By Jim Golden

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a firm believer in the new creation theology.  That is to say that the salvation of Jesus doesn’t make us better it transforms us into a whole new person or species of being that never before existed.  I have written much on the subject over the past 30 years.  Yet in my experience I was frustrated and struggled for understanding as to why, in reality, we were not able to be just like Jesus.  For many years I have cried out for God to reveal to me what was holding me back.

Sometimes it is hard to hear the answer when you have any preconceived ideas of what it might be.  It was the combination of this lack of understanding, frustration and reality that has often caused me to withdraw from God and His people and go hide in my cave.  The following writing I think is what God was finally able to tell me through a combination of things.  C. S. Lewis wrote that, "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains. It is His megaphone to arouse a deaf world."  As you read on you will see what I mean.

Our whole society is fashioned around a standard of what is commonly called props and reps. In a movie I saw one gang leader says to another, “All I got is my rep, it keeps me alive on the street and you need to give me my props.”  To my generation this may sound like a foreign language, but the meaning is very clear upon closer inspection.  If you listen to conversations about upcoming events in the church you will hear things like you have got to go see this person or that person, because they have raised 12 people from the dead and been walking with the Lord for 50 years.  Attendance at such events rise or fall based on the speaker’s reputation and he or she usually weaves in how God has used them in order to impress people or cause faith to rise in their hearts.

If this is good or bad is not the issue as much as it is a fact and the way we all live our lives. From the gang leader in the hood to the pastor or evangelist in the pulpit the same forces are at work.  In Philippians 2 a most astounding and powerful statement is made about the Lord Jesus. 

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation,

What a statement and so easily read over, but just try to live that way.  I often wonder why Jesus commanded demons to be silent when they tried to declare who he was or told someone he had healed not to tell anyone who did it.  Remember how delighted Jesus was when Peter declared who he was because the revelation came directly from the Father and not from his reputation.

Recently my wife related a vision or dream that was shared with her at a meeting I couldn’t attend. I will try and relate as much as I can remember and how I think it ties into the next step in God’s plan for our lives.

In the account there were all these fiery chariots each having two saints in them.  They both were holding onto one double-edged sword.  Each saint was transparent and had a heart so big that it went from shoulder to shoulder and every saint’s heart seemed connected to each other and beat in unison.  In other words they were so open there was nothing in them that was hidden from anyone.  They were walking in the light and as a result the glory shown clearly through and to each of them.

Jesus is our example and even though He was God he never looked for any props. In fact, as I said earlier, he made himself of no reputation.   One of the things I think that the enemy uses against God’s people the most effectively is fear.  We are afraid that someone will think ill of us, or misunderstand us or not accept us.  The list goes on and on and each of us has something about us that says, “If they only knew this about me they wouldn’t feel the same way about me they do now.”  And with every little secret and hidden sin in our lives we create a link in a chain that holds us captive increasing our level of opacity. 

Have you ever wondered why every time you’re at a point of break through in your life you take a leap toward that desired freedom only to be caught in mid-flight by some invisible chain and snatched back to earth a little more battered and bruised?  I used to have a dog that we had to keep on a chain because he tried to attack one of the trash collectors once.  Now it was a long chain and the dog seemed to have a lot of freedom, but every time the trash collectors would come around he would attempt to get them.  And every time the chain would nearly break his neck as it threw him back to the ground holding him within in the length of the chain.  His struggle to reach his enemy always ended in humiliation as they would laugh at him and call him stupid, until one day he finally gave up and lost the will to break free.

How long is your chain?  Do you feel a little like my old dog?  Do you feel like you can never quite break through or free of this invisible chain that has determined your boundaries and limitations?  Then it is just possible that you need to deal with a fear in your life that will require you to confess something about yourself to someone other than just God.  The Word says that perfect love cast out all fear. There isn’t much we won’t admit and confess to God, he already knows it all anyway, but when it comes to confessing or opening up our lives to one another that’s another story, yet God desire us to be able to love each other the same way He loves us.

Your “rep” and getting’ your “props” is what life on the streets is all about.  Yet we are only fooling ourselves if we think that the church is exempt from the same pressures.  Before I knew the Lord I was very much into the party scene.  I rode with a motorcycle club that was involved in drug trafficking.  As a result of my activities I developed an addiction to alcohol and drugs.  The majority of my daily routine was devoted to meeting that addiction.  It was the “passion” of my life.  All my efforts, resources and strength were devoted getting my fix.  Drugs and alcohol was the main thing that I lived for.  Once I had that taken care of the next thing would have been sex and motorcycles.

Then one day Jesus came into my life and changed all that.  Yet somehow the need for recognition and a reputation were still there.  I never learned about the true freedom that clothes those who can make themselves of no reputation. 

Reputation is like a powerful drug that infects the church at the deepest levels.  What a man or woman has done or suffered becomes some type of merit badge that for some reasons impresses us and life goes on being all about us.  The cry of the psalmist heart was and should be our cry, “Not unto us, not unto us O Lord, but unto thy name give glory!”  The opposite of this attitude is so deeply engrained in our society and the church that we barely recognize it.  Yet it is a chain that holds us back from breaking through and becoming the sons and daughters of God that the whole creation groans and travails to be delivered over to.  We cry out for power yet I believe that all we have seen are mercy drops.  How can God entrust His incredible power to people who have not learned how to make themselves of no reputation and seek the approval of men rather than God.  Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

I can honestly say that I have been a Christian for over three decades and I have still not learned how to or do not have the courage to make myself of no reputation.   While theologically I have been born again a clothed in the very righteousness of Jesus Christ himself, on a personal level of reality I must say with Paul, that I thank God who sent Jesus Christ into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.  My only hope of glory is Christ!  The fact that he lives in me and is faithful to complete the good work He began in me.

It is so hard to know what to say and do what to admit and what to deny.  God tells us to agree with Him and at the same time to confess our faults to one another.  When AA meetings are held and you speak the very first thing you say is, “Hello my name is Jim and I am a alcoholic.”  “I know that I have this addiction to alcohol and that at any time under the right circumstances or in the right situation I could slip and start drinking again.”  The paradox of this is that scripture declares that if the Son shall set you free you shall be free indeed, but we are addicts by nature and therefore live in the fear of failure our entire life.

In my life drugs were the problem.  When Jesus baptized me in the Holy Spirit I was delivered from all my addictions literally overnight.  In a way that was wonderful and sad at the same time.  Sad because I didn’t understand the magnitude or appreciate as fully as I should have what He did for me.  Some time later I fell back into old habits for a season and deliverance from addiction this time was a very difficult process.  I found myself earnestly crying out to God for freedom from my addiction.
At this time in my life I was living in a household of single Christian brothers and being groomed for a position in leadership.  After the experience I felt such conviction I went to the brother that was mentoring me and confessed what had happened.   I wanted to go to the main leaders and tell them, but he persuaded me that was not necessary, and that I had come so far it would be a shame to ruin it all because of one slip.  He was concerned about my reputation.

Right or wrong, who to blame, I don’t know, but I believe that our actions left open a doorway for the enemy in my life that I would walk through time after time. I now had a reputation to live up to. I always had some reason or means whereby I initially justified my actions, but in every case it was usually God alone to whom I confessed my sins.   

Due to a series of physical issues like a heart bypass, diabetes a mid-foot amputation of my right foot, the amputation of the big toe on my left foot and an ulcer on the left heel that went almost to the bone I justified and rationalized the use of prescribed painkillers.  As a result my old addiction was ignited and I struggled daily with the fear of withdrawing from the use of a medication as powerful as Dilaudid.  I did not have the courage to even confess this to my wife or friends. 

I have repented before God and trying to live transparently in this area of my life, thus the writing of this article. But you should know that this was not just a slip.  I knew that I was going to have the final toe amputated and chose the pain killer the doctor would give me because of the rush and accompanying high it gives.  I hope that others like me will have the courage to do likewise, sharing their faults, and will experience the freedom that only the Son of God can bring.  I am ashamed of how I have defiled this new creation time after time and continue to repent in Godly sorrow for my actions and attitude.  I ask all those who know me to forgive my sin and pray for me.

During this period of time God revealed something to me about the way He created us to be.  Jesus told me that He could not deliver me from addiction because He had created the human species to be addicts.  It is at the very core of their being and nature.  We are all addicts.  Your addiction may be different than mine, but you are only fooling yourself if you don’t think you are addicted to something.  It could be many different things and not necessarily physical.  Many have emotional addictions, etc.

As my conversation went on Jesus revealed to me why He had made us this way.  We were created in His image.  God is addicted to Love.  Love is the very essence of His being.  I know that sounds almost like heresy because of the way society defines addiction.  Like most truth, Satan’s task is to alter it just enough to steal the benefit it brings.  Jesus told me that we were created to be addicted to “Love”.  God is Love and He should be our Divine Addiction. 

My wife and I were talking recently about different aspects of love and relationship.  We came to the conclusion that familiarity can often redefine love in our lives.  It is possible to love someone and not be “in love” with them.  Love is not just the way we feel about someone, but it is also the way we respond to his or her needs and interact with them daily.  As we talked we realized that part of the problem with many of us is that we love God, but are no longer “in love” with Him.  Could it be that was what John was trying to communicate to us in the book of Revelations when we are admonished to return to our “first love”?

What are you addicted too, drugs, alcohol, pornography, power, wealth, reputation or protecting your reputation, the acceptance and approval of others, the spotlight, sex or food?  The list is endless. 

No, God would not deliver me from addiction, but He would, in His mercy, change what I was addicted to.  Through my relationship with the Holy Spirit I could once again, be “in love” with Jesus.  It is Jesus who baptizes us with the Holy Spirit and Fire.  I have come to believe that this baptism of fire is a baptism into the love of God.  Peter said that above all things we should have a love that is fervent for one another.  That is a love that is literally white hot.  I would say that type of love is not just loving each other but being “in love” with each other.  It can and should be the kind of love we walk in continually with God and one another.  May He, who is the source and hope of our lives, become our Divine Addiction.

To make ourselves of no reputation is probably the hardest thing we will ever have to do, but do it we must if we are to come into the realms of glory Jesus has designed for us to dwell in.  Only God can give us the power to make ourselves of no reputation, but we must “let this mind be in us”. 

We are afraid of becoming a stumbling block to all those who look up to us, and that becomes our excuse to hide the “real” us, when in reality the only life worthy of admiration is the life of Christ.  That is what Paul meant when he said follow me as I follow Christ.  We desperately desire people to love and accept us, but in reality the best they can do is love and accept a false image of us unless we show them who we really are. That is what makes the love God has for us so special.  In the full knowledge of what we are and were He loved us.  So, where does outdoing one another in showing honor come in?  This type of humble life that makes itself of no reputation is one that is worthy of honor and truly acceptable to God.

There is only one faithful and true witness that will never let you down and his name is Jesus.  I make my confession openly that in the hopes others may find the strength to follow suite. Then maybe it will be possible for us to come into a place of transparency and see the glory of God revealed.

Are you willing to loose your reputation and admit you’re an addict?  Once we realize our true state apart from God’s amazing grace we are candidates for the full impact of His salvation.  I don’t know about you, but I am crying out for this.  I truly want my only addiction to be God and His love.  This type of love never fails and will revolutionize our lives.    Will you join me in the Revolution?

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