God is moving in CR

By  Eric Hutchinson, Fellowship Bible Church Rogers,  Celebrate Recovery Training Coach 11/27/19 I think it is interesting that social media centers around people liking people and the value our culture places on the “thumbs up” icon. When I take a picture and post it on social media, I eagerly await the notification of likes that I will hopefully receive. We all want to be liked, don’t we? Many want to be liked so much that it becomes unhealthy for them –we call that codependency. Whether I am codependent or not there is one person who always likes me. Now, you may be thinking that I am going to say my wife, mom, or a really close friend. However, even those people don’t always like me. They love me, but sometimes they don’t like me. God, on the other hand, not only loves me, He likes me. Look at the verse below and you can almost see the thumbs up icon. “You see me when I travel and when I rest at home. You know everything I do. You know what I am going to say...

By Carl Kimbro, Fellowship Bible Church, Rogers, Celebrate Recovery Devotional Team 11/20/19 As Christians and fellow strugglers, we often say we are “there for each other”.  My wife (Cheryl) and I experienced the true the meaning of “being there for each other” at a dark time in our lives, and we want to share a small part of our story. In November 2012 on our son’s birthday, he and his wife had another in a series of drunken fights. After almost two years of sobriety, they had been sliding back into their addiction. That night in 2012 it came to a head. Our son went to prison, and his wife and his girls moved in with us. Life as we knew it was about to change forever. The next two months were tense. The girls mom was distant from the girls and would disappear for two – three days at a time. In January 2013 she went to work and never came back. In our 50’s and were left with an 18-month-old and a 31/2-year-old to raise. With our son in prison and their mom lost in ...

Written by Jenni Moon,  Fellowship Bible Church Celebrate Recovery Devotional Team, 11/13/19 I've always wanted to be good enough. That feeling of inadequacy led me through the depths of chemical dependency, sexual addiction, and self-reliance. I felt that nothing ever went my way. My life was a tragedy, and not a tragic comedy either.  Thanks to God working through Celebrate Recovery, my life is no longer a tragedy, however, tragedies do still happen. Recently, I moved into a new home. It was a leap of faith that I could afford it. Twenty-six days later I stepped off the curb on my way to a job I loved and received three avulsion fractures in my right ankle. As a CNA, I knew my career was through. Although it took a month of denial before I reached that conclusion, I did not have to choose to use mind altering substances or sex to numb the pain; physically or mentally.  Through it all, God has been there. Deuteronomy 31:6b states that God never leaves nor f...

By Carl Kimbro, Fellowship Bible Church, Rogers, Celebrate Recovery Devotional Team 11/6/19 “I keep fighting voices in my head that say I’m not enough. Every single lie that tells me I will never measure up. Am I more than just the sum of every high and every low. Remind me once again who I am because I need to know.” Lyrics to You Say by Lauren Daigle. Most of us at some point have felt the sting of failure due to a reoccurrence of our hurts, habits and hang ups. For me, failure brought doubt that I would never overcome my problems. Failure caused me to hate the person I thought I was. I looked in the mirror and saw failure and defeat. I didn’t love myself. I had reached the point of giving up. The temptation to isolate and give in to my destructive behavior was strong. God couldn’t love a failure like me . Or could He? “ For I am persuaded that neither death nor life,  nor angels nor principalities nor powers,  nor things present or things to come, ...