Celebrate Recovery - Second, Third, Fourth Chances

I joined two different "Celebrate Recovery" groups in the South Bay.

I can delightfully report that one of them closed down within three months of being established. I do not share this message with malice, because the leader of the group who had set up the meeting

One member of the group could not understand the number of mistakes which he had made in his life, yet God still worked with Him.

"God seems to be willing to give us two, three, four more chances."'

Celebrate Recovery has no understanding of God's Grace.
God's grace means that He takes our failures and turns them into fantastic.

From Tamar, who deceived her father-in-law to father a child with her, to Ruth the Moabitess who left her own pagan country with her embittered  Hebrewmother-in-law, the Bible is full of stories detailing how God takes the worst of us who make God first no matter how often we fail. When we rest in His righteousness, we bring forth fruit to His glory. Tamar received twins and great glory. Ruth was promoted from poor widow to enriched wife through her kinsman-redeemer Boaz.

The greater our understanding of God's grace, the more that we rest in Him, and the more that He rests in us. The more He rests in us, the more He works through us, and so we walk in the Spirit and fulfill all that He wills in us.

When we receive the gift of no condemnation, then we receive the power and wonder to "go and sin no more." (John 8: 11)

Wow!

Satan has had his field day with members of the Body of Christ long enough.


Unconditional love means unconditional acceptance, including every hurt, habit, hang-up.

God does not remember our faults, so why should we?

God does not count our sins against us, so why should we?

When we have the ever-expansive understanding of God's grace and love in our lives, there is no more desire to sin, no more desire to hurt, no need to revenge, and every desire on the Part of God to restore.

Yet as long as men and women in meetings insist on recounting their sins in order to "make nice" with God, they just stir up a continuing conscience of sin, one which makes light of the great, final, and eternal sacrifice of Jesus.

Instead of "Celebrate Recovery", let every believer in the Body of Christ celebrate God's grace, growing in grace and knowledge of the Lord who loved us and gave His life that we might be saved.