Reserve a daily time with God...

Psalm 1:2
But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.

Principle 7 states -
Reserve a daily time with God for Bible reading, self examination and prayer in order to know God and His will for my life and to gain the power to follow His will.

This daily time alone with God is crucial for those of us in recovery. If you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, declared Him your higher power, then you need to spend time praying to Him and reading the Bible, which is all about Him. Through the pages of Scripture we can learn about the character of God, His plan for us, and how we should live. As well as what He has planned for us in the future.

Do you need comfort? Read the Bible.

Do you need encouragement? Read the Bible.

Do you need to be challenged and called to a higher standard of living? Read the Bible.

Do you want to know God more and learn more about yourself in the process? You guessed it, read the Bible.

Lots of us have a hard time making this daily time a priority. We make excuses and come up with all kinds of reasons we just can’t get it done. Thankfully, one of the reasons people use for not reading their Bibles is a thing of the past. For years people have said that Bibles are big and bulky and that when they read their Bible in public, it can scare people off.

Enter in the electronic Bible. If you have a smart phone, laptop or tablet computer such as the iPad, you can carry books to enhance your quiet time as well as a plethora of Bibles.

Including the Celebrate Recovery Bible. If you would like to carry your Celebrate Recovery Bible with you where ever you go, head on over to the Amazon Kindle store and download it to any Kindle device, Android phone, iPhone, iPad, or computer. 

Reserving that daily time with God has never been easier. We hope you enjoy the new ways to engage with the Celebrate Recovery tools.

Grateful Believers,

National CR T.E.A.M.

(This blog post was taken from the National Celebrate Recovery Blog)

Summer Furlough

{Jamie is a former CR participant at MRCC, and is now a missionary that lives in Rwanda.}

              After living in Rwanda for one year, I was writing on my personal blog about what it is like coming "home" to a familiar place, but not quite feeling like I fit. There are many new pop culture things, advances in technology and new songs on the radio that remind me that Kigali isn't really home and Oklahoma City isn't really home either. "This world is not my home."

I was surprised to hear two new Christian songs talking specifically about forgiveness. It reminded me of step 9, "We made direct amends to such people whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others."

One song says, "Lord, it doesn't feel right for me to turn a blind eye. But I guess it's not that much when I think of what You have done...Oh, Father, give me grace to forgive them Cause I feel like I'm the one losing." (Losing by Tenth Avenue North)

The second song says, "It’ll clear the bitterness away, It can even set a prisoner free, There is no end to what it’s power can do. So, let it go and be amazed. By what you see through eyes of grace. The prisoner that it really frees is you." (Forgiveness by Matthew West)

(I love that the steps are so integrated into my everyday thinking.)

But honestly, reflect on the words of those songs. I live in a country who went through a massive genocide and 18 years later they are focused on forgiveness and can work side by side. My friend has started a fish farm in the community that her family was killed in. I was out with her one day watching the workers move huge rocks from one place to the other and she shared, "some of these people were killers. Some of these people killed my family." I asked her how she does it, how can one come to that level of forgiveness to employ people who have killed another human and some who were her family. She looked me in the eye and said, "It is only by the grace of God. I have to forgive them, because if I can't then God can't forgive me."

I don't want to be a prisoner trapped in my own un-forgiveness. I want the freedom in Christ Jesus that He offers to anyone who comes.

Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift. Matthew 5:23-24

Umwizera ishimwe,  (Grateful Believer)

Jamie

CR Summit = AMAZING!

Our CR ministry is blessed to be able to take a group to CR Summit each year.  This year was my first year to get to go and if I had to sum it up in one word it would be AMAZING!  The 16 of us that attended from MRCC had the pleasure to  worship together with 3600 other CR family members.  There was no discussions of denominations; it was just a body of believers who were praising our Higher Power, Jesus Christ!

Summit is a yearly event held at Saddleback Church in California.  Rick Warren (author of Purpose Driven Life, and a number of other books) is the head Pastor at Saddleback, so they obviously have a large congregation. Very large.  We had the pleasure of getting to hear Rick Warren speak and God provided him some amazing words to share with us.  I will be sharing more of Rick Warren’s quotes on our Facebook page in the coming weeks, but one that stood out was “Whatever gets your attention - gets you!”  Where is my attention focused?  To be honest sometimes MY attention is helping serve on the TEAM, or doing tasks on a Friday night that “need to get done” but maybe sometimes my attention needs to be focused on my own recovery instead!   That was a great point and really made me do some thinking about me and my recovery journey!

If you haven’t been to Summit, the entire group worships together and then we break up and attend training sessions on different areas of the CR program. 

This year one of the highlights was to getting to see the world premier of the movie Home Run.    Now, I’ll be honest and say most “church movies” I’ve seen are cheesy! Like worse that a Lifetime Original movie!!  But this movie, Home Run, was amazing!  It’s going to be a powerful tool to explain how God uses CR to change lives, provide healing, and restore relationships.  There will be more to come about how our CR program at MRCC is going to promote this movie and how can you be a part of that!  (You might get sick of hearing me talk about it.)

I hope you’ll be at CR this Friday night.  It will be a great night of praise & worship, and several of us will be sharing what we learned at CR Summit.  See you then!

Grateful Believer,

Karyn

Thought for the Day!

Do you like daily encouragement? Do you like to keep recovery at the forefront of your mind? "Like" the Celebrate Recovery Page on Facebook. Everyday they post a "Thought for the day!" It has been a source of light bulb moments for me as well as help keep my frame of reality in check! Last week John Baker (the founder of Celebrate Recovery) wrote this thought for the day:

Pastor John's -Thought for today

5th Principle
Voluntarily submit to every change God wants to make in my life and humbly ask Him to remove my character defects.
“Happy are those whose greatest desire is to do what God requires.” (Matthew 5:6)

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that God will only love you once you reach a certain stage. God loves you at each stage of recovery & growth. God will never love you any more than He does at this very minute. And He will never love you any less than He does right now!

But God loves you too much to leave you the way you are!

Grateful Believer,

Jen