Welcome to
Celebrating Life in Recovery!
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Can we just
behave? I don't think so.
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Before you disagree
join us in the café,
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and you will see
what we are talking about.
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At the start of every season
I ask God to bring together
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a truth that we can
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weave into every program.
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In previous seasons we
have talked about things like
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just basic foundational truths.
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We went through Steps to Christ,
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we talked about repentance,
we talked about prayer,
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we talked about, Who is God?
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The God who created
the universe how does
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He interact with me?
What does that mean to me?
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So we have talked about
that and about the Holy Spirit,
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what an incredible gift that is.
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That was a great show.
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We used a friend of
mine's book, Exalting His Word.
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We talked about, How do
you get into the word of God?
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How do I open up the Bible
and everything that is written
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in that, How do I
bring it into my life?
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As an addict, I'm telling
you, I need the whole thing.
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I need to know all that stuff.
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We did another program on
prayer, communication with God.
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If He knows
everything, Why do I pray?
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What is that all
about? Is He my friend?
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Is He my counselor?
Is He all that stuff?
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We get a whole season
on that so I am praying and
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thinking, What is this
season going to be about?
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I can't even tell
you that it scared me,
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because God said
Poof, and I thought no way.
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No way! I am not a theologian.
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I never went to
school, that is huge.
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I cannot teach
that, there is no way.
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I remember telling God,
Do you remember who I am?
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Heroine addict in recovery,
homeless at the age of 13,
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I didn't even go to high school.
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Don't ask me to do this.
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I remember saying,
let's just do something else.
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I would pick up another
book, another thing to study.
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As weird as it is, I
love to study the Bible.
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I love to get into things.
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I have five or six
different books in front of me,
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I'll want to know what
the Greeks says, Hebrew says.
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I'm an addict, and when
we want to know something,
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we want to know it.
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We did drugs and
we did drugs well.
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When we become
Christians, we do that well.
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But I'm afraid of this one
thing and so God keeps bringing
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it back to me, bring it back
to me, Cheri please trust Me.
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I said no! No!
No, I can't do it.
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Then I thought, Do you
know how I will try to do it?
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I'll ask different
people what they think.
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I'll ask really smart
people and I got different
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answers from everybody.
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So I'm thinking,
God, they don't even know.
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If you're one of
the ones I asked, sorry.
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I got different
answers from everybody.
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So I thought I'm not
going to do that one,
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let's do something simple,
because I'm pretty simple.
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Prayer is simple, repentance,
not simple in that it
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doesn't have depth to it,
it's simple to understand.
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With repentance, I need to
understand what my sin has done.
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People know that I was homeless
and was a heroine addict.
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I lived on the streets and
manipulated and lied my way
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through 10 years of junk.
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I saw stuff that
was so ugly, so ugly.
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I've learned to
live in that world.
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When I get into repentance,
God didn't say I just want
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you to understand
what lying is about,
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I want you to
understand the ramifications of
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every lie you told,
everyone you seduced.
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I want you to understand the
ramifications to what happened
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in their life, with their
addictions and all that stuff.
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As my being sorry enough comes
up, I'm sorry enough that I
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am repulsed by this sin.
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So I can understand that stuff.
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But this one
was huge, it's huge.
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I said, God, He
said please, please.
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I kept coming back to it.
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So what we are going
to cover this season is
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righteousness by faith.
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What does that mean exactly?
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There is words that
people have used for ever.
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Well it's a forensic term,
I'm like, What does that mean?
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It's a legal term, it's
an imputed righteousness.
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No, it's different than
an imparted righteousness.
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I'm thinking
stop, I'm a drug addict.
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I don't even know
what you are saying.
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So we are going to
cover righteousness by faith
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and don't tune me out because
what is amazing about this
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concept, we are going
to cover it in testimonies,
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we are going to
cover it in people's lives.
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We are going to be covering
it in a way that we will let
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it unfold without using
typical terms hear everyday.
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If you get this truth, man.
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I'm going to tell you a dream,
and please when I tell you
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this dream, you may have a
tendency to think badly of me.
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Just know that God loves
me and He's working on me.
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I go to sleep one night.
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My husband is a
professional musician.
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He is really good, he
is producing right now the
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Special Olympics,
doing all the music for the
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Special Olympics.
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He's done special
events that are huge.
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He plays in the orchestra.
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He teaches at the University.
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When they do events for
fund raising is going on,
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and people that are
donating millions of dollars to
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the archer there.
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I tell you people
dress up for those things.
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But I'm in ministry,
I don't have a dress.
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Do you have one
that is a size 10-12?
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Send it to me,
because I don't have one.
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So in this dream I go to
sleep and Brad has an event.
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It's huge! I know
who is going to be there.
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It is these people
that are donating millions
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and they are lovely people.
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They have such cute dresses,
so I have to get a dress.
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I know I have to get a dress,
and I know I don't have one.
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I have one that I wore for
the last eight or 10 years,
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but it is
starting to look like that.
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Everybody has seen me in
at so I have to get a new one.
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I know if I tell my husband,
he'll say you don't have to
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get a new one Hon,
you'll look beautiful.
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I'm like shut up,
don't even tell me that.
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I want a new dress.
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In the dream I set
about getting this dress.
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Could you even understand
how good I am at manipulating?
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10 years on the
street I got good at it.
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But God has really worked
with me, I walk away from stuff.
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He even tries to
convince me not to lie,
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that is a hard one for me.
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But I work on it, and the
Holy Spirit reminds me when I
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start to lie my head off,
the Holy Spirit says, Hon.
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I'm thinking oh man,
but I'm working on it.
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In this dream all my old
stuff, all my old behaviors,
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all my manipulating self
came right out on the table.
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I was trying to find
money to get this dress.
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You know that
nice dresses like that,
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can cost a lot of money, Right?
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We are not talking about a
few hundred dollars, Right?
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So I start
manipulating different things.
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In the dream I
remember even thinking,
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wow that so doesn't
look good on you anymore.
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Manipulative
behavior, but it didn't stop me.
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Because why? I
wanted a dress. Right?
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I'm doing this event.
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So at the very end of the
dream I see myself standing
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there and am in
a flirtatious pose.
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I won't show you it.
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But anyhow a flirtatious
pose, and I see myself saying
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some words that are old stuff.
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I'm telling
myself in my mind, wow,
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I want to wake up
because I don't like this.
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All of a sudden, I
stopped seeing my face,
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and my pose, and I
see who I am talking to.
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I'm talking to one of my
past abusers trying to get
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some money and I
wake up and I'm sick.
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I'm sick, I want to
cry, I want to throw up.
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I thought wow,
where did that come from?
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Why would I be in an almost
seductive pose in front of
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a past abuser, a past molester
to get money for a gown.
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I kept saying, Cheri it was
a dream, to stop and let it go.
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I couldn't and finally I
got in prayer and said God,
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this is horrible
and I can't let it go.
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I keep thinking
about this dream.
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I feel like the
Holy Spirit said,
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Cheri that's who you are.
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I'm like, shut up,
it can not be who I am?
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Because I have done so much,
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I have really
come far from that.
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I don't do that anymore,
I'm not like that anymore.
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He was clear to me, in Christ,
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you are not like that anymore.
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I am walking you day by
day into this new life where
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pretty soon that will not
be something you can imagine
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anymore, of yourself.
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But don't lose
sight of who you are.
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That is why you need a Savior.
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That is why you need
Christ, that is why all
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this stuff is important.
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That is why you need
to know this teaching,
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because God says I am
not coming back to teach
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this heroine addict, neglected,
molested, kid that has
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lied and
manipulated her whole life.
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I'm not coming back
to teach her to behave,
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I am making you
new, totally new.
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When He said
that I wanted to weep,
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because I didn't want any
part of that person in the dream
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to be what I have to
live with the rest of my life.
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He said, you don't.
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That part of yourself is
dying day by day and this new
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person, this new life is going
to be waking up day by day.
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It is absolutely
amazing, it's amazing.
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So we are going to
teach some of that.
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I just beg you to stay
with me because if you struggle
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with anything, this show
is about addiction and people
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think alcohol or drugs, right?
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I mean addiction.
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I have been in my Christian
walk long enough to realize that
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we are talking rage,
sex addiction, stealing,
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manipulation, and I hate to
say this, religious addictions
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because they are
horrible, critical spirits.
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Judgment, stealing, gambling,
addictions just span the
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gap of behaviors,
the Bible calls its sin.
00:10:58.93\00:11:01.79
We don't like that
word, I'm not sure why.
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We just call and
addiction, we call it recovery,
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the Bible calls it salvation.
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I want to say that we
are covering all that stuff.
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So if you deal with any
issues, and if you don't, that's
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the biggest issue, stay with us.
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I want to introduce
you to a friend of mine.
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He is a theologian and
he is gifted man of God that
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teaches and I heard
him the other night and he
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was teaching on this very thing.
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Remember, I'm a
little bit scared because
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I don't know how to teach.
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I'm sitting in the
front row, because I have ADD.
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I can't sit anywhere else.
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I'm sitting in the front
row and he won my heart because
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he taught in a way that I
thought, even me as an addict,
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I could just understand it.
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I cornered him and
made him come on the show.
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So we will be right
back, stay with us and you will
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be blessed by this teaching.
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