Testimony: Broken and Full of Christ’s Radiant Life

By Roger Stanton, National Ambassador Coach

I’m a grateful believer in Jesus, who is overcoming an addiction to pornography and lust, and my name is Roger.

I spent most of my Sundays and Wednesdays at my local church growing up. I learned to emulate what I thought was a solid faith in Jesus. However, the faith “I built” wasn’t strong enough to hold up to the temptations life would bring along. To make matters worse, the religion I subscribed to disallowed my ability to be a sinner and a “good person” at the same time. As I grew into adulthood and racked up my sins, I faced a true coming to Jesus moment.

Shortly after getting married, my wife caught me in my addiction. That day I had to own the fact that I was indeed a sinner. I had heard my whole life that Jesus could help the sinners, but I didn’t know how to be the sinner that accepted Christ’s saving. I was full of pride and needed change.

Seven years of relapses later, our local church launched a Celebrate Recovery ministry. I was coerced to show up to the opening night for what I thought was a church service for broken people only. Boy, was I right. I sat amazed as I watched all these people accept Christ’s work on the cross in exchange for their sin. All these broken people had a spiritual joy on their faces that I couldn’t understand. How could someone be so broken and yet so full of Christ’s radiant life?

So, slowly I began to work the steps. Finally, I worked through my denial and began the uncomfortable process of confessing to others.

“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective” (James 5:16 NIV).

Over the years at CR, the faith “I built” was exchanged for a relationship with a loving Father who has been gracious to restore so many dead parts of my life. My marriage has been made whole, and my mind is so much stronger at resisting life’s temptations. Like all my new broken friends, my broken self gets to walk in Christ’s radiant life. I am a sinner. However, I have been saved by grace.

To add a cherry on top, I even get to serve as the Celebrate Recovery National Ambassador Coach! So, I get to work with other people to get the word out about this tremendous movement of God to save some of the most broken people in the world… including myself.

Thanks for letting me share.

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If you would like to learn how to start your own Celebrate Recovery ministry, to contact your Celebrate Recovery Rep, please visit: https://crgroups.info/. To get involved in an already existing Celebrate Recovery ministry near you, please visit: https://locator.crgroups.info/.