Denial

I have recently started going to Celebrate Recovery at Memorial Road Church of Christ and I have purchased the Celebrate Recovery Bible. Along in the bible comes daily devotional and todays topic was denial. How many of you are in denial? Or do you even know if you are feeling like that? At the top of the lesson it gives the verse Hebrews 12:1 which states, "Therefore, since were are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us."


Many of us have hurts, hang-ups and habits from the past. I know for sure that I do. Is this holding you back? I know that I am being held back by them a lot of the time. And because I have allowed myself to be held back by them I have lost friendships from it. Which is something no one ever wants to go through. Then there are some of us hung-up by guilt. Do we have past guilt? We beat ourselves up for something that has happened in the past and even it has already been forgiven we still beat ourselves up. I beat myself up everyday for things that have happened in my past. But that does not do me any good. It just hurts me and brings me down. Check out Philippians 3:13-14. "Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." Let's try and not beat ourselves up.


At CR there are different principles to help you recover from whatever it is you need to recover from. Principle One states: "Realize I'm not God: I admit that I am powerless to control my tendency to do the wrong thing and that my life is unmanageable." We need to remember 1 John 4:18, "There is no fear in love. But perfect loves drives out fear." We will always have God's unconditional love, power, grace and complete forgiveness. We just have to stop holding on to our past failures. Think about the following questions.
1. What past hurts are you holding on to?
2. What past or present actions make you feel guilty?
3. What are you afraid to change in your life? Why?
4. What are your fears about the future? Why?


Hope you have a wonderful day!
Raeann