everyone else.  In fact, this is evidenced over and over again in the Bible. After all, it is not just Paul that sinned:

1.  David was an adulterer and conspired to murder a man whose wife he had slept with and gotten pregnant.
2. Peter had anger management AND denial issues, chopping off an ear and then denying he knew Christ 3 times.
3. Jonah ran from God when he deemed what God had commanded him to do was too hard.
4. Thomas doubted that Christ had been resurrected.
5. Rahab was a prostitute.

I saw this quoted on Facebook, “God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the called!” That is the absolute truth. God calls us, the Holy Spirit guides us and Jesus Christ redeems us. That is good news, and that news is made extremely evident in 1 Timothy 1:15-16.

That is why I love this passage. It helped me realize that not only could I feel comfortable inside of a church, but that I was called to be there by Christ Himself. When I am at a recovery meeting, I know that I have earned my seat there. I belong there. There is not a closed meeting the world over I could not sit in. These two verses let me feel that way about church as well. I am part of the body of Christ. There is a seat inside of the church just for me. There is a seat just for you!  I am saved by grace and promised eternal life and so are you. That is great news!  

Scriptures of Recovery James 1:2-4

James 1:2-4 - "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking of anything."
I used to be very ungrateful. I felt that life was a chore at best, and punishment for being born at worst. I was generally not in the best of moods, as most of my peers and co-workers would gladly inform you. I was a bummer to be around most of the time. I was this way due to my viewing life as a punishment for being born. That was how I actually felt most days.

To work through this, I did my best to remain drunk all of the time. The only exception was while I was working, and for many years until I began the job that I have now even being on the clock never stopped me. In my drug using days, I would bring meth with me to work. You know, just in case I started to come down.  I would also bring the other drugs I was doing at the time. I remember bragging once after a double that I had pushed my crack pipe two dozen times and gotten a hit every time.

That was my life, stay high and drunk. The only purpose for living is so that we may one day die and that will be the end of it. There in a nutshell was how I personally lives when I was an Agnostic, which I was from 5th grade until I was 37. When I had problems in my life, they occurred simply because life sucked......then you died. I saw death as the end of suffering.

I can remember seeing the faces of my friends after they died and being jealous of how peaceful they looked. The only reason that I refused to commit suicide was because my sister had found me unconscious after a failed attempt and I promised her I would never try it again. That said, I wished for death and tried to put myself in situations where others would kill me. I was unsuccessful at even that.

Now I live my life differently. I have come to realize several things, and this scripture is a large part of why my perception has changed. I no longer feel that what happens to me are horrific things with no purpose. It took some knowledge for me to realize what the purpose were. To realize the reason things happened to me I had to get busy living instead of busying myself with the act of dying.

Know I know that I needed to learn lessons, and every trial and tribulation that I have gone through in life has made me a wiser and stronger person once I learned to work through it. This has in turn given me the ability to have compassion and empathy for my fellow man that I would not have had otherwise. It has also given me the wisdom I need to empower others to work through their issues that are similar that I would have never had otherwise.

Secondly, when life is complicated I know that there are a lot of twists and turns in this life that I will need to work through. For starters, the devil would like nothing more than to steal my faith and hope and bring me back into his flock. Also, this is nothing more than a great way for me to show my faith and hope in Christ. I have hear it said that worrying simply shows that you do not have enough faith in God.

It is quite easy to believe in Christ and praise him when things are going well. The true testing of our faith is how we react under pressure. Do we consider it a joyous occasion when we are being attacked by life. Do we realize it is an opportunity for growth, or do we get angry. Do we remember or do we forget one simple truth, "God's got this!"

In my past I got angry and upset, which was a sign of both my immaturity and my lack of belief in God. Now I gravitate towards appreciation, which is a sign of my maturing. In order for me to change my perspective, I needed to make one chane. I did that by gaining faith and hope that I never had. All that took was me looking at the trials of life through a different lense. Now I see life through the lens of a believer in Christ, and that has made all of the difference.

Scriptures of Recovery - Romans 7: 15

I have actually tried to quit using and living a life of debauchery several times. I had quit doing illegal drugs, but had fallen back on alcohol. Even though at one time I was determined to never drink or do drugs again, I was only partially successful. I engaged in a lot of conduct that I tried to stop doing, but I would always repeat it.

I swore to quit fighting and to quit drinking and driving. I would go so far as to give my keys to friends at the bar and tell them not to give them back to me, only to end up trying to fight them to get my keys back so that I could drive. I would black out with regularity and swear that I would never get "that" drunk again. I tried only drinking beer, only to get drunk and stop on the way home and buy a fifth.

I was not able to follow through on my best intentions. I would start with my best interest at heart, but would always fall short. I have done this my entire life. I would stop selling drugs, only to fall behind on bills and have to hustle to make the money. I would swear to not get serious in a relationship for a while, to take it slow. Then I would move her into my house after we had dated for a week..........or less than a week.

When I got off of drugs but continued drinking, I knew that I was not alone. But I did not feel like a "normal" person. I figured that only drug addicts and drunks had these problems. I thought that everyone else was able to follow through with their goals. I figured that most people, when they committed to something, accomplished it.

When I first went to church, Cal (New Life Churches pastor at the time) read from Romans 3. It interested me enough to continue reading. Imagine my delight when I got to Romans 7 and began to read about my plight. Here was a verse that described my life experiences.

Romans 7:15 says, "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do."

Wow, there I was in a nutshell. I want to do the right thing, but I was unable to. I wanted to set a good example for my son to follow, but I was better at setting goals than accomplishing them. It is kind of like when I play pool. I can call the greatest shots; bank this one in the side pocket, two rails off the 9, eight ball in the corner, etc. I can call them, but I sure cannot sink them. I called a great game, but I was unable to complete it.

I lived my life that way, too. Much better at telling you the positive things that I was going to do than actually doing them. My follow through was a mess, and I wondered why. In this passage Paul describes the mental struggle that I had with my life. "I do not understand" is exactly how I felt, and it was frustrating and anxiety inducing. When you want something that you know is achievable yet are unable to attain it, it can be overwhelming.

In verses 18-19 Paul continues to explain the struggle, "I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing."

"Nothing good lives in me," he says. That means that sin lives inside of us. We have been born into a sinful world. As an addict, my first thought is wrong. In fact, my first 5 thoughts are wrong when I first got clean. I felt compelled to do the wrong thing, and I was fighting a losing battle! Why was I fighting a losing battle? Because sin dwelt inside of me, and all that I had to fight it off was myself. I could not win. What could I possibly do as an Agnostic to live my life differently?

I tried Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, substance abuse residential and then outpatient treatment, individual counseling and medication management through a psychiatrist. None of that worked. At the end of the day, I was still a convict and an addict. I could not forgive myself. I was unable to stop doing the wrong thing. So, what can we as humans born into sin do?

Romans 8:5 states, "Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desire."

There it is, in simple to understand language. "Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what nature desires." That is us following our carnal nature, the sin that resides in us. The Holy Spirit is able to set us free from our nature of sin. It can change first thought wrong into first thought right. I went from reveling in my sins and self-condemnation to living as a positive example overnight, just by accepting Christ into my life.

Since I prayed and accepted Christ, I have not drank, smoked, fought, had pre-marital sex and take no medication for my mental health. Instantly transformed.  I consider my transformation a miracle, and all the proof that I need that God does exist!



Romans 8:9 sums up how I feel today, "You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God live in you."

I still have desires on occasion. The difference is that when I have these desires, they come and then they go. They are fleeting at best, and I have a strong support system that I can use when they do occur. What is also different is that the obsession is gone. I do not think about drugs/sex/anger 24 hours a day and 7 days a week like I used to.

My thoughts of wrongdoing are now gone in the blink of an eye, and that is how I like it. I will get more into why those thoughts are fleeting and why it is understandable if the desire still pops up occasionally in the next Scripture of Recovery, which will be 2 Corinthians 12:7-10.

Scriptures of Recovery - Romans 3:23

I can remember sitting in church the very first Sunday that I went. I had been invited by friends because I was hopeless and stuck in a major depressive episode. I had not been to a Sunday service in 20 years. I had stopped going to church the first week of my 5th grade year. I am exact on that, because that is the week that my mother left my father and we went to live with my paternal grandfather. He was my abuser for the next 1 1/2 years. That is when I had decided that there could not be a God. Don't get me wrong, I had tried church several times in high school. I felt out of place in church and from my sophomore year on I had not been to church other than weddings and funerals.

As the service started, I was already feeling a little more open to what was about to be said. One of the songs before the service was Third Day's "Cry Out to Jesus," which you can read about here: http://spiritualspackle.blogspot.com/2011/07/songs-of-recovery-cry-out-to-jesus-by.html. It opened me up to listen. So there I am, sitting in church actually listening as the pastor, Cal Swenson, gave his sermon. 

I remember sitting next to my friends Nate and Becca thinking that I did not belong in church. Truth be told, I probably did not feel that I deserved friends that were as caring and kind as Nate and Becca. I was looking at them and the people sat around me, all the while feeling that I we all had nothing in common. What could they possibly have in common with me? 

Then Cal read Romans 3:23, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." 

I suddenly looked at every one around me, and I felt that maybe I fit in. I was not the only one in there who had sinned. But, and there is that word but, as I looked around I still felt that my sins were far more and far greater than every one else in there. I was so full of self-loathing that I felt my sins completely outweighed every one else's. 

I did not believe in God at this time, but I can remember thinking that even if God was real, my sins were bigger than his forgiveness. I guess that it is really easy to make God insignificant if you have no faith in Him. That does not make Him so, but perception is reality (at least your perception is your reality). Amazing how Paul helped me see that all can be forgiven. His conversion from Saul of Tarsus to Paul and what he was employed to do when he was Saul helped me realize the extent of God's forgiveness, but that is for another blog!

So all sin, not just me but everyone that sits in church. I mean from the pastor to the deacon to the greeter at the door.  Mother Teresa, Ghandi, the Pope, all of the disciples, everyone! I had somewhere forgotten that no one is perfect, not even the people in church. Romans 3:10 expresses this best when it says, "There is no one righteous, not even one."

Sometimes I wish that the people in church would remember that and stop looking down on others and instead love them enough to get them inside of the church. That gives the Holy Spirit the chance to work on them. I believe that we should hold each other accountable, but acceptance in a genuine and nonjudgemental fashion is what will get people to stay so that the Spirit can begin to work on them and recreate them. This is a soapbox of mine, and I will step off of it now and get back to Romans.

So we all sin and fall short of the glory of God. This is a relief, because as a sinner it should make it hard to look down on other sinners. I know that this does not really happen, but it should. As I looked around the church that day, even though I knew that my sin's were more extreme and more frequent, I felt a little more like I could come back. I felt like maybe I at least had one thing in common with everyone in church at New Life. We were all imperfect, and we all fell short of the glory of God. 

Since we all fall short of the glory of God, which I would define as how God intended us to be. We were made to be holy, righteous, and eternal. We have all fallen short thanks to Adam and Eve. That said, it is time that we begin to accept responsibility for out actions. How do we do that? 

Romans 3:24-25 says that we are, "justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in His blood." So Christ was sent to redeem us from our past sins, so that we could be justified. Justified is another way of saying declared righteous. So thanks to God's grace, we are now able to be declared righteous based solely upon what Jesus did for us. 

When Jesus walked the Via Dolorosa on the way to Golgotha, He knew what He was doing. The blood that He shed, from the whipping post to His crucifixion, was all done so that we could be forgiven. We sinned against God, and out of His mercy, love and grace He sent His Son as an atonement. What we could have never done on our own, God out of His love did for us.  

Just so that you do not get caught up like I once did in my sins and never being able to find forgiveness, Romans 3:28 says that, "we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law." That means that we are not justified, or declared righteous by our obedience to the law. Instead, we are declared righteous by having faith that Christ died so that we could live eternally. 

Finally, this is not a ticket to sin. 1 John 2:3-6 states, "We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did." 

So in summation, everyone sins and no one is perfect. Jesus was sent as a sacrifice so that we could be forgiven of our sins by God. We are redeemed of our sins not by our acts, but by our faith. Yet, this does not mean that we are free to sin. If we put our faith in the redemption of Christ, our lives will be directed by the Holy Spirit that resides inside of us and we will begin to live lives that are more and more Christ-like. Ergo, we will live life more righteously and sin less!

Scriptures of Recovery - Beginning of a New Blog

Welcome to scriptures of recovery. This is where I will look at the scriptures that were instrumental in my  overcoming my addiction through the help of the  Holy Spirit, kept me in church long enough for the Holy Spirit to work on me, allowed me to forgive myself or blessed me with a stronger relationship with God. I will not lie, I do not believe that Christianity is a religion. Not to quote a T-Shirt, but religion is one's search for a Higher Power, or man trying to work their way to God. Christianity is God coming to us through a relationship with Christ.

I have heard people say that they found Jesus, and I have heard others say that you cannot find Jesus. I would actually agree with the latter. I never found Jesus. He wasn't lost, I was! He came to were I was and gave me the power to overcome my past life and begin a new one. It was not religion that got me through my addiction. It was the Holy Spirit and Jesus coming to where I was at. Religion did not save me, Christ did! 

How do I know that God exists? All I have to do is examine my life before and after. If I were on a diet, I could look at the before and after pictures and tell whether or not it was successful. If there were things that I did other than exercise or eating better, such as methamphetamine or some other artificial way I would know because I would be ingesting it. I could also step on the scale, or I could use a tape measure to see how much my waist had shrunk. I could also tell if it was successful by how my clothes fit. These would all be valid ways for me to tell if it was working. So, how can we tell if the changes wrought in us are imagination or reality? How can we tell if it is worldly means or supernatural means that cause us to change?

So, why do I believe in the power of the Holy Spirit. How do I know that it worked:

1. I stopped taking my prescribed medications, stopped seeing counselors/psychiatrists, stopped going to secular 12 step meetings and stopped following secular methods of recovery. I turned to the spiritual and scriptural realms instead. I used prayer, meditation, reading and Celebrate Recovery. So it was not worldly means. I would know if I was ingesting some worldly intervention, and I was no longer doing that. I had given up hope of being successful by secular means.

2. The before and after picture of my life is night and day. I am not who I once was, and that has been said to me repeatedly by people who knew me before and after (think of the diet and everyone asking what you are doing to lose weight). I am now trusted to watch children, and to have keys to businesses that people own. I am asked for advice and taken into confidence, not called up to come and fight someone's battles. When clients cuss in front of me in groups, they do not apologize to the group. Instead, they apologize to me.

3. When I look at the people in my life, which I feel is a good measuring stick, I see major difference. I see people who put their kids and other's first. I see people that I can trust to watch my son, and not worry about him coming home and repeating the "F" bomb. There are no longer people who might get drunk or high around me or my son, not would their house get raided while I was there. Finally, I can turn my back and not worry about getting shot or robbed. So the tape measure definitely shows change.

4. I have tried to go to the places that I used to hang out at (think old clothes), but they just do not fit me anymore. I do not want to be around drunks, I cannot stand the smell of cigarettes and I feel out of place. I no longer fit into the old role. I am not the angry guy that fights at the drop of a hat. I am instead the peacemaker and the one in the advisor role.

So, those are just several of the ways that I can tell that something is different in my life. That something is me, not only my life but also the people in my life. Some of the people have stayed the same, but I do not let my circle of friends get stagnant. I tell people that you always need to have people in your life who are like how you want to be, not like how you are. If I want to get better at anything, I do that by playing against people who are better than I am. If I want to live a better life, I do that by having people in my life who are living better than I am. Due to this, I am always adding new friends.

So, part of my relationship with God has came through my reading of scripture and what those scriptures have meant to me. Scriptures of recovery will contain scriptures that helped give me hope and/or faith. A reading that revealed to me God's ability to forgive or showed me His mercy. I would often feel unworthy of God's forgiveness, or truly helpless/powerless, or unable to fit in at church and out of place due to my past. Sometimes I would simply come up with excuses because I was afraid of opening myself up just to be rejected or let down. The scriptures that helped me overcome all of this and build a relationship with God through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit will be listed. Why they helped and what they made me realize will also be included.

I hope that the little bit of insight that I have into these particular verses will be able to help you the reader either come into relationship with Christ, overcome your addictions/hurts/excuses or build a stronger relationship. Thanks for reading, and the next Scriptures of Recovery will actually contain a scripture!