“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
– John 3:17 (NRSV)

When I was growing up, the feeling I got from religion was guilt. I am not going to blame any one person for that message getting into my brain and my heart, but it was there. In fact, by the time I was in my late teens and early twenties, I couldn’t even sit in a church without feeling so much guilt that I would be brought to tears. The unworthiness was so overwhelming that I just stopped going to church. I only entered a church to attend a wedding or funeral, and even then it was almost unbearable.

By the time I found my way to recovery from my addictions, I was certain there was a God and that He really hated me. The only connection I still felt was with Jesus – and that was just because I knew He could understand me because His father turned His back on Him also. It was a sad state that I was in, and I am forever grateful to the recovery community for nurturing me to a place of true peace with God. It wasn’t always easy, and it definitely wasn’t what I expected, but it was all worth it.

What I have learned over the last eighteen years is that God loves me. He wants me to experience peace in my heart. He wants to save me through relationship with His Son. The beauty of learning this is that it didn’t come from the recovery community, but instead through the recovery community. No one in recovery ever told me who God was or wasn’t. In fact, they didn’t even refer to “Him” as “God” – they simply said “Higher Power.” It was through that genuine acceptance of whatever “Higher Power” would help me to find my way that those recovery people helped lead me to the relationship I have today with the Trinity that has always been the foundation of my Christian faith. What is amazing to me about this is this: If you had told me, eighteen years ago, that one day I would be living in fulfilling peace and unending faith with God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, I would have snorted in derision and walked away from you. Once again, God opened my mind and my heart – He did for me what I could never do for myself.

The reason all this is coming to the surface for me now is because of my recent pledge to myself to read the Bible from beginning to end during my morning meditation. Right now, I am in the middle of Exodus, and I am snorting in derision. The rules! Good grief, the rules! They are all about condemnation, shame and guilt. At least that is what I am feeling as I read them. The difference in feeling them now is that I am removed from the personal angle and more in tune with the historical essence of the material. AND, most importantly, I know that: “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

There were a lot of rules and laws laid out before the Israelites before Jesus came along. Perhaps they were needed at that time. But, the writings that have been preserved to relay the life of Jesus tell me this: I am not condemned by Jesus. I am saved by Jesus. His Presence here on earth is the balm to every committed sin. His Forgiveness here on earth is the guide for every one ever harmed. His Love here on earth is the cure to every hatred conveyed. We are not condemned by Jesus. We are each saved by Jesus.

As Christmas approaches, my heart rejoices in not just believing, but in knowing that The Son came to save me. To paraphrase something once said by C.S. Lewis: If there were no one else on earth besides me, He still would have come. He came to save each and every one of us!