The Road To Recovery Is For All Believers

The Road to Recovery is for All Believers, and what I discovered about Recovery was surprising.

Hi, my name is Teresa. I have a new life in Christ, and God is healing me from an addiction to sugar with a judgmental and critical spirit.

Celebrate Recovery had never appealed to me because I had already gone through so much healing from my childhood, so I thought it wasn’t for me. And since it had been presented as a way out for alcoholics, drug addicts, and hard-core sinners, it didn’t fit at all, or so I thought.

That was until I was asked to join Re-Generation Recovery. Although it was new to my church, other churches in the community used the program. My younger sister and other people I knew had gone through it previously, which made it legit in my mind.

About re:generation

Re:generation began out of the vision of Watermark Community Church that life change happens best in an authentic community of people helping one another live out God’s plan for life by working through biblical principles together.

Healing

The Bible says that the local church should be a place of healing for its members and the hurting people of its community. God uses imperfect people who are willing to live authentically and follow His instruction to transform each other’s lives (Galatians 6:2, 2 Corinthians 1:3-5, James 5:16, 1 John 1:7-9, 2 Timothy 3:16).

Daily Connection with God

Watermark began its recovery ministry in 2002 as one way (of many) to fulfill this vision. In the following years the ministry grew to serve several hundred participants weekly with many lives being transformed by God. After much prayer, in 2011, Watermark’s recovery ministry set out to develop new curriculum that would provide daily, structured opportunities for people to heal and grow in their relationships with God and others. We believe that a daily connection with God provides the best opportunity for all of us to understand God’s love, how He sees us and realize His plan for our lives. The result of this effort is re:generation recovery, which was fully launched at Watermark in 2013 and began expanding to other locations in 2014.

New Birth

The word regeneration means “new birth.” The colon in our name, re:generation creates double-meaning for the word: “regarding” or “concerning” a generation. At re:generation, we are people who have been given new life by God and long to share the freedom, love and joy we have received from Him with this generation.

C.S. Lewis

Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospel, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and amibition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

Redemption in Recovery

I can attest to all of this as I finish Re:Gen this week. I started the program in October 2022 and ended on July 31, 2023.

What I discovered about Recovery was surprising.

Through Re:generation Recovery, I discovered that the Road to Recovery is for all Believers. Why? Because of sin in our lives, we need Jesus’s help and the help of other Christians as the Body of Christ.

Personal Experience

Step 8 reminded me to pray for a Heart of Forgiveness and why I was revisiting old patterns of sin. I was given tools to move forward. It was a reminder each time critical and judgemental thoughts crept in. Surprisingly, it even helped with a sugar addiction.

One of my favorite things about the recovery process was remembering the day we all started and realizing how much everyone in the group had changed. It worked; it worked for everyone in the group. We had grown so much that the evidence was clear as women shared week after week over the last few months of Re:Gen. It was evident as they shared their testimonies on the last night we met.

In closing, it would work for anyone, no matter where you are on your journey with Christ. Re:Gen is open to anyone, regardless of background or struggles.

If you feel stuck and are struggling in your life, go to @regendallas for help. Then, take the StruggleFinder survey on the Re:Generation website to see if it’s for you.

Read Stories of Hope on their website to learn more about the mission and history of re:generation.

Connection

Discover additional truth and encouragement when you connect with Tee Dietrich here on Instagram.

Additional Encouragement

Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way, you will fulfill the law of Christ. Galatians 6:2 (NIV) – Read Full Chapter @BibleGateway

And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. James 5:15 (NIV) – Read Full Chapter @BibleGateway

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© 2024 by Tee Dietrich. All rights reserved.