Recovery Requires Character

Today we will look at Romans 5:1-5 and the concept of character in the effort to recovery from addiction. “Therefore since we have been justified by faith, we have peace…” but in our effort to recover we often find ourselves in situations that are far from peaceful. There often seems to be a disconnect between recovery and the peace the scripture promises. How do we make this connection work? Do we “…rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” This is very difficult but we need to see the opportunity to make the decision to be joyful and at peace. The scripture calls us to “…rejoice in our suffering…” - that just seems an unlikely emotion. If we consider the idea that suffering produces endurance / endurance produces character / character produces hope and hope does not put us to shame. Shame is one of the initial emotions we encounter when we realize where we are in our relationship with God and the impact of our addiction. We don’t often feel we really suffer as there are so many distractions in today’s culture we can’t really focus on our effort to recover. We have created our own addiction through our decisions we have made to date. Now comes the effort to face that addiction or lack of self-discipline and work to modify our character to break that influence. We need to believe that the endurance created by facing our addictive behavior will result in hope that we can really rely on. Remember - we created this element in our character and if we created it, we can reshape our mental, emotional, spiritual and physical responses. We have been given the Spirit and it will rejoice in our victories and we need to decide to rejoice as well. That hope promised is not just a positive thought - it is a certainty!! To God be the Glory!!