Tag: Self-Righteousness

Hi, I’m Jacob, a grateful, recovering sex addict. I’ve been sober a little over seven months.

Picking up where I left off last time …

My old faith stood in the way of my getting to powerless. That’s because it was a self-righteous faith. The kind the Pharisees had. You know the Pharisees, right? The only humans on the face of the earth Jesus took to task. The religious folks. That ought to tell us something about how God views self-righteousness.

Deconstructing my faith worked like this. I imagined that everything I believed was hung on my “Pegboard of Faith”, each on its own hook. I took each tenant of faith off the pegboard and placed it on a table in my mind. Every one of them. Now, I’m picking up those pieces, one at a time, and looking closely at them.

I’ll pick one up and roll it around with my fingers so I can see all sides of it. Then I’ll put it down and pick up another. I haven’t thrown any of them away yet. I need more time to reflect on them.

So far, only two things have gone back up on the Pegboard of Faith. And I’m not sure either one of them was up there to start with. I think both of them have come to me since I started recovery. And here they are.

First, God loves me because of Who He is, not because of who I am or am not – or what I do or don’t do. He loves me because that’s Who He Is. I can’t change a single thing about God’s love for me. It simply is. That doesn’t give me a free pass to do anything I want, but it does mean that I can’t escape His love.

Second, Jesus came to earth to do for me what I could never do for myself. He died to set me free. My death will simply be justice for the sins I’ve committed against God, myself and others. Jesus’ death, however, paid the price of my rebellion and restored me to life.

That’s it. Just those two things on my Pegboard of Faith. Plenty of things on the table to be looked at over time. But for now I rest assured that God’s love for me cannot be extinguished and that the blood of Jesus restored me to life.

Now, what’s on the table? Here are a few things to consider:

• Should women be allowed to wear pants to church?
• Should a church have any kind of images inside or outside the building?
• Can a church support orphans’ homes?
• Is it OK to worship with a piano? How about a guitar? An electric guitar? Drums? How about a fog machine?
• Can a church have just one pastor? Or should it have a plurality?
• Is full immersion baptism the only way to be saved?
• Can a church have a praise team or must it be a single worship leader or songleader?
• Does the name of the church you attend matter?
• Is taking the Lord’s Supper required every week or only on certain days?
• Is the multitude of denominations acceptable to God?
• Is Wednesday night attendance required?
• Can women preach? Or make announcements in church?
• Should a church have a kitchen?
• What about Sunday School? Is it OK or is it an abomination?
• Is it OK to use anything other than the King James Bible?
• Can communion bread have salt in it?
• Is an “invitation” or “altar call” required at every service?
• Must a church have pews or are chairs OK?
• Can giving to a cause other than your local church be counted as part of your tithe?
• If I say “$@!?%” and get hit by a truck before I can ask forgiveness, am I going to Hell?
• Can a divorced person be saved?

There’s a very short sample of the things I’ve heard folks turn into doctrine over the years. Some of those made it into my thinking and I’m glad to have them down on the table where I can see them. I already know what I’ll do with some of those, but others will take a bit longer to come to a certain answer.

But I do know that, even if I don’t get all of them right, the blood of Jesus still makes me whole. That’s already been permanently affixed on the Pegboard of Faith.

Thanks for reading.

Jacob The Addict (jacobtheaddict@gmail.com)