It soon became apparent that we had run out of remedies. We could not fix our minds with our minds, nor could any other human being fix what was somehow so desperately broken within us. Self help was no help at all.
Sure, every so often, we tasted freedom. But soon, a simple fear would become an obsession. The obsession would grow until it merged into others and eventually became unbearable. In those vulnerable moments, we began to sense the disease taunting us, begging us to come back and promising it would be different this time.
Over and over, we found ourselves perched dangerously close to the edge. Some of us fell and never returned. Some of us fell and climbed back up to start again. Some of us realized that all the recovery programs in the world would not be able to keep us from falling…
…and falling…
…and falling again.
Suddenly, in that terrifying emptiness of free-fall, the revolution began.
Plummeting into oblivion, a final cry for help escaped our lips and in that moment of complete abandon, we were given a word which would change our beliefs about recovery forever…
Considering whether or not God can actually forget our sins, leaves us with two important theological questions:
If God can forget things, then how can He be all knowing?
If God can’t forget things, then how can He say that He remembers our sins no more?
Forgiveness is extremely difficult for us, so we assume that it must be even worse for God because he is all present, all powerful, and all-knowing.
In our human relationships, we like to believe that the people we have wronged will gradually forget about it over time. But with God, we know that’s not an option because He exists outside of time. There is no movement of time in the spirit realm. He is everything, everywhere, all at once.
So, we have to ask ourselves, “How can God say that He forgives us and remembers our sins no more?” The answer is simple: He chooses not to remember.
Because He is God, he can make choices that are outside the bounds of human ability. With the attribute of omnipotence (all powerful), He can make the choice not to remember.
In Isaiah 43:25, God says, “I will not remember your sins.”
In Jeremiah 31: 34, “I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
Hebrews 8: 12 and Hebrews 10:17, “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”
There is nothing to indicate God absentmindedly forgets, as if He suffers from dementia or it just slips His mind. Rather, in His infinite mercy, He chooses not to remember the wrongs that He has forgiven. Therefore, we conclude that surface level theology says, “God forgets,” while leveled-up theology says, “He chooses not to remember.”
The trajectory of our future is altered by our thoughts when we base them on the perceived realities that swirl around in our brains unchecked. We may hate our pessimism and suspicion, but we can’t break out of the cycle. We may despise our long dreary days of dark thought spirals, but we can’t seem to stop them once they start.
We think about what people were saying about us behind our backs. We wonder if they really wish we weren’t around. We suspect we are going to be fired, dumped, rejected, or abandoned. We replay old conversations, trying to read between the lines so we can better prepare for a number of worst-case scenarios that are likely to befall us.
It has been said that a coward dies a thousand times, a brave man, only once.
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Our thoughts create the reality we live in, whether they align with the truth or not.
To level up, we must develop healthy thought patterns and discipline our minds to stay on a positive track. We can no longer allow our thoughts to wander aimlessly through the minefield of our worst imaginations. We must carve new pathways for our thoughts to travel. We need to keep our thoughts on the high road and pump the brakes when we are headed for the ditch. But how?
Some of us are isolated in self-fulfilling word caves:
“I will never be like my mother/father/sibling!”
“No one is going to tell me what to do!”
“Once and addict, always an addict.”
“I will never allow anyone to get close to me again!”
“I can’t trust anyone but myself.”
Sadly, we lose our identity in these word-caves because they only define us by the negative; what we won’t do. The words never define us by our positive traits or what we can be. Our personalities form around our resistance, which prevents us from developing a sense of self and cultivating our gifts, talents, and abilities. We lead a reactionary life, in knee-jerk mode. Our light is dimmed by the darkness of our own words.
Living in these caves leaves us dull and lethargic. We search for an identity. We become chameleons and mimic the personalities of those we find likeable or interesting. The fit is never quite right, and we rarely feel truly authentic.
The word cave, ‘No one is going to tell me what to do!’ creates a rebellious monster within us. It roars with rage around authority figures and pushy people.
The word cave, ‘I will never let anyone get close to me again!’ is a self-sabotaging prophecy. Keeping people at arm’s length keeps us safe from the risk of heartbreak, but it also keeps us imprisoned in solitude. In time, loneliness transitions into self-pity, and we no longer have to push people away. No one wants to get close.
Many of us hide in the caves of addiction, alcoholism, co-dependence, idealism, lies, promiscuity, and even perfectionism. These caves may have been where we ran to hide at one time in our lives, but they are not healthy places to be. Eventually, these caves become prisons. The fortress where we hide becomes the stronghold of the enemy to keep us from fulfilling our divine destiny.
We fight our battles in the spirit realm through vocal vibrations. We speak the words of God to pull down cognitive distortions that produce fear, despair, discouragement, and low self-esteem. These are the strongholds of the enemy.
Strongholds are the enemy’s Trojan horse. They are the mental constructs where the forces of darkness hide, staging attacks from within. These forts are constructed, brick by brick, through words and phrases heard over the course of a lifetime. Some of the words come from others, some come from ourselves. But ultimately, each brick in the stronghold originates from the enemy.
As we level up, we can sense that strongholds in our minds are slowly being dismantled. Some of the bricks fall and roll away. Some of the bricks are slung back at us. Some of the bricks are used by the enemy to build new strongholds in a different area of our lives.
To pull down these internal strongholds, we speak words of life, newness, clean slate, fresh start, and positive energy. We claim power and healing in the promises of God. We absorb life-giving, life-sustaining words from our spiritual siblings. We notice words of life all around us, electrifying the atmosphere with sparks of light. We generate spiritual energy when we speak these words to ourselves and our fellow travelers. Our power intensifies as we receive words of life from Sacred Text, songs of praise, prayer, and uplifting conversations.
These energy producing words are breaking through the barriers and exposing the enemy’s hiding places. Our strongholds are crumbling like the walls of Jericho as we shout praise to God. These vibrations from our vocal cords pulverize the enemy’s garrison like a jackhammer.
Addiction takes many forms—but so does God’s power to set us free. Tetelestai Recovery – Leveling Up is a lifeline for anyone seeking lasting victory over destructive habits, unhealthy dependencies, or hidden battles of the heart. With compassion and clarity, this book combines timeless biblical wisdom with practical guidance, showing how God’s Word can break chains that seem unbreakable. Inside, you’ll discover how to:
Understand the spiritual roots of addiction
Replace lies with God’s life-giving truth
Build new patterns grounded in scripture
Walk in freedom every single day
Whether you’re struggling yourself or walking alongside a loved one, this book will point you to the ultimate source of hope and transformation: Jesus Christ. Freedom isn’t just possible—it’s promised.
But Moses reasoned with God and eventually talked Him out of it. Surprisingly, Moses brought up some very valid points and God was open to his feedback.
Then the Lord said, “I have seen how stubborn and rebellious these people are. Now leave me alone so my fierce anger can blaze against them, and I will destroy them. Then I will make you, Moses, into a great nation.”
But Moses tried to pacify the Lord his God. “O Lord!” he said. “Why are you so angry with your own people whom you brought from the land of Egypt with such great power and such a strong hand? Why let the Egyptians say, ‘Their God rescued them with the evil intention of slaughtering them in the mountains and wiping them from the face of the earth’? Turn away from your fierce anger. Change your mind about this terrible disaster you have threatened against your people! Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You bound yourself with an oath to them, saying, ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven. And I will give them all this land that I have promised to your descendants, and they will possess it forever.’”
So, the LORD changed his mind about the terrible disaster he had threatened to bring on his people. Exodus 32:9-14
Moses took a bold approach. He had the courage of a junior executive pitching a new concept to the CEO. He had the heart of a quarterback who asked the coach to reconsider the play he had just called.
Based on the response God gave Moses to his input, what other events in history might have been altered, based on this perspective?
What if Noah had discussed the flood plan at depth with God and asked for more humans to be spared?
What if Abraham had continued his negotiations for the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah, asking God to hold off if he could find just one righteous man?
On the other hand, what if the ones who approached God boldly had been more timid?
What if Jacob said when wrestling the Angel of God, “If you don’t bless me, that’s okay, I’m fine either way,” rather than making the risky move by saying, “I’m not letting go until you bless me.”?
What if Moses had just responded with, “Okay Lord, I guess you are just going to wipe out those people and start over with me. I don’t have any say in the matter.”?
One of the men in the boat, named Peter, asked Jesus to let him come out and walk on the water alongside Him. Jesus said, “Sure! Come on out.” Peter lunged toward the side of the boat as it was rocking and lurching. Then, climbed cautiously over the edge, he 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, if it had been a scam.
Peter got out of the boat and walked toward Jesus. Some may hold to the impression that Peter took a couple of wobbly steps before going under. We do not agree with that conclusion. We believe he strolled quite a distance. Since Jesus’ closest companions failed to recognize Him, we assume He was more than several yards from the boat. With one lunge over the side of the boat, Peter took the walk of a lifetime: a walk to remember.
There were 11 other men in the boat who didn’t even ask if they could come out onto the water. Only Peter was impulsive enough to come up with such a wild idea! Whether he was completely successful in his faith walk or not, he was the only one with the audacity 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.
We grew up so familiar with our shame, it seemed to be a part of our personality. We didn’t know how to relinquish it, so we put it on a pedestal and made it an object of worship. We justified our outrageous behaviors, bragged about our immorality, and shook off our fears with a ‘who cares?’ attitude. We couldn’t extinguish our shame, so we embraced it. We got together with other shame-filled people and competed for admission into the Hall of Shame.
When the power of Christ was revealed to us, we became new creatures. However, not all our shameful behaviors disappeared overnight. Shame was still very much a part of our lives. We no longer reveled in it. On the contrary, we wished it to be buried with our former selves whom we had grown to despise.
Ironically, the hatred we felt toward our shame was not an indication of our failure to believe. We believed in Christ, and we clung faithfully to his words, “It is finished!” However, that root of shame continued to produce bitter fruit and we needed relief.
We consciously pondered our thoughts of ourselves in relation to the thoughts God has toward us. We practiced praise continually. We claimed Tetelestai over our addictions, disease, poverty, and any other form of the curse from which the power of the cross had set us free. We watched our words and verbalized our agreement with God concerning His perception of us. We called ourselves Blessed, More than Conquerors, Children of God, and Chosen. We trusted that Jesus bequeathed to us his very own Shalom, which assured us the promise of wholeness, with nothing missing, nothing broken. We no longer trusted our feelings as the Truth, but rather, we relied on the Word of God and the guidance of His Spirit to be our compass. We recognized that facts are changeable and when we are out of options, it only means we are in the perfect position for a miracle. We believed that the supernatural could override the natural realm and we occupied territory never before conquered.
Sadly, our shame was still an integral part of our existence. Our guilt taught us that we made mistakes. Our shame told us we were a mistake. We had no remedy for our shame.
We tried to hide our feelings of shame with superficial coverings. We used money, prestige, aggression, relationships, and an air of superiority to quiet the inner voice which whispered, “If others only knew the real you…”
As we journeyed down this treacherous path, as new creatures in Christ, we searched for insights from our Sacred Text. In Mark 11, we found the story of Jesus encountering a fig tree which was covered in green leafy foliage but had no fruit. He simply said, “May no one ever eat of your fruit again.” And the disciples heard him say it. The next day, when passing by the same tree, it was reported to have been withered from the roots up.
At first, we felt that Jesus overreacted to the failure to find fruit. We suspected he had become too tired and hungry, which we all know is a prelude to becoming too angry. However, after closer inspection, we are reminded that this was a fig tree. These fig leaves were a reminder of that time back in the Garden of Eden when His newly created couple tried to cover their shame. The fig tree with leaves but no fruit was a symbol of humanity without purpose.
Tetelestai is the Greek word which Jesus spoke from the cross in His final moments of mortality. The English translation, “It is finished!” (John 19:30), is the basis for this program.
We believe that Jesus’ words hold miraculous power. We speak these words into our own lives and into the lives of other survivors. We are confident that a spiritual principle is set in play when our statements come into alignment with the words of God.
So also, will be the word that I speak: it will not fail to do what I plan for it; it will do everything I send it to do.Isaiah 55:11
Since Jesus gave witness on the cross, “It is finished,” we align with Him in calling an end to our disease of addiction and dysfunctional behaviors. We testify in agreement with Jesus and thus, the matter is resolved.
Every matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. 2 Corinthians 13:1
We believe that the disease of addiction and its accompanying dysfunctions can be over-powered by two distinct elements:
Christ’s blood as a divine transfusion which heals us from the inside out.
The words we speak testify to this truth.
And they have defeated the powers of darkness by the blood of the Lamb and by the words of their testimony. Revelation 12:11
Therefore, we join forces in the spirit realm through our spoken words as we gather together. We each testify to the power of Christ who heals and delivers us from what we fear most – ourselves.
Finding Total Recovery in the Words of Christ, "It is Finished!" 