NorthStar Community Daily Devotional

July 4 - Identity Confusion

Scripture focus: Wives, understand and support your husbands by submitting to them in ways that honor the Master. Husbands, go all out in love for your wives. Don't take advantage of them. Children, do what your parents tell you. This delights the Master no end. Parents, don't come down too hard on your children or you'll crush their spirits. Servants, do what you're told by your earthly masters. And don't just do the minimum that will get you by. Do your best. Work from the heart for your real Master, for God, confident that you'll get paid in full when you come into your inheritance. Keep in mind always that the ultimate Master you're serving is Christ. The sullen servant who does shoddy work will be held responsible. Being a follower of Jesus doesn't cover up bad work. And masters, treat your servants considerately. Be fair with them. Don't forget for a minute that you, too, serve a Master--God in heaven. Colossians 3:18-4:1 (The Message)

At NorthStar Community, we understand the serious nature of addiction. We have first-hand experience with the cunning, crafty nature of the disease. For us, this is not a theoretical discussion involving "those people" -- we are those people. We have names. We live in families. We work at jobs and for companies that are also affected by this dreaded dependency.

AND we belong to and embrace our spiritual community, diverse as it is, where people show up because they believe, or are curious, maybe desperate, sometimes angry about the alleged existence of a "higher power."

This can be very confusing.

For those who believe in God and Jesus, the word of God is not taken lightly. So when it calls wives and husbands and parents and children and servants to a certain level of conduct, we take those words seriously. Even with all our sincerity, we find ourselves sometimes (in the words of the TrueFaced team) "saying the right things but living the wrong life." So what do we do with all this messiness? We confess (James 5:6). We tell ourselves the truth, and support each other in the process. Is confession a magic pill to all that ails us? No way! But it does provide an opportunity for the community to encourage each other in practicing the opposite of self-addiction.

We begin to practice the spiritual discipline of conscious contact with God. This is not a pie-in-the-sky, sounds-good-let's-try-it-so-that-we-can-feel-good-about-our-spirituality contest. It is in response to desperation. Desperate people take desperate measures. Addiction is a desperate condition. It robs us of our true, God-created self. It fills us with shame and sin, neither of which is the human form capable of handling or managing. This is the fight of our lives.

At NSC we're trying to break the age-old habit of ignoring God and growing forgetful of Him. This is totally unnatural. It requires the right environment to even attempt this other-worldly existence. But it is also the only path to freedom.

Recommended reading: Judges 4-6

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