Recent Messages

Seriously who wants to take honest inventory of their life and promptly admit wrongs...daily? And yet we've all been around people who are genuinely humble, willing to admit wrongs, and more peaceful because of it. One guy in the Bible shows us how meeting Jesus and experiencing the freedom of knowing him empowered him to practice daily inventory. Join us for the community and conversation.

More Messages from Ross Stackhouse

From Series: "Jesus and the 12 Steps"

Alcoholics Anonymous is a journey of moving from a “subtle insanity” and great illusion to great awakening. No one would not like to experience a great awakening; however, few are willing to admit what one must admit to experience awakening. The 12 Steps offer a path of liberation, but, again, but few are willing to keep working a process like the 12 Steps. In the Big Book it says, “There is a solution. Almost none of us like the self-searching, the leveling of our pride, the confession of shortcomings which the process requires for its successful consummation…When, therefore, we were approached by those in who the problem had been solved, there was nothing left for us but to pick up the simple kit of spiritual tools laid at our feet. We have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence of which we had not even dreamed.” How similarly Jesus speaks! He starts his mission with the words, “The kingdom of heaven is near.” However, right next to these words is Jesus’s admonition, “Repent!” The odd balance of the kingdom of heaven is that it is right here, near, available for us wake up to and live into now, but the work of one-time and ongoing repentance to live as such is not a probable task. Many in Jesus’s time were much more willing to exalt themselves rather than be exalted, including and especially his own disciples. Many in Jesus’s time were much more willing to find someone—anyone!—with whom they could contrast themselves to feel better about their situation rather than to look at the adulterer, robber, evildoer and tax collector and take seriously what they have in common with such a person (such as in Luke 18). Many in Jesus’s time were much more willing to condemn and sacrifice someone else, including and especially Jesus, rather than surrender to their own powerlessness and face their demons with God’s power. Is it any different in our time? This series aims to invite people to a new path of liberation with Jesus along with the help of the tried and true path also of the 12 Steps. It invites people into the hope of heaven and a fourth dimension of existence of which we had not even dreamed. Each week we’ll feature a stories and teaching from the Bible alongside wisdom from Alcoholics Anonymous and the 12 Steps. A red thread in this series will be reflection on sin. For one, I don’t use this word often because of the baggage that comes with it. People don’t hear it in the way I may mean it. They hear it in the way they’ve understood it from someone else. I don’t get to control the meaning or interpretation of it. In this series, I will attempt to reframe it. Secondly, the language of unmanageability (in Step 1) is less threatening but just as incisive.