"Celebrate Recovery" and a Sense of Dread

One friend of mine, his name was Stu, wanted to start his own Celebrate Recovery meeting at his church.

At first, about five people showed up, then about two or three more over time.

Eventually, he went around to other meetings pitching his meeting at other Celebrate Recovery meetings, looking for more people who would be interested in joining.

I liked the meetings for a little while. His meeting were more orderly, and he wanted to make the most of the time with other Christians who wanted to recover.

Like many people in recovery circles, Stu had low-esteem and a lingering sense of dread in his life.

Someone else very close to me, who was heavily invested in the Twelve Steps, also confided to me that every day she went around with a sense of dread, convinced that people were going to be mean to her.

This sense of dread is all too common for many believes, I think.

The reason is very simple: they do not believe that all their sins are forgiven, or they are operating under a conception of God drawn out of the Old Covenant.

The New Covenant could not be clearer:

"For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:

"And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.

"For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more."" (Hebrews 8: 10-12)

As long as men and women are convinced that they have to recover, then that means that they are not identifying with Jesus Christ. In Christ, we are made a new creation:

"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." (2 Corinthians 5: 17)


How has this happened? Paul explained in the next verse:

"And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;" (2 Corinthians 5: 18)

We have been made the righteousness of God in Christ, and He has reconciled us with God the Father.

We do not need recovery, for every person who believes on Jesus Christ has been recovered, reconciled, and declared righteous.

Yet as long as individual believers continue to submit to obeying rules, keeping up appearances and accounts in order to reconcile themselves to God and make themselves righteous through their own efforts, they are not resting in the New Covenant, for every element of the New is based on what God will do, not us. Furthermore, the Old Covenant of obeying God so that He will bless us is replaced by the New (Hebrews 8:13), so it is pointless and fruitless to operate according to such principles, since God has offered us something much better in the New Covenant, which Jesus cut for us through His death on the Cross.

If men and women refuse to believe and rest in the final sacrifice of Jesus Christ, these are the consequences:

"26For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, 27But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. 28He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: 29Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?" (Hebrews 10: 26-29)

A certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, sorer punishment: in other words, a sense of dread.

The adherence to rules on the outside instead of letting God reign in us form the inside will create this fearful foreboding, this sense of dread. I do not write these comments to suggest that people in Celebrate Recovery are not saved, but they are fallen from grace in that they are trying to earn what we must receive by faith.