Tag: Addiction

Tetelestai Recovery

Embracing Spiritual Transformation: A New Life in Christ

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We realized we were no longer addicted, damaged, and dysfunctional. We sensed that our bodies, souls, and spirits were coming into harmony with our divine destiny. As the light seeped into where darkness had been, we saw things we’d never seen before. We understood spiritual concepts that had seemed confusing in the past.

As we opened our minds to sacred text, the revolution began. We discovered new parameters for our belief system.

I Corinthians 2:16 stated, “We understand these things, for we have the mind of Christ,” so we released our mental constraints and became aware of our new understanding.

2 Corinthians 5:17 told us that “anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!”

Therefore, we resisted the temptation to dwell on the past. We had become a new creation in Christ, so there was no past to lament.

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Tetelestai Recovery

Idolatry of Emotions: Claiming Righteousness Through Grace

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When we discovered the power of Jesus’ declaration, “It is finished,” we claimed tetelestai over our misaligned compass comprised of human emotion.

We stopped worshipping at the feet of our feelings and ditched them at the foot of the cross. We learned that our feelings were an unpredictable deity. We saw that exalting our feelings to a place of devotion, was nothing short of idolatry.

We made a firm decision to discover God’s thoughts of us, rather than our own thoughts of ourselves.

We didn’t feel like believing in our rightness, but the Word stated we were the righteousness (right-ness) of God. We were much more comfortable feeling wrong and running from it. We were unsure how to settle into knowing, rather than feeling.

It didn’t feel right to believe right, but once we got a revelation of grace, and stopped relying on how bad we felt, we discovered a sense of stability we’d never known before.

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Tetelestai Recovery

What Tetelestai Really Means: Beyond “It Is Finished”

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We noticed that Jesus’ final word tetelestai, translated into the English phrase, it is finished, seemed to imply a sense of giving up. We found this to be an unfortunate language barrier. As it turns out, in the original Greek language of the New Testament, this word tetelestai is a declaration of victory, completion, and success.

Tetelestai is the comment an artist might whisper after completing his final brush stroke on a masterpiece.

Tetelestai is the report a soldier would bring to his commanding officer when a battle was over, and victory had been secured.

We believe our Savior used His final breath on the cross to declare for all time, to all creation, in every dimension, that there is nothing left undone: It is finished; Tetelestai.

There is no more drudgery to sobriety and no more anguish to recovery. There is no self-effort which must be added to what has been declared, Tetelestai.

IT IS FINISHED

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Tetelestai Recovery

Overcoming Substance Addiction: The Gift of Tetelestai

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In matters of our recovery from substance addiction and the mental dysfunction that accompanies it, we were completely helpless. We had no thoughts that could heal our thoughts. We had no disclosure that could remove our secret shame. We had no detour that would lead us out of the darkness. We were lost. We were alone. We were afraid.

But suddenly, in a random, unexplainable moment, the gift of Tetelestai was revealed. We had run out of options, yet in that barren wasteland of emptiness, we stumbled upon a treasure trove of truth.

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Tetelestai Recovery

The Insanity of Addiction: A Journey to Mental Freedom

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There is an overpowering conflict that occurs within the mind of anyone who has encountered the desperation of addiction. The struggle to escape one’s own mind by flooding it with toxic levels of mood-altering chemicals is the true definition of insanity. Yet many of us suffered from this fatal and debilitating disease, consenting to the madness as if there were no other option.

In search of total recovery, we discovered we were not only seeking to be delivered from our dependency on mind or mood-altering substances, but we also searched for freedom from our thought processes, our twisted perceptions, and our obsessive fears.

In this emotional state of chronic crisis, we were exhausted.

We struggled to be free from a mind that plotted its own demise. Our thoughts quite literally tormented us to the point of insanity. We needed a way to manage our feelings and silence our sickness…

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Tetelestai Recovery

Breaking Free: Addressing Addictions Beyond Drugs

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We concluded that all humans suffer from at least one type of addiction. However, we also know that every addiction can be called out and destroyed, using the pronouncement of Jesus, “Tetelestai” (It is finished).

Last Word Recovery Ministries developed the Tetelestai Recovery program that is based on the power of Jesus declaration which offers the possibility of permanent freedom for anyone struggling with addiction.

 As the ripple effect of this program began to reach the families and friends of those who were enjoying permanent sobriety, we received requests for an expanded version of the program which could address other destructive addictions and dysfunctions beyond the scope of drug or alcohol dependence. We were intrigued by this idea and excited to pursue it. 

In this third volume, Tetelestai Recovery – Leveling Up, we address some non-drug addictions, along with other dysfunctional behaviors related to the human condition. We offer Sacred Text selections that can break these strongholds and prevent further harm.

Tetelestai Recovery is not just for addicts. It is for everyone. Jesus says, “It is finished!” to the behaviors and dysfunctions that weigh us down and hold us back.

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Tetelestai Recovery

Walk with Confidence

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Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you. Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm.  Proverbs 4:25-26

Make level paths for your feet, so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.  Hebrews 12:13

Both verses spoke of walking level paths which offer firm footing and stability. There was no demand to scale mountain ledges, hike over rocky terrains, lose ground on shifting sand dunes, or trudge through marshy swampland. We were not told to look down, closely examining each next step with caution because the journey was so treacherous. We were simply instructed to seek out level paths and keep our focus upward.

In other words, we had to stop making it harder than it needed to be. We were simply to ask God for direction and trust that He would deliver us to exactly the right place at exactly the right time. We simply needed to keep walking. One foot in front of the other. Forward motion. No fear. One step at a time. No looking down and no looking back.

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Tetelestai Recovery

The Illusion of Relief: Understanding Emotional Dependence

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The presence of unwanted feelings such as insecurity, inadequacy, fear, anger, and other social phobias, coupled with our inability to manage or control them, unleashed within us a desperation for relief at any cost. We soon learned of a temporary reprieve that occurred when our brain chemistry became altered. We didn’t care that the relief would be short lived or cause irreparable damage. The long-awaited relief of rightness, contrasted against the life-long agony of wrongness, offered such an enchanting embrace, we surrendered without a fight.

Without mind and mood altering substances, we fell into total despair. Sadly, these moments of disparity began to seep into every moment, and the temporary relief withdrew as quickly as it came.

We became slaves to our feelings. We tested the quality of our product by the way it made us feel. We watched for warning signs of overdose by the way our bodies felt. We discovered ways to get out of responsibilities by saying, “I don’t feel well.” We made all sorts of excuses to ourselves and to others, based on our feelings. We accused our dealer of cutting because his product didn’t make us feel the way we wanted, or the way it used to. We sank into despair when the supply ran out. We drove through blizzards, walked through storms, and did whatever necessary to get the substance that would make us feel right. We went without sleep, food, and basic necessities. We lost relationships and emptied bank accounts in a mad pursuit of a feeling we wanted to feel.

We were caught in a cycle of frenzied flight. Running from feelings we couldn’t stand. Searching for a feeling we thought we knew. We didn’t like to feel wrong, and we didn’t know how to feel right.

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Tetelestai Recovery

Finding True Purpose Beyond Sobriety

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It was not enough for us to simply stop using mind or mood-altering substances. We needed something more significant. We began to suspect that our primary purpose in life was not simply to stay clean and sober. While sobriety was an honorable ambition, and one we had desired deeply for many years, we found that mere sobriety fell woefully short of the abundant life promised by Jesus. We began to believe that our true purpose was to discover the reason for our existence.

We came to realize that sobriety was not the end goal. As it turned out, sobriety was simply a way of life we had grown to prefer, since clarity of mind was beneficial in our quest for true purpose...

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Tetelestai Recovery

Level Up Your Decisions: Embrace Responsibility for Change

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To level up, we must acknowledge that every action starts with a choice. And every choice carries two equal and opposite decisions. In other words, every choice carries both a yes and a no decision.

If we say yes to sobriety, we say no to chaos and destruction. And visa-versa. If we say yes to a drink or drug, we say no to hope and sanity. When we say yes to thinking about our choices, we say no to making the same bad decisions, expecting different results.

When leveling up, we must accept our own responsibility for the choices and events of our lives. We must realize that our decisions, even in little things, matter.  Whether it is getting a good deal on a laptop we suspect is stolen, or working the system to get benefits we don’t really deserve, every decision sets off a chain reaction of negative results and consequences.

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