Celebrate Recovery
The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth
By Meaghan Grider, National Encourager Coach
Truth is painful, but it is always beneficial.
Jesus said in John 8:31-32, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (NIV).
But what is truth?
There is factual truth, as in two-plus-two-equals-four, and truth that conforms to reality, in that summer will follow spring. We speak of a “true friend” or “true love,” meaning faithful, lasting, and genuine. A novel can communicate deep truth through a story. Truth is also defined as honesty, speaking the truth, and living consistently by it.
But Jesus is referring to fundamental truth when he says, “you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Merriam-Webster defines truth as “the actuality of things or events, fact, or spiritual reality.”
Os Guinness writes, “The notion of truth is not philosophical or abstract or theoretical. Truth is fundamentally about who God is.”
CR is a Jesus-centered 12-Step program, so our truth is centered in him.
The only way to know real truth is to know Jesus. Truth is anchored in Jesus and is the only way to true freedom, whether personally, communally, nationally, spiritually, relationally, or in recovery.
Celebrate Recovery speaks the language of freedom. Many of us walked into CR enslaved to our hurt, hang-up, or habit but are walking now in freedom because Jesus used the 8 Principles to uncover deep truths that had led to deep hurts and destructive habits and hang-ups. We are living out what Jesus declared in John 8:36, “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (NIV). But I would venture that most of us can also relate to the saying that “the truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.” Coming out of denial and really recognizing who we are and what we’ve done can be profoundly painful. Yet when our hard truth meets Jesus’ ridiculous grace, there is healing and freedom.
The 2nd Principle states, “Earnestly believe that God exists, we matter to Him, and He has the power to help us recover.” The ONLY way that truth can set us free is by first acknowledging the source of all truth. In John 1:14, we see that Jesus came to us full of grace and truth. Jesus described himself by saying, “I am the way and the truth and the life” (NIV).
Let us remember that!
We can walk through our truth
because of the truth of who He is
The God who sees and saves.
The God who reveals and heals
The God who has the power to help us recover.
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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/.
