Sunday Night

Seth Barber will be speaking tomorrow night here at Rapha. As always, Seth will bring a message that is straight and to the point about recovery and this new found relationship we are called to in Christ.
Sunday Night, I'll be speaking at Celebrate Recovery North Glencoe. I always look forward to being there and sharing from what God has given to me.

I, hopefully, will be speaking about the Power of God to change. I have been lead to study several different passages and one in particular keeps coming up. Romans 6:19  (Message Bible) You can readily recall, can't you, how at one time the more you did just what you felt like doing....not caring about others, not caring about God....the worse your life became and the less freedom you had? And how much different is it now as you live in God's freedom, your lives healed and expansive in holiness?

If we are truly honest with ourselves, we are brought to a place where we way the destruction of our old life style against the promise of a new life in Christ.  We are made painfully aware of keeping on in the same old way of living that continually brings problems x problems and pain on top of more pain. Without the presence of God in our life, we sink into a pit of toxic shame and guilt that drives us to use more and more in an effort to escape the pain. Enough of this and we fall prey to the lie of lies. "I don't need any ones help. I can't quit if I want to."

Romans 8:5-8 hits on this mindset: Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them.....living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn't pleased at being ignored.

The reason I write in this blog daily is that I want God's truth to be here in these postings. That someone may stop by and read what I share, and in that brief moment, truth will penetrate a heart that is surrounded by darkness. I want those who have run dry of hope to find their way here and be encouraged. I want them to understand that they do not have to continue on in a life style that ultimately ends in physical and spiritual death. I want them to understand that there is a future for them here on this side of eternity.

God on you.....
mb