June 22, 2016 By Christina Cook Lee 1 Comment
Focus: The power of agreement in prayer
Matthew 18:19 (NKJV) “Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in My Name, I am there in the midst of them.”
Prayer is so important to anyone’s recovery from depression and dependency. Simply talking to God brings about healing in our minds and in our bodies. When we talk to God—He pays attention. In other words, He comes close to us. The Bible says that in the presence of the Lord there is everlasting joy (Psalm 16:11). So, if we need more joy, we should be spending a lot of time talking to God.
If you haven’t spent much time talking to God in the past, you might wonder what you could find to talk about for any length of time. You might also have an impression of ‘prayer’ as something that has to be very formal—something that would be ‘stiff’ and ‘uncomfortable’ in your mind.
Link to New Strength Devotional, Audio Version.
Well, talking to God doesn’t have to be stiff and formal—or uncomfortable. God created humans for friendship. In scripture, Jesus said we are no longer servants, but ‘friends’ (John 15:15). Someone who desires friendship with you wants to be talked to as a friend—not as some foreign dignitary. So, when you talk to God—just have a normal conversation. Hopefully, you will be talking to Him frequently—as in several times a day. If you cultivate the habit of talking to Him frequently—your conversation becomes an ‘ongoing’ dialog that never really ends.
The simple act of talking to God frequently will help you develop more of a personal relationship to Him. Maybe you’ve heard people refer to their personal relationship with the Lord and you haven’t totally understood that.
Possibly some of the things in your past have caused you to have a little trouble thinking of God as a ‘pal’. Maybe the impression you have of God is someone who is too Holy and too Righteous to be able to relate to you. Well, He is Holy and He is Righteous—and before Jesus came, few people were able to approach Him directly. However, everything changed when Jesus came to earth. Through His life, death, and resurrection from the dead, Jesus fulfilled the plan of God to tear down the wall that sin had created between us and God. Through a supernatural conception by the Holy Spirit, Jesus was born of a human virgin, named, ‘Mary’. In His death, the life of Jesus was offered as a perfect blood sacrifice, or atonement, for the sins of mankind. In rising from the dead, Jesus proved He was not just a man, but also One with God and the true Son of God.
Jesus fulfilled what God had spoken in Deuteronomy 32:43. “Rejoice, O Gentiles, with His people; for He will avenge the blood of His servants, and render vengeance to His adversaries; He will provide atonement for His land and His people.”
Through His obedience, Jesus created a ‘direct line’ to God. He became the ‘mediator’ between God and people (1 Timothy 2:5). People no longer had to go through a priest to talk to God.
Jesus told us we shouldn’t ask Him (Jesus) for anything directly—rather, we should make our requests known to God ‘in Jesus’ Name’, and God would hear us. We can talk to Jesus, but He specifically told us that when we had requests, we should ask the Father, not Him.
One of the reasons it’s valuable to have right relationships is because of the power we have in prayer through ‘agreement’. We are told in Ecclesiastes chapter four that ‘two are better than one…if either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.
In Matthew 18:19, we are told that Jesus dwells in the midst of people who are gathered together in His Name. That’s a pretty important reason to have righteous relationships. If you’re aware that the presence of the Lord brings joy and joy brings strength (Nehemiah 8:10)—it should make you want to know more Christian people and it should make you want to spend more time with them.
One of the best things you can do with a Christian friend is pray. Pray for each other—and pray for others. Pray for all of the things that trouble your heart and cause you concern. When you have a righteous relationship with a person who prays, you will have the comfort of knowing they are praying for you and you are not alone. They will be blessed and strengthened knowing the same thing is happening for them—because of your friendship and prayers.
Declaration: I will find new strength by sharing my prayer needs with a Christian friend who is willing to pray for me. I will offer that person my prayer support, in return. Whenever possible, I will join together with other believers where there will be even more power and strength in our prayers of agreement.
Filed Under: New Strength, Right Relationships Tagged With: AA, Avalon, Bible, bitterness, blog, book, Christian, Christina Cook Lee, dependency, depression, If My People Pray, June 22, Matthew 18:19, Prayer, recovery, relationships, right relationships, substance abuse, suicidal, talking to God, The power of agreement, thoughts
June 21, 2015 By Christina Cook Lee Leave a Comment
Filed Under: Recovery from Depression and Dependency, Right Relationships Tagged With: AA, Avalon, Bible, bitterness, blog, book, Christian, Christina Cook Lee, dependency, depression, If My People Pray, June 22, Matthew 18:19, Prayer, recovery, relationships, right relationships, substance abuse, suicidal, talking to God, The power of agreement, thoughts
Focus: Finding closure with bitterness
Psalm 31:22, 24 (NIV) You heard my cry for mercy when I called to you for help…Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord.
People don’t become bitter without having suffered deep emotional or physical pain. There is always pain deep down in the roots of bitterness, pain that came from rejection, insult, abuse, or loss.
What kind of images come to your mind when you think of your own suffering? In the process of rooting out bitterness, you have to continue to go deeper until you’ve finally reached the last bit of it. So go deeper than you have before. What is there that hasn’t come up yet? What else can you remember? What still needs to go?
Some things are so repressed that it might seem like just too much effort to go down that far at this point. Nobody is going to make you do it, but it might help, if you try. Some parts of you might be healed, if you would.
As a painful memory comes to mind, try to view whatever recollection you have of it through the eyes of mercy—no matter how brutal it may be. Let mercy come. Let it come to the memory and let it come to you as you remember something that is painful. Take your time and let mercy work.
There is healing when we allow mercy to flood situations of untold heartache. Try not to have the same feelings you normally have when you think of that memory this time. Try to let the merciful love of the Lord come into your heart and that situation, and let mercy flow like oil into the wound. Know mercy. Know healing. Know the Lord.
You may be able to keep going deeper and remember things that gave life to bitterness…or, maybe bitterness is there and you can’t recall why. Maybe you’ve tried to remember what it could be that caused bitterness to take root, but you have no conscious recollection. You just know that there was something ‘back there’ that could possibly be too painful to remember. That too, is mercy.
You may wish you could remember, but try looking at it this way. Consider the fact that God may have put His hand over the memory of that pain to protect you from it. It’s possible that God created a hiding place within you where He allowed the deepest hurts to be placed so they wouldn’t be able to cause you more harm. Consider the fact that they were buried for a reason. Can you have peace with that? Can you rest with the fact that the things you can’t remember—that you know are there—were buried and hidden by your Healer?
In bringing closure to your bitterness, you have two things to do. Release the painful things you can remember, and have peace with the things you can’t.
Knowing you have hurts that the Lord allowed to be hidden should give you a feeling of comfort. It’s His way of not allowing you more torment. If not being able to recall all of the details of your painful past causes you anxiety, try to just lay it to rest. You may have a hard time doing that and imagine that something would always be missing if you can’t remember all of it. You might wonder how all of the pieces of your life will ever fit together if you can’t remember every detail.
Try thinking of your life as a puzzle. See all of the pieces laid out on a table. Everything is put together and there are missing pieces here and there. Now try imagining the blood of Jesus in those spots. It fills each hole and joins the pieces bordering it. It fills each place where there was pain and where something of you was lost. That’s what the blood of Jesus is able to do.
The best way to move on from here is to have peace with the blood of Jesus filling the gaps and wounds of your life. The blood of Jesus melts bitterness. There is no bitterness so hard that it can’t be melted with the blood of Jesus. So, let your bitterness melt. Let the blood of Jesus and sweet mercy flow through you and your wounds and let all of it just go. Let it go. All of it.
Cherish the fact that there is an antidote for your pain. Cherish the fact that your Savior cared enough about you to let His blood flow on your behalf, creating a precious antidote that could heal each and every pain you would ever suffer. Let it flow and let bitterness go…
Declaration: I will release the painful things I can remember and have peace with the things I can’t. I will allow the precious blood of Jesus to fill the missing pieces and make me whole. As the blood of Jesus melts all bitterness and mercy comes to all areas, I will be filled with new strength.
For music selections that will help bring hope and encouragement during your recovery from depression and addiction, browse:http://www.youtube.com/user/NewStrengthMusic/videos?view=1&flow=
Filed Under: Bitterness, Recovery from Depression and Dependency Tagged With: 12 step, A Quest for Better Health, A Quest for New Strength, AA, about, addiction, anger, answers, author, battle, Bible, bitterness, blog, blood of Jesus, book, Brooke Fraser, celebrate recovery, Christian, Christina Cook Lee, closure, comfort, dependency, depression, devotional, encouragement, everyday life, faith, find, For better health, freedom, God, guidance, habit, healing, help, Holy Spirit, hope, I Will Exalt You, inspiration, intimacy with God, Jesus, joy, kingdom eyes, knowing God better, letting go, loss, meditation, memories, memory, mental health, mind, missing pieces, need, New Strength, painful, peace, Philippians 3:10, puzzle, recovery, release, remember, rest, right relationships, scripture, self improvement, solutions, Spirit, spiritual, strength, substance abuse, suicidal, suicide, support group, testing, thoughts, torment, trials, trusting God, verse, verses, with my past, with your past, writer
Waiting on God
Focus: Your time
Psalm 62:5 (NKJV) My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from Him.
There is no question about the faithfulness of God. Of course He is faithful. Even though many people don’t see Him as being that way, He is.
The problem people run into when they try to define God, is that they can’t possibly use human terms and concepts to evaluate the actions and nature of the Divine. Attempts to analyze God from our own puny perspective are really so futile.
It might be harder for me to believe in the faithfulness of God the way I do, if I had to view some of the atrocities of this earth, firsthand. I must admit, I haven’t gone out of my way to travel to third world countries and live along side the weak and helpless. I haven’t cared enough to spend time eating what they eat…drinking what they drink, and sleeping where sleep to really know exactly how it is with them.
Along similar lines, we can complain that God feels so distant in some of our times of weakness, when we haven’t actually ‘worked’ that hard at cultivating a knowledge of His history and presence. We haven’t spent enough time going where He goes—eating what He eats, drinking what He drinks, resting like He rests—to truly know Him.
We have other expectations. We expect value without cost. We don’t want to have to wait for anything at all—much less God.
The only way we are going to get to know God is by spending time with Him…waiting on Him, whether we feel His manifest presence, or not.
Waiting on God involves making choices. He is jealous of our attention. There are many things that can take our focus away from Him throughout the day and night. He wants our first fruits. He expects more than a few quick minutes of our day just before we roll out of bed in the morning, or after we’ve crawled under the covers and turned out the light.
God wants to know He matters most in our lives…that there is nothing nearly as important to us, than Him.
The Bible says God inhabits the praises of His people. It says that ‘In His Presence is fullness of joy. It says, “Draw nigh unto God and He will draw nigh to you.”
Don’t we so often get things turned around? We give Him a few token moments of our over scheduled day—and then wonder why it feels like our prayers are bouncing off the ceiling.
Time spent before God—whether we feel Him or not—will yield positive results. Through the discipline of waiting on God, we come to know His presence.
There are lots of people who don’t know what they’re missing. There are many who say they just don’t have enough hours in the day.
In the book of Genesis, chapter 28, we read part of the story of Jacob, the son of Isaac, and the grandson of Abraham. Jacob wanted to be married and followed his father’s advice to go find a wife from among his mother Rachel’s relatives. On the way, he stopped for the night and slept under the stars, with his head on a stone for a pillow.
During the night, he had a dream of a ladder resting on earth and reaching up to heaven. He saw the angels of God going up and down the ladder. At the top of the ladder, Jacob saw the Lord, who proceeded to give Jacob a blessing.
God promised to bless Jacob and all of his descendants. He said the descendants would greatly multiply and be scattered all over the earth. God declared that all of the earth would be blessed through Jacob and all of His descendants. God promised He would never leave Jacob.
In return, Jacob made a promise to God. He confessed that He wanted God to be with him and give him protection, as well as food to eat and clothes to wear. He said that he would give God one tenth of all that he was given by God.
Pray about whether one tenth of all you possess should include your time.
Declaration: I will find new strength by being faithful to God in giving Him the time and attention He deserves.
Filed Under: Recovery from Depression and Dependency, Waiting on God Tagged With: 12 step, A Quest for Better Health, A Quest for New Strength, AA, about, addiction, anger, answers, author, battle, Bible, bitterness, blog, book, Brooke Fraser, celebrate recovery, Christian, Christina Cook Lee, dependency, depression, devotional, encouragement, everyday life, faith, Faithful, find, For better health, freedom, God, guidance, healing, help, Holy Spirit, hope, inspiration, intimacy with God, Jesus, joy, kingdom eyes, knowing God better, loss, meditation, mental health, mind, my time, need, New Strength, Philippians 3:10, Psalm 62:5, recovery, right relationships, scripture, self improvement, solutions, Spirit, spiritual, strength, substance abuse, suicide, support group, testing, the presence of God, thoughts, tithe, tithing our time, trials, trusting God, verse, verses, waiting on God, writer, your time
Becoming what God wants
October 28, 2014 By Christina Cook Lee Leave a Comment
Focus: Expressing love
Romans 12:9-10 (NIV) Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.
Love is expressed in many different ways. Some people have no trouble at all demonstrating love and affection—yet others are baffled when it comes to showing or saying how they feel. Still others feel completely intimidated, by the act of revealing their innermost feelings to another human being, no matter how deeply they care for them.
At times, difficulties in making expressions of love can be related to a history of past failure or rejection. In a relationship that has been painful, feelings of resentment can get in the way.
Some people have the opinion that love is ‘complicated’…and sometimes it is, but failure to express love in sincere ways, can cause any love relationship to be complicated.
I’m not sure what the writer of the Book of Romans was referring to when he said, “hate what is evil, cling to what is good,” but for my own purposes, I’m going to ask you to think of ‘evil’ in this case, as not expressing love—and ‘good’ as expressing love in sincere ways.
Every person on the planet was born with a need for love. People who were not ‘loved well’, may have never learned to ‘love well’. As much as they might wish they could—they have a hard time letting down their guard, as a result of their own emotional needs not being met and developed early on.
‘Being devoted to one another in love’, is a statement that could be easy, when both parties are mutually interested in meeting the other’s emotional needs—but when one person isn’t doing their part—the situation can be difficult.
Someone who missed out on the love they should have been shown when they were younger, might give the impression of being ‘distant’ or ‘uncaring’—when truthfully, there are areas in their heart that are still wounded, and need healing. These people might be ‘tough to love’ because of their seeming ‘hard shell’, but practically everyone will eventually respond to consistent and sincere expressions of love. Romans 12:9-10 doesn’t allow for excuses. Sure, it takes patience and perseverance to continue reaching out and offering sincere expressions of love, if the other person can’t or won’t reciprocate—but in a situation like that, we need to draw our hope and encouragement from the Word of God.
The exhortation in Romans, to ‘make sincere expressions of love’ isn’t necessarily referring exclusively to romantic love. The command can be applied to any friendship or acquaintance.
Mary Kay Ash, the founder of a cosmetics business that grew to 800,000 representatives in 37 countries, with annual sales of 2.2 billion dollars, often encouraged her staff to act as if each person they met was wearing a sign around his or her neck that read, “Make me feel important.”
The Golden Rule comes to mind, once again, as we are told to “Honor one another above yourselves,” in Romans 12:10. In other words, whether our own needs are being met, or not, we still need to be willing to make sincere expressions of love out of obedience to God and His Word.
A good example of this is found in Romans 5:8, which says, “But God demonstrates His own love for us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for our sins.” When we’re are faced with having to continue reaching out to someone who doesn’t do a great job of returning our sincere expressions of love—we must remember that Jesus died for us, ‘in advance’ of our love for Him being fully developed…yet He was still willing to go all the way to the cross as proof of His love and desire to have us with Him for all eternity.
According to Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the book, The 5 Love Languages, some people are motivated with words of affirmation, while others may respond most to gifts, acts of service, quality time, or physical touch. Considering Chapman’s discoveries, be careful that your efforts to make sincere expressions of love are performed with the other person’s needs and love language in mind—remembering they may not be the same as yours. The Golden Rule must be ‘bent’ a little in this case, as we seek to love others in the way they would most like to be loved.
Declaration: I will find new strength by being filled more fully with the love of God. As His love flows through me, I will care more deeply about the people around me. I will make others feel important and appreciated, by making the effort to learn what kinds of sincere expression of love would mean most to them—and then showing my love for them in those ways.
Tags: A Quest for Better Health, A Quest for New Strength, addiction, answers,author, becoming what God wants, blog, blogger, book, Christina Cook Lee,dependency, depression, encouragement, expressing love, For better health,hope, Let Go, Lindsay McCaul, New Strength, recovery, Romans 12:9-10,solutions, suicidal, suicide, thoughts, writer
Filed Under: Becoming What God Wants, Recovery from Depression and Dependency Tagged With: 12 step, A Quest for Better Health, A Quest for New Strength, AA, about, addiction, anger, answers, author, battle, becoming what God wants, Bible, bitterness, blog, book, celebrate recovery, Christian, Christina Cook Lee, dependency, depression, devotional, encouragement, everyday life, expressing love, faith, find, For better health, freedom, God, guidance, healing, help, Holy Spirit, hope, inspiration, Jesus, joy, Let Go, Lindsay McCaul, loss, meditation, mental health, mind, need, New Strength, recovery, right relationships, Romans 12:9-10, scripture, self improvement, solutions, Spirit, spiritual, strength, substance abuse, suicidal, suicide, support group, thoughts, trials, trusting God, verse, verses, writer
Building your faith
Focus: Making good habits and breaking bad ones
James 4:7 (NKJV) Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
Joyce Meyer is one of my favorite Bible teachers. She is very down to earth and has a straightforward approach to applying Bible truths to everyday life and real people. I have been to several of her conferences and have never been disappointed. She has a non-offensive and often humorous way of getting people to recognize areas of their lives that need improving. She makes simple, Bible-based recommendations that can be life changing.
My husband and I had the pleasure of attending the first session of one memorable conference she hosted in Tampa, Florida. All of her messages over the three days of the conference were based on making good new habits and breaking bad habits.
Joyce told us that 40% of what we do is out of habit. She says that if you can make a habit out of repetition, you can break a habit out of repetition. According to her research, Joyce claims that experts have found that it takes 21 to 30 days to make or break a habit.
Joyce spent some time talking about the fact that many attempts to break bad habits fail because people are so focused on the negative behavior associated with the habit. She believes that instead of trying to break a bad habit, people should focus on developing good habits.
James 4:7, supports this concept. When we submit to God and do what the Word of God tells us is right, we won’t have as much trouble with temptation about things that are related to bad habits. By resisting the devil through making good new habits, he will flee from you.
In her message, Joyce suggested that we watch what we say that might be contributing to a bad habit we have been unable to break. When we say things like, ‘I hate discipline’, or ‘I have no self-control’, we are establishing that we can’t overcome our problem. Our words have a powerful influence on our ability to improve.
Another good point Joyce made was that ‘what you focus on becomes the biggest thing in your life’. When we are trying to lose weight, all we can think about is ‘food’. As a positive way of approaching weight control, Joyce supports healthy eating. She says, “Rather than thinking about what you can’t eat—focus your attention on the good things you can eat.”
When you’re trying to recover from depression and dependency, there are probably a number of bad habits that you need to work at breaking—but a good way to help build your faith, is to concentrate on making good new habits that will offset and neutralize the bad ones.
A Bible verse Joyce shared that supports this thought was, Romans 12:21, which says, “Don’t be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good.”
Romans 6:11 says we should see ourselves as being dead to the power of sin and alive with God through Christ Jesus.
Galatians 5:16 says to walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.
Joyce made the point that ‘nothing good happens accidently’. She told us that we can catch sickness, but we can’t catch good health. Our behavior follows our thoughts.
Joyce Meyer is the first to admit that she has learned the lessons she teaches ‘the hard way’. She doesn’t make you feel like she’s pointing a finger at you about something she hasn’t had to deal with, herself. But, knowing that Joyce has had to overcome many difficulties in her own life, gives you the encouragement to try harder yourself. She is thankful for the experiences she’s had that have caused her to have to grow, so that she can help other people.
We all have some bad habits that need to go, but we could definitely spend some time thinking about what new good habits we could develop that would help us grow stronger and become more confident in the power of God.
A simple adjustment in our thinking could be a key we’ve been missing. What good new habit could you benefit by developing?
Declaration: I will find new strength by making good new habits, while I keep working on breaking bad ones. I will keep my mind focused on being dead to sin and alive with God through Christ Jesus.
Filed Under: Building Your Faith, Recovery from Depression and Dependency Tagged With: 12 step, A Quest for Better Health, A Quest for New Strength, AA, about, addiction, anger, answers, author, battle, Bible, bitterness, blog, book, breaking bad habits, celebrate recovery, Christian, Christina Cook Lee, dependency, depression, devotional, encouragement, everyday life, faith, find, For better health, freedom, God, guidance, healing, help, Holy Spirit, hope, inspiration, James 4:7, Jesus, joy, Joyce Meyer, Lincoln Brewster, loss, making good habits, meditation, mental health, mind, need, New Strength, recovery, right relationships, scripture, self improvement, solutions, Spirit, spiritual, strength, substance abuse, suicidal, suicide, support group, thoughts, Today is the Day, trials, trusting God, verse, verses, writer