Title: 'Continuing STEP FOUR'

Title: 'HIGH EXPECTANCY'/Acryl - Visual Prayer Art from Collection by Rev.Bola A

STEP FOUR

*We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.*

It has been stated often that this particular step is not an easy one, because it does require a measure of self-honesty on our part, and coming out of denial.

Yet it is an extremely rewarding step, when taken diligently and with the right attitude.

It is also very useful to have first completed the initial three steps. 
(Please see side bar to the right for my post description of these steps)
The first 3 Steps build you up and prepare you Spiritually to do step 4, and the other remaining steps. There's definitely an order to this process of Spiritual recovery.

We can also see that, all through Jesus time in the bible, His ministry had a Divine order to it.

As we mature spiritually, let us not attempt to run before we can walk. Rather, we should prepare ourselves adequately for the transformation process ahead, so that the devil cannot derail us.
It was never intended that we do Step four on our own or in our own power and might.
Instead we do step four with the assistance and authority of the Holy Spirit.

It is God who empowers us to do this step. He gives us the fearlessness necessary to face ourselves, face our past sins and mistakes, and acknowledge our God given talents and abilities.
At this step, we not only learn of our weaknesses, but we also acknowledge are gifts, talents and the many blessings we have already received from God.

For a list of The Bible Verse that can help you complete this step 4, click on this link:
Step 4 - Spiritual Recovery work

And, here are some important questions to help you to complete your Step 4.

1 Have you had any broken relationships? If so, describe them and how they hurt others or yourself. Describe any grudges, anger or resentment that you have over these relationships.

2 Have you ever felt self-righteous? Explain when and the circumstances. Was this justified? Elaborate.

3 What events or triggers have caused you to begin your sin, in the past? Describe situations, feelings, events, circumstances or people that seem to be a part of your life just before or during

your sinful behaviors.

4 Have you ever held a grudge? Did you try to get revenge? If so, explain the situation and how it played out, including whether or not someone else was hurt.

5 Describe times that you have been oversensitive. Did this ever damage your relationship with others, or were you just trying to keep your own boundaries?

6 Describe the faults that you most detest in others. Do you have any of these traits yourself?

7 Put a check mark beside any of the following traits that you despise in others. Also check whether you see these traits in yourself.

                                                                                           Traits that I Despise in Others

      Sins                                                    Trait In Myself

Selfishness?

Greed?

Cowardice?

Snobbish?

Dishonesty?

Sarcastic?

Fearful?

Hypercritical?

Controlling?

Gossip?

Backbiting?

Denial?

Rudeness?

Manipulative?

Tightwad?

Insensitivity?

Intimidating?

Harsh?

Stuborness? 

Arrogance?

Power-hungry?

Unforgiving?

Possessive?

Over-competitive?

Verbally abusive?

Prejudiced?

Physically abusive?

Overly dependent?

Sexually abusive?

Addicted/Addictive?

Obsessive/Compulsive?

Procrastinating?

Impatient?

Unreliable?

Judgmental?

Racist?

Sexist?

Argumentative?

Adulterous?

Promiscuous?

Preoccupied?

Faithless?

Chaotic?

Sneaky?

Lying?

Theiving?

Ungrateful?

Demanding

Ruthless?

Spiteful?

Divisive?

Lazy/Procrastinating?

Cheating?

Scheming/Coniving?

Cynical?

Intolerant ?

Bitter/Resentful?

Irresponsible?

Self-Pitying?

Full of Rage?

Jealous?

Envious?

Insecure?

Describe the positive qualities you admire in others.

Do you have these qualities  yourself? 

Again,
Put a check mark beside any of the following qualities that you see or admire in others. Also check whether you see these traits in yourself.

 
                                                                                                               In Others

Qualities                                                   In Myself

Peaceful?

Joyfulness?

Sharing?

Faith?

Kindness?

Creativity?

Gratitude?

Appreciation?

Confidence?

Courage?

Diligence?

Honesty?

Fairness?

Respectful?

Humility?

Generous?

Supportive?

Humour?

Order?

Patience?

Cheerfulness?

Optimism?

Trustworthy?

Forgiving?

Obedient to God?

Evangelical?

By now you will have a fairly good idea of where you are spiritually and what area or areas need improving. Make a note of these, and prayerfully ask for the Lord to help you.

If you would like information regarding joining our fellowship, further assistance, or private one to one life coaching, to complete Step 4 or any of the 12 Steps presented, then please email your enquiries to Rev.Bola :bolaamail-church@yahoo.co.uk 

Wishing You a Blessed Recovery Journey in Christ Jesus.

Peace and Love 

Rev.Bola 

Pastor and Director - Christians Victorious Fellowship 

Title: 'Our God Needs Know Further Proof'

God Has Spoken Through Nature

  "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth"(Genesis 1:1).

With these words the Bible opens the history of our world. It does not try to prove that God exists. From the very beginning God already is, and He is already active. The writers of the Bible never doubt or question God's existence. Nor do they go into long arguments to show to others that God is real. Why is this?

 GOD'S PRESENCE IS WELL-KNOWN

"No one has ever seen God" (John 1:18). The fact that God is not directly seen does not have to lead to doubt. Though God is invisible, we know He is there because of the results of His powerful work. The world around us, called "nature," is one of those results (Genesis 1:1). With other results of God's work, nature speaks clearly of its Creator.

People through the ages, and all over the world, have come to the same conclusion: Creation points to an amazing Creator.

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Title: 'CREATION' - Visual Prayer Art from Collection by Rev.Bola A  (Apr.2013)

SEEING THE CREATOR THROUGH CREATION

The apostle Paul speaks of those who try to hide the truth about God. He shows why God is 'angry' with them:

"Since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse" (Romans 1:19-20). 

Realities about God can be "clearly seen!" How? "Being understood from what has been made." Looking at creation helps us to know about God!

We know of the wind's presence by its effects as it moves dust and leaves. In a far greater way, we know things about God by the effect of His work around us. God has made it clear. That is why people have "no excuse" when they twist the truth about God.

CREATION BY ACCIDENT

Some want to live as if there is no God to whom they must answer. To avoid the need for God they teach that all we see came into being by accident. Over the ages, small bits of matter gradually changed by accident and formed humans who have no spirit and no real purpose. From a long line of accidents, we are an accident on its way to its final accident!

Does such a picture make sense? How could so many accidents result in such order? What would happen if you caused a great explosion to scatter a pile of rocks and wood? 

Even if you repeated this many times over, would the millions of pieces ever have the chance of coming together in such a way as to form a normal house?  

Would the heavier rocks happen to come down first to make a perfect foundation? Would smaller pieces fall in by chance to make straight walls on all sides, with doors and windows all in place? Would other pieces finally fall in such order as to make a roof that keeps rain out?

 EVERY HOUSE HAS A BUILDER

 

No one would dare say that a house came about by accident. Its order and design show beyond a doubt that it had a builder. Notice the simple force of Hebrews 3:4,

"For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything."

Look closely at the simplest leaf in nature. It is far better planned than a house. It has tiny openings for the flow of gases. Its green coloring catches sunlight and uses it for energy. Its veins carry watery food from the soil. It is more like a highly ordered city! And that is just one leaf. We have not considered jungles and forests full of different plants. We have not pointed out the many, many kinds of land and sea animals, nor all that it takes to provide them life.  

“God covers the sky with clouds; He supplies the earth with rain and makes grass grow on the hills.  He provides food for the cattle and for the young ravens when they call” (Psalm 147:8-9).

Brethren, personally I consider it an insult to our Creator, to spread the lie that He/She does not exist.

We must continuously honor our Creator with Praise and thanksgiving for all that we have been blessed with, and for our salvation in particular.

Peace and Love Rev.Bola
Director - *Christians Victorious Fellowship*
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Title: STEP 4 - Spiritual Recovery Work

Title: *SELF HONESTY - Step 4 /Mx  -   Visual Prayer Art by Rev.Bola A.

STEP 4:

 Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 

Lamentations 3:40 

Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the LORD.

In the previous Steps 1 to 3, we have already faced the truth of our situation and turned the situation over to God who can help us. Now it is time to start seeing things as they truly are. Facing the reality of who we are, means getting to really know ourselves, by taking an honest inventory of one's life.

What do we mean by inventory?

Definition:  1) To take stock of; evaluate:  e.g. to inventory one's life and accomplishments.

                   2) The act of making a catalogue of, or detailed listing. 

                   3)An account of, a record of, or a summary.

We inventory....
Exactly where have we been, what have we done and what was the outcome of those actions? When and where did they start and where have they led us? This is a vital step away from living by sin, with chaos and insane behaviors, towards a conscious, Christ like, Holy Spirit filled life, with more personal power and serenity.

We compile a list of traits and behaviors that have transgressed our highest, or moral, values. We also inventory our "good" traits and the behaviors that represent them. We take stock of our Spiritual 'assets' ie. our spiritual gifts, talents and abilities, as well as our Spiritual 'liabilities' our character defects and sins.
Almost everyone has a core issue or area of weakness that challenges them.

At this point, fear can cause us to put off our inventory, or may even prevent us from taking this crucial step at all. We have found that fear is lack of faith,  but in steps 1 to 3,  we found a loving, personal God to whom we can turn, so we no longer need to be afraid.  God will give us the strength and courage to do our Step 4. For we are no longer working in just our own power alone, but through the Power and might of God as He is working through us. Jesus Christ has already paid the price for our sin at the cross of calvary. Through our faith in Him and what He did at the cross, we can lay down all our sin nature, and character defects at the foot of that cross, and let them 'die' with Him. And just as our Lord Jesus was resurrected from the dead, we also become spiritually resurrected from the spiritual death of sin nature, and of the fall.

Scripture Aids

Ps. 139:23  Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:

Ps. 139:24  And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Lam 3:40  Let us search and examine our ways, and turn again to the LORD. 

Lam 3:41  Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens. 

Lam 3:42  We have transgressed and have rebelled: you have not pardoned.

Here The Bible states clearly what we are to do in Step 4. 

       
We examine our life in the light of God's righteousness, making a moral inventory of our lives.

As Christians we have hope that through the blood of Christ we can find forgiveness for these sins and   a redeemed relationship with God. This examination of our lives also begins to set up a precedent where we can invite our God to examine our lives as well (Psalm 17:3, 26:2) that we might continue to be found in God.

Hag 1:6  You have sown much, and bring in little; you eat, but you have not enough; you drink, but you are not filled with drink; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and he that earns wages earns wages to put it into a bag with holes.

Hag 1:7  Thus says the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways.

In the above passages of the Bible we are invited to reflect on how we live our lives.

Mat 5:4  Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

      In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives many instances of how we are blessed. In this verse, He tells us that we are blessed when we mourn appropriately. Step 4 can be a step of mourning those places in our lives where we messed up and missed the good life that God would have liked to have given us. In this mourning, though, we become blessed as we find the healing and comfort from the Lord.

2Co 13:4  For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you.

2Co 13:5  Examine yourselves, whether you are in the faith; prove your own selves. Know you not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, unless you are counterfeits?

2Co 13:11  Finally, brethren, farewell. Be restored, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you.

 The apostle Paul here is ending his second letter to the Corinthian church, and giving them advice on how to live as Christians. There were many struggling Christians in this congregation, just as we may also struggle in our attempts to be true to the teachings of Christ. Yet we are told that in our weakness we can live by God's power in us, even as Christ Himself was crucified in weakness and yet lives by God's power. 

 Furthermore, to carry this out we are told to examine ourselves (v5) that we may prove ourselves in the faith or not. This is relevant to step 4, because in step 4 we examine our lives and determine when we were or were not acting in faith and obedience to God's moral standards.

Gal 6:7  Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap. 

 Even when we thought we might have been getting away with something, we actually were not. We may have survived, but we missed the larger picture of how God wanted to bless us in extraordinary ways. We also now have a choice by His grace to sow to the Spirit instead, and reap the reward of life everlasting. Part of this process of growing in God's ways is by taking our inventory - proving our own work. Then we can go forward with a realistic picture of our own lives from a God's moral perspective and find the peace and mercy of God (vs.16). 

Rev 2:5  Remember therefore from where you are fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto you quickly, and will remove your lampstand out of its place, except you repent.

These verses will apply to the 4th step in greatest measure if we are Christians.  
In the 4th step, we work on remembering all of our life and later laying it before the eyes of God, ourselves and at least one other person.

The remembering and the healing of those memories is an important part of our spiritual recovery process.

(Eph 5:11) 'Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.'

The Principle we learn to master in Step 4 is: *SELF-HONESTY*

In Step we also inventory our positive, loving characteristics? 
How about our talents, our natural, and spiritual gifts?

What strengths do we exhibit? In what situations have we, for example, shown our courage, patience, generosity, kindness, compassion, tolerance, creativity, gentleness, loyalty, prudence, faithfulness, gratitude, wisdom, appreciation and love? 
Do we value our positive qualities, or just take them for granted?
 Our we using our natural and spiritual gifts, or ignoring and wasting them?

  

Galatians 5:22-2

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

How do you express yourself creatively? Are you a good cook? An artist, a designer, an inventor, a writer, a great speaker, a teacher, a counselor, or a musician? Are you a gardener, or good with animals, can you make clothes?  Do you speak different languages? Are you good at a sport? Are you skilled with technical things like computers, or mechanical things? Are you a skilled craft person, a carpenter, a decorator, a builder? Are you a skilled administrator, or good financial steward?

1 Corinthians 12:8-10 

For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 

Are you now ready and willing to complete your Step 4?

If so well done, and CONGRATULATIONS.

   

 If not, then you may want to consider the following helpful hints:-

1. Have you had any broken relationships? If so, describe them and how they hurt you and       others. Describe any grudges, anger or resentment that you have over these relationships. 

2. Did you try to get revenge? If so, explain the situation and if it hurt anyone else.

3. Describe the faults that you most detest in others. Do you have any of these traits yourself? Possibilities include selfishness, cowardice, dishonesty, fearful, controlling, manipulative, intimidation of others, overly power-hungry, possessiveness, prejudice, bigotry, greed, materialistic, snobbery, sarcasm, hyper-criticalness, gossiping, being a tightwad with money, harshness, non-forgiveness, being verbally abusive, being physically abusive, being sexually abusive, impatience, procrastination, being overly dependent, being judgemental, being overly preoccupied, adultery, sneakiness, lying, cheating, being ungrateful, being cynical, being intolerant, being self-pitying, bitterness, rage, jealousy, insecurity, and envy.

4. Describe in detail any major experiences in your life that you believe changed your life forever afterwards (good or bad).

5. Read about the 10 Commandments in Exodus 20. Have you ever broken any of these commandments?

6. From Step 1, you learned about the nature of sin and how it first entered your world.

How about the 7 deadly sins?

Let's remember that some day each and everyone of us, will have to face God, and be accountable to Him for how we led our lives. So it makes sense to get into the habit now.

7.Finally, do you have someone trustworthy, that you can share your Step 4 experience with, and who will hold you accountable? 

You may also find it helpful to say this step 4 prayer now.

Step 4 Prayer

Dear God,
It is I who have made my life a mess.
I have done it, but I cannot undo it.
My mistakes are mine, and I will begin a
searching and fearless moral inventory.
I will write down my wrongs,
but I will also include that which is good.
I pray for the strength to complete the task.
In the mighty name of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

If you would like Private one-to-one Life Coaching, or any additional support, with completing this, or any of the other12 Steps, of our program; and if you would like to participate, or attend a meeting with us locally, then kindly email your inquiries to CVF Support: 

bolaamail-church@yahoo.co.uk 

Please remember always, that God loves you.

Peace, Love and Light....Pastor Bola
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