Celebrate Recovery Blog
"Happy are those who know they are sprititually poor" Matthew 5:3
In physical health, the term recovery refers to the process of moving from illness to wellness. Our "hurts, habits, and hang-ups" are like spiritual illnesses. By following the Biblical principles of Celebrate Recovery, we can begin to move from spiritual illness to spiritual wellness. Some might say we move from bondage-to-self to freedom-in-Christ. Others might say we move from self-reliance to faith and trust in Christ.
Celebrate Recovery offers an opportunity to participate in a group fellowship where hope and love combine with God’s purpose to save and to mend lives.
God loves you the way you are, but He doesn’t want to leave you that way. He wants you to know that He is your greatest good; and that if you surrender yourself to Him, not only does He save you but He protects, He provides for, and He can bring substantial healing in your life.
Psalm 103 says it this way in verses 2-5:
“Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits— who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.”
The Psalms can light our way on the path of change
One thing about the Bible is that it doesn’t sugar coat life. It tells us stories of flawed, sinful people, who struggled with all manner of "hurts, habits, and hang-ups". And then, besides the stories and character studies in Scripture, there are the Psalms.
Dan Allender & Tremper Longman write, in their book entitled The Cry of the Soul, referring to the Psalms: “Writers and thinkers throughout the Christian tradition have recognized the SOUL-EXPOSING function of this pivotal book of the Bible. John Calvin offered this brilliant insight: ‘What various and resplendent riches are contained in this treasury, …I have been wont to call this book, not inappropriately, an anatomy of all parts of the soul: for there is not an emotion of which any one can be conscious that is not here represented as in a mirror’.”
Allender & Longman continue by saying: “The Psalms provoke us to move out of denial. Christians are particularly adept at numbing themselves against painful emotions. ‘After all’, we reason, ‘we should be joyful because we know that God is in control.’ Negative emotions such as fear, anger, or depression are stigmatized as inappropriate because God is love and grants us peace.
But our spiritual songbook of Psalms does not contain 150 hymns of joy. As a matter of fact, a close look shows that the psalms of complaint and songs of accusation- the music of confusion, doubt, and heartache- significantly outnumber the hymns of joy. We may seek to flee from the feelings inside of us, but a look into the Psalms exposes them to our gaze.
Again they quote Calvin: ‘[The Psalmists] lay open their inmost thoughts and affections,call, or rather draw, each of us to the examination of himself in particular, IN ORDER THAT NONE OF THE MANY INFIRMITIES TO WHICH WE ARE SUBJECT, AND OF THE MANY VICES WITH WHICH WE ABOUND, MAY REMAIN CONCEALED’.”
How encouraging to know that we are not alone in our struggles. And how encouraging to know that God has provided us with these Psalms. In Allender & Longman’s words, (The Psalms) “not only teach us how to praise and worship, but also teach us how to wrestle with doubt until it gives way to the first rays of hope. The Psalms light our way on the path of change”.
8/16/09 Tony's Testimony
Join us Sunday, August 16th at 6:30 p.m. to hear Tony's story.
In Tony's words, he is a believer who struggles with walking out God's standard of sexual purity in his life. He says that even though he accepted Christ at a very young age and had a relationship with Him, he struggled to keep Christ at the center of his life and to rely on His power alone to heal his hurts and to change his heart.
In his story, Tony describes his struggles and his attempts to fix himself and how along the way he comes to realize that these Steps were not intended to fix him but to get him ready for God to pour out his Grace on his life. He comes to understand that his work was just submitting and staying connected to God and that God does all the real work.
Tony ends with encouragement to anyone new to the recovery process or struggling to make it through the Steps. His advice is to not quit. God is there. Joshua 1:9 says "Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified: do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go." Tony says it took him years to get to where he is now but God was with him every step of the way. He knows now that God loved him just as he was and wanted nothing more than to lead him through this healing process. Tony believes his life illustrates how God can carry us victoriously through anything, if we let Him.
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Celebrate Recovery Blog
A weekly update about Celebrate Recovery at Grace & Peace Fellowship.