December Schedule

December can be described as the best of times and the worst of times.  There is much cultural pressure to have a perfect Christmas, but that is impossible in reality and only adds to the frustration that many experence on a regular basis.

We will be meeting each Friday in December, except Christmas Day.  On December 4 we finish Step 11 and move onto Step 12 for the rest of the month.  Steps 11 & 12 seem to me to be a much neglected part of recovery.  Please don't miss out on these important Steps.

One other scheduling note is that we will meet on Thursday, December 31 (New Year's Eve) rather than Friday, January 1, 2016.  What better place to be on NY Eve!

We will begin again with Step 1 on January 8.  Come and see what God will do in 2016!

Thanksgiving Break

Celebrate Recovery will not meet on November 27, but we will continue with Step 11 on December 4 at 7pm.  We have spent several weeks on what it means to seek through prayer and meditation to improve our conscience contact with God.  That truly is vital in maintaining our victories over addictions and resentments because we are drawing closer to Christ and farther from those old burdens.

I hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving and that along the way you give thanks to God who has given you another day to find peace, joy, and purpose in Christ Jesus.

We will be starting Step 12 on December 11 and restarting with Step 1 on January 8.  On Thursday, December 31 we will have a special fellowship session instead of our regular meeting on Friday of that week.

Step 11

Thanks to everyone from our Celebrate Recovery groups and First Baptist Church who helped with our New Brighton parade float!  We once again used our "jail cell" float asking, "what prison are YOU in?"  We handed out over 1,100 flyers to the adults and 600 candy packets to the kids along the parade route.

If you received one of those flyers, or whatever brings you to our website, I hope that you will take the next step and come and meet us on a Friday night.  We all have struggles in this life, some struggle with anger and resentment, some with finances or health issues, others with alcohol or drugs, and many of us struggle with relationships and grief.  No matter what is troubling you, there is hope and there is help from people who care about you because God cares about you; I trust you will meet them here on a Friday night at Celebrate recovery.

We are currently on Step 11 of the 12, but if you are coming for the first time, or you haven't been to a meeting in a long time, I trust you will be blessed for being here.

Step 10 - Crossroads

Principle 7: Reserve a daily time with God for self-examination, Bible reading, and prayer in order to know  and follow God and His will for my life.

Step 10: We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.

If you’ve been following the steps to this point, you’ve gotten off to a great start.  Here’s what you’ve done so far, you have: faced your denial and admitted that you cannot fight this spiritual battle alone, submitted to God by surrendering your life and will to Jesus Christ, sought the Holy Spirit in taking an honest look at your life by listing, confessing, and admitting all your wrongdoings, offered your forgiveness to those that have hurt you, and made amends for all the harm that you have caused to others.  Overall: you’ve submitted to all the changes God wanted to make in you so far.  WOW! That’s quite a journey!  At the start, most of us would have said that it was an impossible journey.  You could never have done the work that the first 9 steps ask of you, and you would be right.  YOU can’t, but God can.

Yet perhaps some of you have not made that entire journey…  Maybe it loomed so large at the start, you never really started.  Maybe you did start, but you really only wanted something fixed.  Maybe you started but then relapsed…and felt as defeated as ever.

If you didn’t really follow the steps, didn’t turn ALL your life and will over to Christ, didn’t do or finish the spiritual inventory, didn’t admit your wrongs to God, yourself, someone you trust, didn’t forgive or make amends to those you need to, didn’t submit to the changes God wants to make in you…    then you are still in the cycle.  I often do the laundry; I kinda enjoy it.  I reuse the rinse water for the next load of wash.  It seems that once per wash day the dryer stops and I find the washer full of water and dirty clothes.  Why: because it is stuck in the cycle…after sucking the old rinse water back in, I neglected to advance the dial to the wash setting, so my dirty laundry just sits there, wet, dirty, stuck in the cycle.  If you’re still stuck in the cycle, it’s not because the Steps don’t work.  I’m gonna guess that the breakdown was a failure to trust and obey God as He tried to lead you through the Steps and a failure to praise God.

The Crossroad

Step 10 is not a place to stop great progress and rest on recent victories.  “Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor 10:12).  Relapse is looming as soon as you start to you’re your guard…as soon as you decide to “take a rest for a while.”  Step 10 is not a place you expect to start anew if you’ve skipped Steps 1-9!  You cannot skip Steps.  Trying to do so means you think you’re above it, or that you know better than God…that’s called idolatry – making a god of your design.

Most recovery material refers to Steps 10 through 12 as the “maintenance steps.”  That doesn’t mean auto-pilot!  God is just beginning to make the necessary changes…it’s a life-long process.  Remember Principle 3?  It says, “We made a decision to turn our life and will over to Christ.”  Now starts the rest of your life…making choices over what god you will worship:           gods of your father and mother, gods of your past, gods of our culture, OR the One True God.  We’ll talk more about these “other gods” in the weeks ahead.  The fact is, you will trust, you will praise some god.  Which one will it be?  A god you choose or the God who chose you?  READ Isaiah 44:6-17.   What will you do?

Forgiveness part 2 (our forgiveness of others)

Principle 6: Evaluate all my relationships. Offer forgiveness to those who have hurt me and make amends for harm I’ve done to others, except when to do so would harm them or others.  “Blessed are the merciful…Blessed are the peacemakers.” (Mt 5:7, 9)

Step 8: We made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.  “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Luke 6:31)

Last week we talked about God’s forgiveness of us; that it is only possible becuase Jesus Christ died to pay for our sin.  We talked about the woman caught in adultery in John 8; she was caught in the act, dragged through the streets, the penalty death.  Yet Jesus did not condemn her.  Instead He told her to “go and sin no more.”  Jesus told her only way she could go and sin no more was to “follow Me.”  Forgiveness and “going and sinning no more” go together…all connected by “following Jesus.”  If you want to have victory, and stop the resentments and addictions, then follow Jesus.  When you believe and confess Jesus is God the Son, the Christ, and you repent of your sin, He forgives you.  And that is the 1^st reason you should forgive others!

Tonight we’re talking about our forgiveness of others.  So here is the second reason to forgive: not doing so hurts you.  “Forgiveness doesn’t excuse their actions, it keeps their actions from destroying your heart” - unknown source.  We tend to just think about what our forgiveness means to someone else who is truly seeking it, and it does mean much to them if they are sincere in asking, and us in giving.  But we tend to think little about what our forgiveness of others means to us; it means a release of the hurt, frustration, resentment, and the burden of stored-up anger which the enemy will use against us.  For you: forgiving others removes an emotional, physical, and psychological tool of the devil.  Thus, forgiveness doesn’t excuse their actions, it keeps the devil from using their actions to destroy your heart.” 

There are also deep spiritual implications of your forgiveness of others which brings us to the Third reason to forgive: God tells you to.     “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6:14-15).  How can you accept God’s forgiveness of the sin debt you cannot pay and then refuse to forgive someone else’s sin against you?  How often do you need God to forgive you?  Once, or every time?  How often does He expect you to forgive those who sin against you?  Once, or every time?

Forgive every time.

Celebrate Health

Beginning May 6, 2015 we will launch a second night of recovery meetings with a specific focus on healthy living.  The format will be very similar to Friday nights, but the name will be changed to Celebrate Health.  While weight issues will be at the forefront, there will certainly be many other applications as well.

Step 2: HOPE

Principle 2 Earnestly believe that God exists, that I matter to Him, and that He has the power to help me recover.

Step 2 We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

A story of a people in the chains of captivity with no hope…

We know very little about how it came about.  We know it didn’t start off bad.  We know somewhere along the line, what seemed good turned into bondage/slavery.  I’m talking about the nation of Israel in Egypt for 430 years, 30 years good, and 400 years of slavery.  They were in denial, not knowing the One True God and believing the gods of Egypt were no problem to them.  They were powerless, having no way of ending their slavery on their own. 

Exodus 1:8-14

Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.  And he said to his people, “Look, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we; come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and it happen, in the event of war, that they also join our enemies and fight against us, and so go up out of the land.”  Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh supply cities, Pithom and Raamses.  But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were in dread of the children of Israel.

Our addictions are taskmasters just like the Egyptians were to the Israelites.  Their bondage was physical and spiritual; so are our hurts and habits.

H.O.P.E. for the Hopeless

Higher Power –

God knew all about their suffering and enslavement. 

Exodus 3:6-8a

Moreover He said, “I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God.  And the Lord said: “I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. ⁸ So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey.”

But God didn’t just know about it, He was about to intervene and bring them out of their bondage and slavery.  He intervened for you too.

1 Cor 15:3-7, 57-58

For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve.  After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep.  After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles… But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

Openness

This is a willingness to come to God through Jesus Christ His Son, even if you were dragged in at first.  Just so long as you come to acknowledge that He is your only Hope.  The Israelites’ only hope was God too.

Exodus 4:28-31

So Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord who had sent him, and all the signs which He had commanded him. ²⁹ Then Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the children of Israel. ³⁰ And Aaron spoke all the words which the Lord had spoken to Moses. Then he did the signs in the sight of the people. ³¹ So the people believed; and when they heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel and that He had looked on their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshiped.

They loved the idea of being set free from their slavery and task masters.  Like many of us, they assumed this meant God was just going to make it happen and they would walk out like nothing had ever happened.  But this is not how God operates.  He wants to change us to be like His Son…and that’s a lot of changing!  Even though God warned them that things would get harder before they got better, they didn’t hear that because they didn’t want to hear it. 

Exodus 3:19-20

[God said] But I am sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go, no, not even by a mighty hand.  So I will stretch out My hand and strike Egypt with all My wonders which I will do in its midst; and after that he will let you go.  And I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians; and it shall be, when you go, that you shall not go empty-handed.

We need to be open to the Truth of Christ and to whatever He is going to do and however He is going to do it; ready to learn from Him all along the way.  That is the process of recovery.

Power to Change

The Israelites they had no power to change anything and just needed to trust God to lead them out.  As soon as things didn’t go as they expected, and it didn’t take long, they began to doubt and complain.  In Exodus 5, Moses and Aaron go into Pharaoh and tell Him God said to let the Israelites God, to which Pharaoh replied, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey Him?!”  Pharaoh then increased the burden upon the Israelites.  Then other Israelite leaders went back in to Pharaoh and pleaded for mercy and he totally refused them.  The Israelite leaders went to Moses and Aaron and were very angry with them…it didn’t go as the Isrealites had wanted.  Then in Exodus 6 God responds to Moses over all of this.

Exodus 6:1-2, 6-7

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh. For with a strong hand he will let them go, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land.”  And God spoke to Moses and said to him: “I am the LORD…Therefore say to the children of Israel: ‘I am the Lord; I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, I will rescue you from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments.  I will take you as My people, and I will be your God. Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.’”

We can’t change…but Almighty God can change us, breaking the power of addiction, resentment, hurts, and habits as we learn of His love for us and start to love Him back!  Maybe you don’t quite believe that because you’ve not seen it.  Well, what if the reason nothing has changed for you is NOT a lack of God’s power, but a lack of your trust and commitment to follow Him?

Expect Change

The Israelites did at first, expecting God to just make the whole thing go away so they could get on with their lives, but they soon lost that hope and expectation when things didn’t go as they had planned.  But they didn’t listen to Him from the start, when He told them that there would be some hard things along the way; things meant to help build their trust in Him and change their faulty way of thinking.  So too, your recovery will not be easy, immediate, or automatic.  It is a process God leads you through as your learn to trust, follow, and love Him.  Romans 5:1-5 says it much better than I can, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.  And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope.  Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”

Conclusion

My 14 year old son and I moved lots of snow this past week.  It was wet, heavy snow with ¾ inch of ice on top.  I prefer using a shovel for exercise purposes, but with this stuff I agreed to his request of using the snow blower.  The machine did all the heavy work, moving the snow…and it tore it up too!  But the snow blower did nothing until we got it out, then we just followed behind letting it do the heavy work.  God does the heavy lifting of your recovery giving you just enough to build your trust, commitment and love in Him

Step 1: Powerless

Each week there are two parts to our weekly meetings: there is a discussion of our current Step (and we are on Step 1 this week), then an advanced topic relating to Steps 10-12.

Step 1

What it means to be Powerless

It means that everything you do to stop your addiction or resentment doesn’t work, at least not for long.  It means that anything you attempt to do to overcome your addictions or resentments won’t work either.

Why are you powerless?

There are several reasons, here are the biggest ones…

First, you are powerless because recovery is NOT about changing your situation.  That is where most people put all of their effort…into changing their situation.  True and lasting recovery is about changing how you THINK.  The problem is that your thinking is faulty.  What you’ve learned and practiced in the past led you into addiction / resentment.  You’ve been deceived, led into a false understanding of reality, of your situation, of your relationships, and even of yourself.  Any attempt YOU make to change any of that is based upon that false reality and uses flawed thought processes.  It’s like me trying to repair the computer in my car or perform brain surgery…I don’t have the right information, skills, or understanding to be able to do any of that so my attempts will fail (and be disastrous for the car or the poor patient!).

God says it like this in 1 Corinthians 3:18-21, “Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.  For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, ‘He catches the wise in their own craftiness”; and again, “The LORD knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.’  Therefore let no one boast in men” (including yourself).

The second reason you are powerless over addictions and resentments is because you have an enemy (Satan) who hates you and is a master of deception and lies.  Here is some truth from God’s Word about your enemy: Genesis 3 describes “the Fall” of mankind where Satan twisted what God said, cause Eve to doubt it, and then flat-out lied about what God said.  That lie, mixed with a little bit of truth deceived her and sin entered the world.  He uses the same plan of attack on you.  In 1 Peter 5:8-11 we are told that then enemy is roaming about like a roaring lion seeking to destroy anyone he can, including you.  In 2 Corinthians 11:12-15 we see that the great liar comes as an angel of light.  Your enemy doesn’t come looking or acting like an enemy, but as someone / something that is good, helpful, fun, etc.  He deceives you, gets his hooks into you, then starts to work his destruction and hate upon you.  In John 8:42-47 Jesus called it exactly as it is, telling us that Satan is the father of lies.  Why are we talking about Satan?  Because he is real and you are in a battle against him.  That is a fight you cannot win on your own.  The enemy deceives you and corrupts your way of thinking.  He hates you and wants to destroy you. 

BUT, God is greater than he who is in the world!  Jesus has already defeated sin and death, the tools Satan uses.  Jesus breaks the power of the enemy over you when you trust and submit to Jesus, who is God the Son.  As you spend time with Him and His Word (the Bible), He begins to replace that old corrupted thinking with His perfect wisdom and understanding. 

How do you overcome being powerless?

1.   Submit to God…yield to His Truth, give yourself to Him

2.   reach out to the Light, Jesus Christ

Through faith in Him you will be forgiven, the enemy’s power over you will be broken, you will be given the Holy Spirit who will teach you truth when you read the Bible.  By knowing the Truth, you will be able to recognize the enemy’s deceptions.  The Spirit will watch over you, guide you, comfort you, and help you stand.

Step 10-12 Topic – Listening

I hope that after the last topic you aren’t having trouble listening now.  Many of us have gotten into trouble by talking too much.  Many of us have been quickly offended by what someone else said.  The dude that came up with “sticks and stones will break my bones but name will never hurt me,” was greatly deceived.  Words hurt.  Our words, and the words of others often get us headed into addiction and resentment, aiding our own poor decisions and faulty understanding of reality.  Statements like, “come on, this is fun, it’ll help you relax and forget that problem,” or “you’ll never amount to anything, why couldn’t you be more like your sister,” or “if only I looked like her”…(that model who’s livelihood is to be thin, with a host of professional makeup and airbrush artists constantly tending to her, fixing every flaw).  Last week we read James 1:12-18.  This week it’s James 1:19-20, “So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.”  In the context of enduring (holding out from, not caving to) temptation, recognizing that good things are from God, who is Light, and never changes, and that because of His love for us, He redeems us from sin and death (when we submit to Christ), we find that we avoid much trouble by being swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger.

Swift to hear:

You don’t have to do what society has hammered into you (some of that false reality).  You don’t have to make sure everyone knows your every opinion on everything.  Just be quiet and listen to people sometimes!  Don’t jump to conclusions about what they are going to say.  Don’t nod and be thinking about what you’re going to say next.  Listen to them.  If we all did this, there would be fewer runaways, friendships would last a lifetime, and there would be much less divorce.

Be slow to speak:

Don’t react hastily like a wild dog.  Instead think, pray and then respond.  Don’t speak your mind…it’s full of partial truth and twisted reality!  If things start to get heated, stop the conversation if necessary and if you can so that you and the other people involved can cool down.

Be slow to anger:

Good grief, we just want to rip people to shreds, demand our way, and crucify people for even the slightest injustice, whether intentional or not.  How about giving someone the benefit of the doubt or a little bit of grace.  That is exactly what you want when you make a mistake or choose poorly, right?  You want to take words back sometimes…so do people you talk to!  There are things you wish you hadn’t of done…the same it true of others!  Give people some grace.

That may sound good (or maybe you think it’s stupid), either way, want to know why you won’t do it?  Because on your own you are powerless to be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to be angry.  Those things are not who we are, they are foolishness to us.  What makes sense to us is demanding our way and having resentment anytime we don’t get it.  It is only thru the Spirit that  you can be quick to hear, slow speak, and slow to anger.  The Spirit gives love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal 5:22-23)  It is only possible thru the Holy Spirit…learn to listen to Him.