Tag: Addiction

Tetelestai Recovery

Upside Down Perspective

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The upside-down declarations of a fallen world rang out loud and clear:

  • Trauma causes permanent damage.
  • Don’t get your hopes up or you will be disappointed.
  • Nothing gets better; everything is getting worse.
  • Life will kick you down.
  • You are growing more weak, frail, and overwhelmed.
  • The world’s message was abrupt and hopeless: The end result of life is death.   

The inauguration of triumph within Christ’s victory cheer, “Tetelestai!” turned these statements right side up. Much like the development of a photograph from negative filmstrip, black became white, white became black, and color emerged, as the world was submerged in the bright red solution of Jesus’ blood.

The law was fulfilled, the curtain was torn, and the New Covenant eliminated the curse, opening the floodgates of blessing for all. The responsibility of the covenant rested solely on the finished work of Jesus. No more sacrifice could outperform the one which announced, “It is finished!” His declaration broke the curse and banished the old covenant of law. Blessings became contingent on Christ’s obedience rather than our own. We found within that realm of grace, the script was flipped, and hope was born.

For forty years, from the time Peter watched his Savior and friend leave this world, airlifted by a fanfare of angels, he had been on a journey of enlightenment. He had become painfully aware of just how upside-down this natural world really was. He had learned, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to walk in a supernatural existence, free from natural limitations. He personally encountered events in which prison led to freedom, death led to life, and sickness led to health. An angel had walked him out of a maximum-security prison. People were raised from the dead on his watch. Some were healed when his shadow passed over them. When Jesus told Peter he would be doing greater miracles that the ones he had seen his Teacher do, He wasn’t exaggerating!

Peter recognized this world for what it was: an upside-down creation waiting to be turned right-side-up. Peter walked upright for many years, against the grain, in an upside-down world where most people just didn’t get it.

We wondered if Peter realized the significance of his choice to die upside-down. From that perspective, looking out on his crowd of accusers, who appeared to be hanging by their feet to a dusty sky, he was given a glimpse of how distorted one’s viewpoint could be, when looking at things upside-down.

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Tetelestai Recovery – Chapter 4 – Our New Perspective

Tetelestai Recovery

Water Walkers

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When Jesus was spotted by His friends, coming toward the boat, they first thought He was a ghost. He knew what they were thinking. Although they should have been relieved to see Him, they were, in fact, terrified instead. He saw the horror in their eyes and realized they weren’t recognizing Him for who He was.

We recall times when we were unaware that Jesus was approaching, and we became frightened by our own misperceptions. We saw death approaching, but in the end, it proved to be the Author of Life. The disciples thought they were seeing a ghost. And much like those young men, we too become afraid of what He represents. Some fear He will leave them. Others fear He will prohibit their self-expression. Some fear He will demand too much or create too much controversy. Many of us encountered a fear of Jesus, not fully understanding who He was or why He’d come.

 Jesus comes to us in different forms. Sometimes He comes in the supernatural realm as an unmistakable tingle of the Great Spirit. Other times He approaches through the Presence of other addicts and inmates whom we fondly refer to as our cell-siblings. Addiction, incarceration, disease, and anxiety were some of the worst storms in our lives, and we were sure some of these issues would be the death of us. Yet, in the midst of these storms, Jesus appeared and offered the opportunity to take a leap of faith and join Him in the supernatural.

In the Sacred Text account, one of the men in the boat, named Peter, asked Jesus to let him come out and walk on the water alongside Him. Jesus of course said, “Sure! Come on out. The water’s fine.” Peter lunged toward the side of the boat as it was rocking and lurching, climbed cautiously over the edge, and slowly lowered his weight onto the swirling liquid. If Jesus was a fraud, the next few seconds would have been the moment of truth. In former miracles, the people who were healed and delivered could have been in cahoots with Him on some elaborate hoax. However, walking on top of water, and inviting another human being to join Him would have been impossible to pull off, had it been a ruse.

The interesting part of this story is when it is taught as an object lesson in some churches, the point always seems to hover over the fact that for a split-second Peter took his eyes off Jesus and began to sink below the surface of the waves. Many preachers belabor the point that Peter lacked faith. We disagree!

There were 11 other men in the boat who didn’t even ask if they could come out onto the water. Peter had faith! Whether he was completely successful in his faith walk or not, he was the only one with the intuition to ask if he could get out of the boat. He was the one who believed in Jesus’ ability to empower him to do it. He knew that in the midst of the storm, the safest place to be was with Jesus. In that moment of clarity, Peter suddenly received a divine revelation. Through this text, we receive the same revelation in our storms. We need not remain powerless and desperate. We are called to function alongside our King, even when natural laws dictate otherwise. Believers can overpower the Natural with the Supernatural.

The power in the spirit realm is faith, and Peter’s faith was increasing exponentially with every risk. His faith account was small, but it was growing. When Jesus asked him “Oh you have such little faith, why did you doubt me?” He was simply letting Peter know that as his faith increased, so would his ability to maintain his position of power in the Spirit realm. Pointing out that Peter had ‘little’ faith was not a reprimand but rather, an encouragement that when his faith grew bigger, it would become more reliable, enabling him to fulfill his call.

Chapter 12 – Water Walkers

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Tetelestai Recovery

Use Your Words

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This is a word created universe, and we have been given the authority of Christ to create our world with His words. What we believe, we speak, and the manifestation takes place.

Sometimes it is instantaneous, like a light switch. Other times it is a gradual process, like a dimmer switch.

We saw in the passage in Mark 11 that the tree took some time to die. Therefore, we were faced with the challenge to first believe, then speak, and then wait. We noticed that Jesus didn’t stand there waiting for the tree to die. He went on about His business and allowed His words to do the work.

In the same mindset, we learned it was best not to examine our progress, but only to believe and continue on our path. Days, months, and even years later, when encountering humiliating experiences, or running into old acquaintances, we were surprised to see that our emotional responses were no longer rooted in shame, but rather in strength. We found those mountains which loomed in our future had disappeared and our paths were leveled.   

 As we learned about words creating the world we desire, we understood that our words could destroy our root of shame. Once the root was dead, no one else, including ourselves, would be subjected to the fruit that grew from it.

Those mountains which needed to move would not be moved by exertion or self-effort. We could not uproot our shame any more than we could move a mountain. Both were subject to the same force, the spoken word. Knowing that the only energy that travels from the natural realm to the spiritual realm are our words, we speak to our shame and command it to bear no fruit. We speak to our mountains, and they disappear into the sea.

We declared the words of Jesus, “It is finished!” to our roots of shame and our mountain of amends.

As our mountains dropped into the sea, a tsunami of opportunities flooded into our lives. Wave upon wave of amazing possibilities washed over us.

Chapter 11 – Roots and Mountains

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Tetelestai Recovery

The Revolution

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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.

We believed that our feelings were fickle and could not be the focal point of our attention. We did not regard our feelings as a reliable source of information. The Word of God became our compass, and we only said of ourselves what we would say of Christ. We professed that we were in Christ and have inherited the privilege to participate in a life of His perfection. We were the righteousness of God, even when we felt like we had failed. The cross inverted all our wrongs and made them right. Thus, the rightness of Jesus outweighed the wrongness of our misdeeds.

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  • We began to thank God for His provision, even when we felt needy.  

And my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:19

  • We praised God for deliverance, even while feeling imprisoned by the past:

The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 2 Corinthians 3:17

  • We believed God for His righteousness, even when we felt wrong.
  • We believed in ourselves as new creations, even when we felt damaged.
  • We stopped living in regret, even when we felt as if we should.

We no longer identified with who we were, but rather, we identified ourselves as who we became at the moment, we received our tetelestai revelation. We had come to know love which we had never known before. We had received a personal pardon from the King of Kings and according to Ephesians 3:19, we were becoming filled with the fullness of God, which was gradually squeezing out our tendency to be full of ourselves.

Tetelestai Recovery – Finding Total Recovery in the Words of Christ, “It is Finished!”

Chapter 3 – The Revolution

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Tetelestai Recovery

A Contaminated Mind

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Although our spirits were reborn and our bodies were clean from mood altering substances, our minds were contaminated with cognitive distortions. Our thought processes had become corroded with bitterness and disappointment. The original shine of innocence had been dulled by the storms of rage and the heat of humiliation. Our minds were splattered with the dirt and grime of the past. The good memories were cluttered with grief over what we ruined or what we lost. The bad memories made us cringe and flooded us with waves of nausea. Our heads were filled with regrets, resentments, and realities that we wished we could change.

Our minds, once fresh and innocent, had gradually become a gurgling caldron of foul emotions, which continued to bubble up at the worst possible times. Most of us couldn’t even remember what a fresh, clean mind was, nor could we identify exactly when we lost ours. Clever coping mechanisms had served their purposes for a time, but we were tired of being covered in the dirt and grime of resentment, guilt, failure, fear, intimidation, and regret.

Our minds needed to be scrubbed clean if we were ever going to have the confidence and clarity to move into our destiny. So, we looked for answers in our Sacred Text…

Tetelestai Recovery Volume 2 – Our New Normal

Chapter Three – Brainwashed

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