God is moving in CR

By Sarah Bryant, with Fellowship Bible Church Celebrate Recovery Devotional Team 6/26/19 My head hung down as I sat there wondering if this was finally the time that God had had enough of forgiving me. Surely there must be a limit. I had been saved in my mid 20’s and was told that meant God had saved my soul forever, but that has been a hard concept for me to grasp for the majority of my Christian life. I would hear people talk of the boundless grace of God, but quietly questioned if that could really be extended to me. I still fight the tension at times today. I know I’m saved, but how can it be? When my time comes and my life is laid bare before God, how could He ever welcome me into His forever home? In all honesty, I would often imagine that day would look something like me slipping in the back door of heaven while God was busy talking to someone else in the living room. Almost like I would get in on a loophole even though He wasn’t really thrilled about it. He wouldn’t reall...

By Tim Kelley, CR Ministry TEAM Men's Encourager Coach, Fellowship Bible Church, Rogers  6/12/19 There was a time when my life was ruled by the chaos of my emotions. The circumstances that surrounded me dictated what life was like. If things were well, then my struggle with porn was not so bad, I could “manage” my sin. But that is not reality. Life has a way of having highs and lows, and sometimes those lows come in bunches. And that is when I would turn inward, thinking that I must be doing something wrong for this to be happening. And of course, the enemy was right there whispering, “Yep, you must have really screwed up bad. If you were any kind of a spiritual man, this wouldn’t be happening to you, would it? God must be about done with you now.”  In the Summer of 2006, those kinds of thoughts plagued me day and night as my use of porn as a coping mechanism had turn to a compulsive behavior, an addiction. What was worse I knew it!  I could see what was happening an...

By Carl Kimbro, with Fellowship Bible Church Celebrate Recovery Devotional Team 6/5/19 Recently I saw a grave stone that had no name on it.   Where the name should have been, it simply said “I was Somebody.” Did they feel unloved in life? Did they think no one cared? Had they been told growing up they had no value? It saddened me to think that this person felt so unimportant that they needed people to see them as “somebody” after they died. Perhaps they were looking for their “value” in the wrong sources. For a person’s true value lies in having a relationship with their Lord and Savior Jesus. Often when struggling with our hurts, habits, and hang ups, we, too, look for our value in other things – jobs, family, sports, external appearance, and a host of other meaningless things that no longer matter after we die. We move from one thing to another, always looking for self-worth and always failing. If only we would turn to the true source of value, Jesus! “This...