Recovery Series

The first step in breaking free from the grasp of sin is RECOVERY. The recovery process deals with us recovering our understanding of who God and Lucifer are. It also deals with us understanding who we are as the creation of God and what our sin has done to us. Some of the information that we will cover in this section might have already been taught to us. Some of us might have never heard it. Still, it is very important that we understand some simple basic truths that we will deal with.

ITEM 1

Understanding God

Who is God that man should worship Him?

In order for us to gain a complete understanding of who God is, we must see Him as the Word of God describes Him. The book of Genesis begins with a description of God. It says in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. This opening sentence let us know that God is a creative being. Just how God created the earth, the animals, and man is still the center of many debates, but we are not here to argue if God did or how God did what He did.

This simple statement in Genesis shows us that God is much like us. He is creative. Creativity involves more than just the ability to put something together, like assembling a car or putting together a jigsaw puzzle. In order for one to be creative, one must be imaginative, innovative, artistic, calculating logical, prepared, and able to do. Though out the Holy Bible, we find evidence of God’s creativity. If we just look around in the world that we live in, we can examine perfect examples of God’s creativity.

This is what the Word of God says in Genesis 1:2, “ Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness covered the face of the earth and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters…” God used the creative powers of the Word of God to bring into being what He had imagined in his mind. God imagined light and said ‘ Let there be light ‘ and it was. God imagined the sea and said ‘Let there be..’ and it was.

Genesis 1:26 show us a more personal side of God’s creativity. It says, “ Then God says, ‘ Let us make man in Our image..’ God imagined man and imagined how man would look and God took time to personally create man. He did not create man to look like anything in heaven. He did not create man to behave like anything He had created. He made man to be like Him. Man was created in the image and likeness of God. Man possesses some of the same characteristics of the Creator. The Word of God says that God breath into man the breath of life or His Spirit. (Genesis 2:7) The importance of this will be discussed in detail later in this course.

Numbers 14:11-20 gives us a look at God’s personality. Moses, in his plea for the rebellious nation of Israel, describes God as slow to anger, abounding in love, and forgiving. David continues to add to the list. He says in Psalms 36:5-9 that God is faithful, righteous, and just. The bible shows us that the love of God reaches out of the heavens and touches each of us. It shows us that we can count on God to do just what His word says that He will do. God will do abundantly more than we can ever ask or think because of His great love for us.

The Word of God also describes God as being different from His creation. To better understand this concept let us picture the family of God as it really is. As a family, God is our father, His spoken word is our mother, and the Spirit of God is the character traits. This means that God imagined us, then the Word of God produced or gave birth to us, and the Spirit of God brought us to life. (Genesis 2:7) As the offsprings of God, the Word of God, and the Spirit of God, we, the children of God, inherited many of His character traits. These traits were automatically passed down to us when we were born. At birth, every child of God has the ability to think, imagine, and calculate. Every child of God acts, and looks, and thinks like God. Yet, in spite of these same character traits, God is still different from us. He is different from us because He is the Father.

Another reason that God is different from us is because we are the by-products of the union of three separate parts of God. When a man and a woman produce a child, the child might have his father’s eyes and his mother’s looks. Because of the combination of the different traits of the birth parent, the child will be like the parents, think like the parents, and act like the parents, but the child will also be very different. When the Word of God combined with the Spirit of God to create what God had imagined in His mind, the by-product became the child of God or man. The child of God was just that, he was the child of God. He was made in the image of God as God had imagined him to look. The union of the physical spoken Word of God and the Spirit of God brought forth a spiritual physical man. (Genesis 1:27-30)