Hitting The Ground Running in 2015

Psalm 107:14
He brought them out of darkness and and the shadow of death, and broke their chains in pieces.

It is with great pleasure that I announce that Seth Barber and Catalyst Recovery will be locating their meeting at Gadsden Vineyard Church. 
I guess we are becoming a kind of clearing house for everything recovery now.
We now have Vineyard Recovery Church meeting on Saturday night, And Catalyst Recovery on Sunday night. A double blessing if ever there was one.

Both meetings are unique in that they present a clearer understanding of who the power is that makes the Twelve Steps work. Sometimes the focus is placed so much on working the steps....making sure you attend meetings....grab a sponsor to help walk your through your daily life...that Jesus gets lost in the translation. Not with these two meetings. Early on in the beginning stages of VRC, God made it extremely clear to me that our focus was Jesus. To teach, speak and worship the truth about who He is and what He is all about.Find Jesus....you find life. Give Him your will and life, and He would give you His. 

The Gospel is a simple message, yet a message of power and hope. Paul, in Romans 1, states that the Gospel of Christ is "the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes." Now this belief is more than simply saying the words..."I believe God can save me"....It's a deep-down-inside-knowing that (1) I'm a mess and I need saving from myself and from the sin nature I possess that drives my addiction.....(2) God is only one true higher power that has the ability to lift me out of my addiction to show me a new way to live. 

Such is heart of VRC and CR (Catalyst Recovery). That there is healing and restoration for you if you want it. When you come to either of these meetings, you will join us on equal ground. By that, I mean that we all stand before Christ in need of Him. We may have been at this "new life" a little longer than you, but we are still very much in touch with this simple fact....Without Jesus..without His salvation..without the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives...we would be right back out in the darkness and death of sin. Our main goal in these two meetings if to love whoever comes through the doors...help them as best we can....share our message of hope, and pray over them for God to heal on every level in their life. 

Lamentations 3:22-24
Through the Lord's mercies, we are not consumed, because His compassion's fail not. They are new every morning. Great is Your faithfulness. "The Lord is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I hope in Him."

One of the things that we do not give much thought to is the simple truth that God's hand has sustained us. No matter how terrible things may be in our life...no matter what our situation may be ....no matter what we may be fighting through or struggling with, God's mercy has covered us all and has kept Satan from killing us and destroying everything around us. You may be saying, "Yeah..right Mike...I feel so blessed because of all the pain and suffering I'm going through at this time." I'm not doubting your pain and suffering. But what we need to realize is that God's mercy has kept it from completely destroying us. On the other hand, we, because of our own stubbornness, and rebellion against anything to do with God, can find ourselves completely out from under the covering of His mercy. Because we want what we want, when we want it, And we push back against anything to do with God, will be turned loose by God to pursue that dark desire in our hearts. It doesn't mean that God has stopped loving you. It doesn't mean that God doesn't care..it simply means we have become so cold and hard, set in our own desires to feed our dark appetites, that we have removed ourselves out from under His mercy. Not exactly a place I would care to be. Now, if you have just read what I've typed, and you have a concern that you might have put yourself in such a place....being beyond the reach of God...you haven't. If your concerned, you simply pray, confess what you've done...and receive the forgiveness that only God can offer. You see, if you truly had crossed that line of taking yourself out from under the mercy of God, you would not have cared. You would feel nothing for God. 

Like the verse from Lamentations states.."The Lord is my portion."
Not drugs...
Not alcohol...
Not money or power...
But God Himself is the answer to me finding a new way to live.

Come join us this Saturday and Sunday for Vineyard Recovery Church and Catalyst Recovery.

God on you...
mb