Tag: Restoration

Tetelestai Recovery

On A Mission

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Knowing that God speaks to His children in all sorts of unique ways, we suddenly recognized His voice speaking to us from the creativity of writers and actors on our television screen. We identified with the heroes. We saw ourselves playing the role assigned to us by the God of the Galaxies. We became aware in a way unlike ever before that we were on a mission which would influence millions, change the course of history, and create spiritual wavelengths which would echo into the centuries to come.

Excited by the prospect of finding our true purpose, we searched for clues. We prayed for wisdom and guidance. We searched the sacred text of our Bibles and studied the writings of many and watched for attributes to immerge which would reveal our divine destiny. We took personality and spiritual gift tests to narrow the scope. Eventually, we had enough clues to piece the puzzle together, and our spirits soared with great enthusiasm. We looked back over our life and realized that the destiny had been there all along and every step of the journey was preparation for the main event.

But still we questioned whether we could actually fulfill our mission. We knew our impulsive nature had caused us to make some terribly bad choices in the past, so we wondered if this was God’s call or just a delusion of grandeur. The thought of God calling us to something of eternal magnitude seemed a little ridiculous and really crazy.

We had to question whether our passionate reaction to the prospect of hearing this divine call was our love for Him or our own search for significance?  Maybe it was both. And maybe that was okay.

Was it presumptuous to think that the God of the Universe had hand selected us to do something special for Him?

  • Was it ego…or was it faith?
  • Would we really be able to participate in bringing the Kingdom to earth?
  • Were we truly able to alter the course of history?

Our skeptical voices questioned, “Why would God call me?”

Our awakened spirits responded, “Why not me?”

Chapter 13, The Next Right Thing https://a.co/d/i0rjHBr

Tetelestai Recovery

Living Water

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For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11

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The truth of God’s word is unchangeable and lasts forever. What He says remains in effect for anyone who chooses to believe it.

If He promises us hope and a future, and we choose to believe this for ourselves, we can live in eager anticipation that His word is being fulfilled in our lives. We can build our lives around the fact that we have hope and a future. It is the solid rock upon which we construct our goals and visions.

Yet we also wonder, “If God’s word is true, why are there people living without hope? Why wouldn’t His promise apply to everyone across the board?’

The answer is deeply complex. The reason God’s promises are not fulfilled is because His words rely on the recipient laying claim to them. These fantastic promises of God are often hard to believe for ourselves. Sure, we believe God is good, but we also know that we aren’t. We believe He does great things for good people, but it seems a bit presumptuous to expect the same blessings as someone who was busy doing great things for God while we were selfishly making a mess of our lives. We know the Bible talks about penalties for bad behavior, so it seems that if we believe in the blessings, we must also fear the curses.

That may have been a valid statement before the cross. But we live under Grace, not Law. Jesus broke the power of the curse, so we can all live in the blessing if we choose to believe it. We need not fear the curse or the consequences of our own mistakes. Those issues have been resolved. We are in a continual state of cleansing, like standing beneath a waterfall. Even a sin committed one second ago, is already washed away in the living water. We live exclusively in the blessings and enjoy firm standing on the promises. Curses do not cling to us. Blessings chase us down.

Chapter 3, The Waiting https://a.co/d/iyyLSMU

Tetelestai Recovery

Full Coverage

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Forgiveness doesn’t mean we are required to sustain the damage done to us. Nor does it mean we must act like it never happened and open ourselves up to additional injury. Forgiveness means we invoke the rights of our Divine Insurance Policy and submit our claims to the God of Angel Armies.

Full coverage guarantees a 4-R response. God promises to: Reimburse us for our loss; Repair our damage; and Restore our dignity. The 4th R is Revenge for our assailants, which God promises to dole out in justice, provided we not try to attempt it ourselves.

We want proof that God will extract payment from those who damage us. We find our answer in both the Old and New Testaments:

“I will return on your own heads what you have done.” The Lord has spoken. Joel 3:7

They will be paid back for the harm they have done. 1 Peter 2:13

We learn that we need not exhaust ourselves with horizontal efforts to recover our losses by extracting payments from those who owe us more than they could ever repay, even if they wanted to. We simply submit our claims to God and wait for His reimbursement. We can finally relax and forgive as we let go and let God. It’s a vertical issue!

Tetelestai Recovery 2: Our New Normal; Chapter 7, Keeping it Vertical https://a.co/d/hZqCsPe

Tetelestai Recovery

Hard to Believe

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“Jesus, I believe. Help my unbelief!” Mark 9:24

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My purpose on this planet is not just to stay clean and sober. My purpose is to discover my divine destiny while helping others discover theirs. It is my mission to join forces with the Creator of the Universe in order to bring heaven to earth. I am alive today so that I can tell everyone who suffers from the disease of addiction: there is hope, there is healing, and there is freedom. The supernatural power of Jesus is for you, your family, and your future.

During the times when dark forces are taking their best shot, making your situation look hopeless, you can safely conclude that Jesus is on the scene and the enemy has just been served notice of eviction.

Maintain your conversation with Jesus, and never let your gaze drift to the raging symptoms. If you find it hard to believe, that’s okay. Faith will come. Simply pray the breakthrough prayer:

“Jesus, I believe. Help my unbelief!”

Tetelestai Recovery 1: It is finished; Chapter 14, The Breakthrough Prayer https://a.co/d/jdfppvK

Tetelestai Recovery

Lori’s Story

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I was plagued by the demon of addiction. It made do and say crazy things. I hurt those I loved. Addiction made me depressed, unreliable, and unreasonable. I now know that the demon of addiction is a shapeshifter and never wants to be exposed for its true identity. My opioid prescriptions were as addictive as any street drug, if not more so. Still, I considered myself immune to the label addict, preferring to call my drug of choice, medication.

Pain pills after a back injury made me feel the way I’d always wanted to feel. The opioids triggered a reaction in my brain and slowly, like a dimmer switch, my mind lost its luster. I failed to recognize how lifeless and dull it had become as I moved through my days in a flurry of activity, struggling to prove that I was not the person I had become. I became disoriented in the darkness for many years, and I lost all hope that it might be possible to get free. I believed my pain would be unbearable if I ever stopped taking the pills. It was a deceitful lie straight from the pit and one that wreaked havoc on everything and everyone in my path.

I needed help. I needed hope. I needed healing and deliverance from a dark captor who refused to release me. I needed someone to stand in the gap and believe for me, because I had lost even a spark of faith to believe for myself.

Through a catastrophic chain of events, in the very lowest point of my life, I met some brave believers who stood in the gap for me with their own faith; just like the father did for his son in Mark 9:18-27. Any flicker of faith I may have possessed before that time had been snuffed out and I was lost in the darkness. These kind souls came to me in my despair and showed me the light of Christ’s love. From the illumination of their light, I began to see Jesus in a way I had never seen before. He appeared as my healer, my deliverer, and most importantly, my rescuer. He accepted me in my fallen position and still loved me, despite who I had become.

Tetelestai Recovery 1: It is Finished, Chapter 14 The Breakthrough https://a.co/d/gqrG8QF

Tetelestai Recovery

Wall Facers

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In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah went to him and said, “This is what the Lord says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover.”

Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, “Remember Lord, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

Then the word of the Lord came to Isaiah: “Go and tell Hezekiah, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of your father David, says: ‘I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will heal you’”. Isaiah 38:1-5

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Although the word had come to him from God through the prophet, King Hezekiah did not resign himself to this fate. He turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord. He did not accept a decree from the Lord as unchangeable.

We learned that God doesn’t expect us to just wring our hands and sigh when things aren’t working out. He wants us to speak words of faith and collaborate with Him on a solution. We aren’t required to accept our lot in life and mutter in defeat, “Well, I guess it just isn’t God’s will.”

Instead, He wants us to become a wall facer, praying with determination to negotiate a plan with Him. God is waiting for us to offer some pushback and reason it out with Him. 

“Come now, let us reason together,” says the Lord. Isaiah 1:18

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In our New Normal, we are NOT called to be weak and helpless. God is NOT glorified when we hang our heads and shrug off our troubled marriages, our lost children, or our criminal records. Since we are told in the book of Hebrews to come boldly to the throne of Grace where we can find mercy and help, we present our case, and ask for a ruling from the Judge in our favor.

Tetelestai Recovery 2: Our New Normal https://a.co/d/akjwVNj

Tetelestai Recovery

The Testing of Our Faith

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One evening without notice, a moment of grace fell on our Friday night group. One member shared a passage from the book of James. It altered our perspective about these irritating, uninspiring days when we are simply putting one foot in front of the other.

My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. James 1:2-4

What do these tests look like?
  • When our feelings betray us and tell us we don’t love God like we should.
  • When our behavior slips into an old pattern and makes us believe we have not changed.
  • When the excitement and enthusiasm we once had for God seems dull and muted.
  • When we just don’t care about trying so hard, because it’s too much work.

Previously, these difficult times had been dark and made us doubt our relationship with God. We were frustrated to find Him so distant when we needed Him the most.

However, when we begin to view these events as a process which increases our patience and equips us for the next level, we start to see their value. We no longer need to feel frustrated when God goes silent. A good teacher is always silent during a test.

Tetelestai Recovery 3: Leveling Up / Chapter 4: Be Patient With Yourself https://a.co/d/0TrI59R

Tetelestai Recovery

Suddenly!

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Chapter 3, The Waiting https://a.co/d/0mQKWnR

As the believers waited in the upper room, the writer of Acts reported, “Suddenly, there was a sound like a mighty rushing wind…”

We see the word ‘suddenly’ and are reminded of those miracles we love so much. Jesus feeding the 5000 in a single afternoon; healing a blind man with mud; telling a dead girl to get up; and dozens of other stories set in a supernatural time warp, where the magic was instantaneous, and the desired results were immediate.

Obviously, Jesus was on a mission. He was out to prove that He was from God and to demonstrate the will of God by healing, delivering, feeding, and forgiving. If His miracles didn’t occur instantly, it would have been difficult for the onlookers to make the connection that Jesus was the one who had been the catalyst.

Additionally, while Jesus was in human form, the supernatural power of God did not have to travel through a flawed human to reach its destination. Perhaps His miracles were instantaneous because divine energy could flow freely through such a pure vessel. It didn’t get clogged up by the spiritual sediment and emotional toxins that the rest of us humans tend to carry. But, for whatever reason, miracles in Jesus’ day seem different than the miracles today. We rarely experience immediate, supernatural, instantaneous miracles and many of us struggle to hold onto our faith when we are waiting for our miracle to arrive.

We get discouraged because our ‘suddenly’ isn’t happening as quickly as we’d like. We start to doubt our resolve and question our faith because we see no results.

Tetelestai Recovery

Free Fall

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https://a.co/d/ejjflVF

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…

Continue reading https://a.co/d/ejjflVF

Tetelestai Recovery

A New Brag

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Paul had a messenger of Satan he referred to as a thorn in the flesh. He realized it was to keep him from becoming conceited, but still he asked God to remove it. He asked three times and each time, God told him His grace was sufficient. On that third ask, Paul finally realized there was a higher purpose for the thorn.

He was quite the achiever. He was a writer, and activist, a preacher, and the recipient of divine revelation. Those are some heady titles. Anyone in his position would struggle with arrogance.

Before his conversion, Paul had been a well-educated, well-connected, influential person. Perhaps he had an ego problem all his life. He was ambitious about his political career and eager to gain social standing by stopping the Christian movement. As a Roman citizen, educated in the Pharisaical law, he could advance his political pursuits in the eyes of the religious leaders while also remaining a loyalist to the Roman government. Snuffing out the Jesus movement would have brought him the promotion and respect he deserved.

But as he sat in a prison cell, frustrated with a messenger of Satan, he couldn’t think of anything he’d like more that to have God take it away.

We wonder if this messenger of Satan was one of the guards at the prison. Maybe they had worked together when Paul was a Christian bounty hunter, and the guard was now taunting him about being ‘one of them’. Perhaps the messenger of Satan was another prisoner. Perhaps the thorn was a conspiracy theory that Paul was a double agent, and the Damascus conversion was a clever lie to get the early Christians to trust him so he could infiltrate their secret communities and advance his political career.

No matter who or what his thorn in the flesh was, it caused Paul a great deal of distress. But God said, “My grace is sufficient. It is made perfect in your weakness.”

So, the guy who was prone to conceit found a new brag. He would brag about his own weakness so the grace of Christ could be the driving force behind all he would accomplish. It was hard on his ego, but good for his soul.

…Continue reading https://a.co/d/hH2bXok