Recovered

by Robby Gallaty

  You will need to attend meetings for accountability and support. My counselor years ago suggested I attend ninety AA meetings in ninety days. After a few weeks, I was asked by the support group to stop talking about Jesus by name. That didn’t deter me from going, but what did were the stories of people who never could experience long-term victory over sin. Week after week I heard people share defeated stories of hanging on and white-knuckling their sobriety.

  I knew in my heart they didn’t know the difference that made all the difference in the world: Jesus.

  After Meeting 45, I stopped going. Instead, I engrossed myself in the church. Whenever the doors were open, I was there. Monday night visitation, I was there. Tuesday night Bible study, I was there. Wednesday night prayer meeting, Friday night hangout time, Sunday morning worship, Sunday school, and Sunday night worship—I didn’t miss a one.

  Years later, I heard of a program that I wish I’d known about years before: Celebrate Recovery. John Baker took the structure of AA and reinstituted the Christ-centered principles that had been removed through the years. Using the Sermon on the Mount as a guide, he created a scriptural process for long-term sobriety.

  I have offered Celebrate Recovery at every church I’ve pastored. Most Christians miss out on the benefits of this ministry because they think it’s only for drug addicts, when in fact it offers help for sexual addiction, anger, physical/emotional abuse, and codependency. Parents or spouses who are enablers would benefit from attending a meeting with their family member. Since meetings are offered at different churches on different nights of the week, those in recovery can almost always find a meeting to fill their time.

  6. Read Your Bible Daily

  Something I learned in my computer science class was, “Garbage In, Garbage Out.” When useless information is inserted into a computer, garbage comes out.

  The same can be said about our minds. For years, I polluted my mind with immoral images and ungodly experiences. The good news is that our lives can be transformed by the “renewing of [our] mind[s]” (Rom. 12:2). God promised to transform his people through his Word. If Jesus was the walking Word, as John states in John 1, we should get into the Word until the Word gets into us.

  If you’re like I was, you won’t know where to begin. When I was a new Christian, I used the “OPRA” technique for reading the Bible: I would randomly open the Bible, point to a passage, read the verse, and try to figure out a way to apply it to my life. Thankfully, I didn’t land on the Scripture that says, “He [speaking of Judas Iscariot] went and hanged himself” (Matt. 27:5)!

  Reading random Scripture verses will not provide solid biblical growth any more than eating random foods out of your pantry will provide solid physical growth. An effective reading plan is required.

  My wife Kandi and I developed a reading plan called the Foundational 260. The F-260 is a two-hundred sixty-day reading plan that highlights the foundational passages of Scripture that every disciple should know. After failed attempts of reading through the Bible in a year with previous discipleship groups, I wanted a manageable plan that believers who have never read the Bible before could complete.

  The plan asks believers to read one or two chapters a day for five days each week, with an allowance for weekends off. The two off-days a week are built in, so you can catch up on days where you’re unable to read.

  With a traditional reading plan of four to five chapters a day, unread chapters can begin to pile up, forcing us to skip entire sections to get back on schedule. It reduces Bible reading to a system of box-checking instead of a time to hear from God.

  The amount of required reading also makes it difficult to sit and reflect on what you’ve read for that day. In order to digest more of the Word, the F-260 encourages believers to read less and to keep an H. E. A. R. journal.

  And what’s a H. E. A. R. journal? It’s a journaling method that promotes reading the Bible with a life-transforming purpose. No longer will your focus be on checking off the boxes on your daily reading schedule; your purpose will instead be to read in order to understand and respond to God’s Word. The acronym H. E. A. R. stands for Highlight, Explain, Apply, and Respond.

  Each of these four steps contributes to creating an atmosphere to hear God speak. After settling on a reading plan and establishing a time for studying God’s Word, you will be ready to H. E. A. R. from God.

  As an illustration, let’s assume you begin your quiet time in the book of 2 Timothy, and today’s reading is the first chapter of the book. Before reading the text, pause to sincerely ask God to speak to you. It may seem trite, but it is absolutely imperative that we seek God’s guidance in order to understand his Word (1 Cor. 2:12–14). Every time we open our Bibles, we should pray the simple prayer that David prayed: “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law” (Ps. 119:18 esv).

  After praying for the Holy Spirit’s guidance, open your notebook or journal, and at the top left-hand corner, write the letter H. This exercise will remind you to read with a purpose. In the course of your reading, one or two verses will usually stand out and speak to you. After reading the passage of Scripture, highlight each verse that speaks to you by copying it under the letter “H”. Write out the following:

  The name of the book

  The passage of Scripture

  The chapter and verse numbers that especially speak to you

  A title to describe the passage

  This practice will make it easier to find the passage when you want to revisit it in the future.

  After you’ve highlighted the passage, write the letter “E” under the previous entry. At this stage you will explain what the text means. By asking some simple questions, with the help of God’s Spirit, you can understand the meaning of a passage or verse. The next chapter will teach you in detail how to understand the meaning of a passage. Until then, here are a few questions to get you started:

  Why was this written?

  To whom was it originally written?

  How does it fit with the verses before and after it?

  Why did the Holy Spirit include this passage in the book?

  What is he intending to communicate through this text?

  At this point, you are beginning the process of discovering the specific and personal word that God has for you from his Word. What is important is that you are engaging the text and wrestling with its meaning.

  You may look at the questions above and think, I wouldn’t know where to start answering those. There are several good resources, but I would recommend buying a good study Bible. I helped compile the CSB Disciple’s Study Bible, and there are several good options, including the CSB Study Bible, The New Inductive Study Bible by Kay Arthur, the ESV Study Bible, the ESV Gospel Transformation Study Bible, and the NIV Zondervan Study Bible.

  Use a resource like this to help you understand the Bible, but don’t forget to do the hard work for yourself. Try to discover the answers on your own from your effort, and only consult the study Bible as a last resource.

  After writing a short summary of what you think the text means, write the letter “A” below the letter “E”. Under the “A”, write the word Apply. This application is the heart of the process. Everything you have done so far culminates under this heading. After all, the Bible tells us to be doers of the Word, and not hearers only (James 1:22). As you have done before, answer a series of questions to uncover the significance of these verses to you personally, questions like:

  How can this help me?

  What does this truth mean for my life?

  What would the application of this verse look like in my life?

  What is God saying to me?

  How should this change me?

  These questions bridge the gap between the ancient world and your world today. They provide a way for God to speak to you from the specific passage or vers
e. Answer these questions under the “A”. Challenge yourself to write between two and five sentences about how the text applies to your life.

  Finally, below the first three entries, write the letter “R” for Respond. Your response to the passage may take on many forms. You may write a call to action. You may describe how you will be different because of what God has said to you through his Word. You may indicate what you are going to do because of what you have learned. You may respond by writing out a prayer to God. For example, you may ask God to help you to be more loving, or to give you a desire to be more generous in your giving. Keep in mind that this is your response to what you have just read.

  Notice that all of the words in the H. E. A. R. formula are action words: Highlight, Explain, Apply, and Respond. God does not want us to sit back and wait for him to drop some truth into our laps. Instead of waiting passively, God desires that we actively pursue him. Jesus said, “Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you” (Matt. 7:7).

  Think of the miracle of the Bible. Over centuries of time, God supernaturally moved upon a number of men in an unusual way that resulted in them writing the exact words of God. God led his people to recognize these divine writings, and to distinguish them from everything else that has ever been written.

  Then God guided his people to recognize the exact sixty-six books that were to be included in the Bible. The preservation and survival of the Bible is as miraculous as its writing. Then God gave men, beginning with Gutenberg’s printing press, the technology to copy and transmit the Bible so that all people could have it. All because God has something to say to you.

  Memorizing the Word

  While many plans for memorizing Scripture are effective, a simple system has been effective for me. All you need is a pack of index cards and a committed desire to memorize God’s Word. It’s easy: write the reference of the verse on one side of the card and the text of the verse on the other. Focus on five verses at a time, and carry your pack of Scripture cards with you.

  Throughout the day, whenever you have a few minutes, pull out your pack of Scripture cards and review them. Read the reference first, followed by the verse. Continue to recite the verse until you get a feel for the flow of the passage. When you are comfortable with the text, look only at the reference side of the card in order to test your recall.

  It is important to recite the reference first, then the verse, and finish with the reference again. This will prevent you from becoming a “concordance cripple.” As a new believer, I was forced to look up every verse in the concordance at the back of my Bible. Sometimes, when I quoted a Scripture while witnessing, the person would ask me, “Where did you get that?”

  I could only respond, “Somewhere in the Bible.” As you can imagine, that’s less than effective when sharing with others! By memorizing the references, you will speak with authority and gain the respect of your hearers when you quote Scripture.

  When you master five verses, begin to study five more. Review all the verses you have learned at least once a week. As your pack grows, you will be encouraged to keep going in Scripture memorization, and you will experience its powerful effects in your life.

  (For disciple-making resources, check out our website: www.replicate.org.)

  A Final Thought

  People ask me all the time, “Would you ever have thought you would be married with two boys, an author, a doctor, and the pastor of a megachurch?”

  Honestly, the person who is most amazed at what God has done over the years is me. I’ve witnessed firsthand every heartbreak, every situation, and every encounter.

  The follow-up question usually is: “What’s the secret to being used by God?”

  My answer is simple: there are no secrets in the Christian life. The secrets are the obvious things: prayer, reading the Word, and obeying the Lord. When I got saved, I made a deal with the Lord. Up to that point, I was pushing the envelope of drug abuse, so I couldn’t lose in a sense, because I didn’t want to live much longer anyway. “God,” I offered, “if you save me, I will go after you with the same intensity I did to get high.”

  For those who know anything about addicts, you don’t get in the way of someone trying to get high. I’d never forgotten what Paula told me years before about being a laser beam pointed in the wrong direction. I wondered, What could happen if I go all in after God?

  Since the day I met Christ, I’ve never gotten over being saved. I think that was the apostle Paul’s secret to ministry. He never became blasé or matter-of-fact about the reality that Christ saved him. As an old man, facing death by execution, he still wanted to shout it from the rooftops. He was saved!

  Sadly, many Christians have forgotten that they were at one time living in darkness. We become institutionalized and domesticated when we forget about the moment we went from death to life.

  Never let it be said that we got over being saved. God made us different to make a difference.

  Notes

  1. C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (Cambridge: Samizdat Press, 1941; 2016), 24.

  2. The doctor's name has been changed to protect her identity.

  3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Indonesia

  4. A. W. Tozer, The Root of the Righteous (Chicago, IL: Moody, 1955; 2015), 164.

  5. Jerry Bridges, The Discipline of Grace (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1994).

  6. Miles J. Stanford, The Green Letters (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1975; 1983), 6.

  7. Ibid.

  8. https://opioids.thetruth.com/o/the-facts/fact-1005

  9. Allen C. Myers, The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987), 512.