Bible Sermons Online

Archive for August, 2009

A Forever Recovery is different than most addiction treatment centers. Our drug addiction recovery program has many different programs that you can chose from. We believe that everybody is different and that is why we have many different paths to chose from. You may be religious, non-religious, have Native American beliefs or if you just need education on life. What ever the case may be, we have the right path for addiction recovery.

Unfortunately, many people today find it difficult to afford effective drug | alcohol treatment for themselves or their loved ones. A Forever Recovery is dedicated to providing the most services for a very low-cost. After hearing of our comprehensive services that we carry, most are surprised at the low cost of our open ended addiction treatment program that has an average 30 – 90 day stay.

We have a series of elements of our Faith Based track that can provide the Christian with the enhancement to his recovery program here at A Forever Recovery. These elements include:

In order to create such a successful approach to recovery, we have a large variety of counselors from many different modalities of recovery available at A Forever Recovery.  Some of our counselors have worked in 12-step programs, others Christian faith based treatment centers.

One of the greatest aspects of God’s forgiveness for sins in Christ is the fact that he also forgets them. We have the assurance that he remembers our sins no more. He purposely and permanently puts them out of his memory and never revisits them.

We can conclude from God’s example, that sometimes it is better to forget than to remember. It is apparent that Joseph understood this as Moses records in Genesis 41:51 “And Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh: For God, said he, hath made me forget….”

Joseph had suffered many terrible injustices in his young life. His own brothers hated him for no reason and sold him into slavery. He was accused of a crime he did not commit. He was thrown into prison for an undetermined amount of time. Surely Joseph could have been justifiably bitter. He could have lamented over all that had befallen him. He could have resented that God allowed great adversity and suffering in his life.

Instead, Joseph reached down inside of himself, where his faith was housed, and found the strength to persevere. In faith, with a grateful heart, he named his son Manasseh, which means “forgetting”. He reasoned “for God…hath made me forget”. The things that had befallen him could have weighed heavily on his heart, but God had given him grace to not only forgive the wrongs that were done to him, but to forget them.

A Pastor I knew sold an automobile to a man. He received half the payment upfront, with the remainder to follow a month later. When he went to the man’s house to receive the second and final installment, the man said “I am not paying you another dime. I have the car and I am keeping it”. He then slammed the door in the Pastor’s face.

Several parishioners advised the Pastor to take legal action. A lawyer friend offered to take the case to Small Claims Court without charging the Pastor for his services. The Pastor politely declined and explained that the few thousand dollars owed did not outweigh the worth of the man’s soul and that it was better to forgive and forget the debt than to injure his Christian testimony to the man.

Several months later, this Pastor was called upon to help a needy family in the community. It turned out to be the family of the man who had misappropriated his automobile. When the door opened to the Pastor’s knock, the man immediately recognized him and expected that the Pastor might recognize him and turn around and leave.

Instead, the humble man of God greeted him with a warm smile and brief embrace. As the Pastor reached into his pocket for the church check, he looked into the man’s face and hesitated for a moment. The man thought that surely the Pastor had just recognized him and had changed his mind about helping. He knew this was a bad idea, asking the man he had cheated to help. He might as well just tell him to leave.

Before the man could speak however, the Pastor said in a soothing voice, “You know, I just don’t think my church is doing enough to help. Please allow me to add my personal check to this amount. I am sure you and your family can use it.”

As the Pastor wrote out another check, the man fell under heavy conviction and wondered what to say. Surely this Pastor was trying to make him feel guilty. Surely this act of kindness was nothing more than a ploy to work on his conscience.

While the man was pondering these things, the Pastor finished writing the check out and handed both checks to him. The Pastor then asked if he could pray for the family. The man knew that the prayer was going to be a sermon in disguise about fairness and doing right, but he did not know how to say “no” after the kindness he was shown; and so he reluctantly acknowledged “sure, that would be okay.”

The Pastor bowed his head and asked the Lord’s blessing upon the man, his family and their home. He asked the Lord to bless them financially and to lead the church to know if there was anything else they could do for them. He closed by asking the Lord to draw this family near to him. There was no mention of the automobile, no sermon, no ulterior motive. It was as if the Pastor had completely forgotten the wrong this man had done to him.

A few weeks later, the man and his family came to visit the church that had paid their debts. They heard the gospel message. They heard how the Lord Jesus Christ had paid another debt that they had not even known about. The whole family walked the aisle and received the Lord.

Like Joseph, this Pastor had emulated his Lord and added forgetfulness to his forgiveness. Had he held on to the terrible injustice this man had done, he would never have been able to be a witness to the love and mercy of the Lord. By forgetting, God was able to use him in a tremendous way

Forgetting should be a word used often in the Christian vocabulary. It is far better to forget and forgive than it is to remember and resent.

Many clients who have enrolled in a treatment program for either alcohol or drug addiction are at a point in their lives where walking a spiritual path is best for them during treatment and recovery.  We provide Christian Drug Rehab for a variety of faiths giving the individual a choice of spiritual paths to follow while they are healing.  In this way, they are never force-fed any beliefs contradictory to their own.The counselors in our Christian Drug Rehab program respect these individual’s beliefs and their rights, realizing that their spiritual path is the most critical aspect of their treatment and recovery program.  A faith-based program of treatment and recovery enables the individual to explore their faith and strengthens their beliefs so that the individual maintains their sobriety long after treatment and recovery are completed.If a faith-based program sounds like it is the ideal treatment for you or a loved one, then our Christian Drug Rehab is the course of action you should take.  It has been designed for the individual who is interested in the teachings of Jesus Christ and wants to further explore them.  Our Christian Drug Rehab treatment and recovery program is enhanced by the following 6 elements:•    Bible studies and scriptural instruction•    Candlelit sessions for prayer and reflection•    Faith-based Christian 12-Step Program•    Lectures and sermons led by ministers and pastors of different faiths and beliefs•    Pastoral Counseling •    Regular church servicesFor the believer who wants to compliment their treatment and recovery using the teachings of Jesus Christ, our Christian Drug Rehab has been designed for them and is the wisest choice for their continued success after recovery.

There was not a dry eye in the church. The ushers were frozen in place and a deep hush had come over the congregation. This was one of those “once in a lifetime” moments for me as a pastor, defining the love of God in real, everyday terms; and it was happening in our church.

Months earlier, my wife and I were on tour visiting missionaries that our church supported. While visiting one interior city in India, we came across Amy (a name that we would later give her). She was dragging herself through a garbage heap looking for morsels of food.

Our guide told us that she was probably one of the many children abandoned by their impoverished families. “Don’t worry”, he said, “it’s just the way things are here”. His calloused words fell on deaf ears as we hurried across the mud-soaked street and knelt near the little girl. She couldn’t have been more than five years old.

Turning her over, we were shocked to find open, gaping abrasions from where she had dragged herself across the stones and debris, apparently unable to walk due to malnutrition. My wife shrieked, “Kenneth, there are maggots in her wounds”.

Gathering her up in our arms, we ran her back to the jeep. Laying her in the back seat with my wife at her side, we hurried back to the mission. There we bathed her, fed her and dressed her wounds.

She was resilient, as children often are. Despite her weakened state, she clung tenaciously to my wife and would not let go of her. This was obviously the first parental care she had ever received. It so touched the both of us that almost in concert we blurted out to each other “can we adopt her?” Having no children of our own, it seemed like a Godsend fit.

For the remainder of our stay, we nurtured and loved Amy as much as was humanly possible. I gave her a Raggedy Ann doll and promised we would be back for her. This must have been her first gift, because for the rest of that week that doll was never out of her arms.

After what seemed an eternity of paperwork and telephone calls, Amy was finally ours. She had regained her health and quickly assimilated to American life. She learned English, started school and most importantly, eventually accepted the Lord as her savior.

Amy was the darling of the congregation. Everyone pampered her and gave her gifts. But the Raggedy Ann remained her favorite. It was this doll, or at least Amy’s love for it, that brought our church to a standstill during an evening service during our mission’s conference.

On evening, a young missionary poured his heart out to the congregation. His moving challenge was for believers to give sacrificially to the Lord’s work. At the close of the service, a special missions offering was scheduled. When the offertory prayer ended, the ushers turned to pass the plates. The usher in the center aisle started to move past Amy, who always sat in the front center row.

Before the usher could move past her, Amy reached out and grabbed his coat sleeve. The man immediately stooped down and said “what is it dear?” Amy, apparently moved by the message, started to place her Raggedy Ann in the offering plate. It was her dearest possession and in child-like understanding of the sermon, she was sacrificially offering it to the Lord’s work.

At the last moment, however, Amy quickly drew her doll back and clutched it tightly. By this time, the attention of the entire congregation had shifted to Amy. The ushers stood still and the pianist faltered as they watched Amy battle with her emotions, wanting to do what she thought was right, but not finding the strength to do so.

After a few more embattled attempts, Amy finally placed her doll in the plate and, well, that is where this story began. Everyone was in tears. A small castaway, who once wandered garbage heaps, just preached one of the strongest sermons ever delivered in our church. As a result, missions offerings skyrocketed and several young people surrendered to become missionaries.

When asked later why she did what she did, Amy simply answered “Because I knew it would make my Father happy”. I didn’t ask which father she meant, earthly or heavenly, but I think both were very happy with her that day.

Faith Based Drug Treatment focuses on the needs of the client who wishes to enhance their treatment and recovery with the teachings of Jesus Christ.  If you have been searching for a Christian-based drug treatment and recovery program, then we suggest that you consider our Faith Based Drug Treatment.  This program affords our clients with a means of seeking out their own individual spiritual paths to walk as they work their way through our Christian-oriented treatment and recovery program.In order for the client to accomplish this, our Faith Based Drug Treatment is one part of a three-fold process that enables them to pursue their spiritual needs as well as serving to compliment client cognitive therapy.  The Christian based program includes:

Additionally, the exploration and strengthening of the client’s Christian faith enables them to maintain their new lifestyle once they have completed the Faith Based Drug Treatment program.

In order for the client and us to achieve success, our large variety of counselors creates the approach to recovery that fits each individual’s needs by virtue of the different models of treatment and recovery that we employ.  The Faith Based Drug Treatment program effectively enables the Christian client success while healing through the teachings of Jesus Christ.