2013 The Year Of Favor

Isaiah 61:2-3
To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God.
To comfort all who mourn...
To console those who mourn in Zion..
To give them beauty for ashes...
The oil of joy for mourning...
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness..
That they may be called the trees of righteousness..
The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.

I have spent the better part of last week and this week in prayer and study about the coming year. What is to be our focus? What does God want to say? It's not like God came down and put out a blueprint before me, but I did receive direction as to where we were to head in our Saturday night meeting at Rapha.

2013 is to be the year of proclamation.
A year of truth...
A year in which the gospel is presented in a clear and concise way.
You see, recovery (The Twelve Steps) is still our focus...but the truth is, you don't take the 12 steps and fit them into your life or into the life of Christ. You find your salvation and recovery in Christ and from that point, He will empower you through the presence of the Holy Spirit to walk out the directives known as the 12 steps.
Part of our focus in the coming year will be "lifting our vision higher."
By that, I mean we are going to see that the way of living we are presenting is so much more than the absence of alcohol and drugs.
I realize that by time someone comes to Rapha for treatment, the drugs and alcohol are the main area that is targeted. But you can't take something away from a life without replacing it with something better. The better that I am talking about is Jesus.

I have watched over the past 15 years as God has raised up an army of clean, sober, Spirit-filled men and women who use to live under the shadow and sentence of death we call addiction. I have seen countless lives turned around. Lives that had been tossed upon the garbage heap of humanity, left for dead. Lives that God saw value in. He came and reclaimed those lives for His kingdom. It is for this very reason that I do what I do.
There is not much in this old world or in my own life that I can say with certainty, but the call God has placed on me to minister and serve those trapped in addiction is as real as this computer I am using this morning.

In December 2009, Seth Barber spoke at the Saturday night gathering and his message was "Rarely have we seen anyone fail who has thoroughly followed our path." God spoke to me that night and gave me directions for the coming year of 2010. We began a journey in January of teaching the 12 steps. One step a month until we arrived at Step 12 in December. Well, we are going to take that journey again, only the focus will be different. We are going to teach a Step-a-month for the next years. I am hoping to post the messages in the audio section of this blog. You will be able to access them by clicking on the "Sermon Archive" banner.
Won't you join us in the coming year?

God on you....
mb