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  • Homecoming and Withdrawal

    • 20 Apr 2010
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    • addiction grace quotes
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    "What we lose in homecoming is not the objects of our attachment, nor even our care for them. In fact, our care grows toward true love, love that sees and appreciates all things in the world for what they are. What we lose is the attachment itself, the strength of our addictive behavior in relation to these objects, the way we make gods of them. But we feel no real consolation when we experience the inevitable withdrawal symptoms that accompany letting go our attachments. There is real pain here."

    --Gerald May, Addiction and Grace, p. 96

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  • Spaciousness

    • 15 Apr 2010
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    "If we do not fill our minds with guilt and self-recriminations, we will recognize our incompleteness as a kind of spaciousness into which we can welcome the flow of grace. We can think of our inadequacies as terrible defects, if we want, and hate ourselves. But we can also think of them affirmatively, as doorways through which the power of grace can enter our lives. Then we may begin to appreciate our inherent, God-given lovableness."

    --Gerald May, Addiction and Grace, 31

    This, of course, only works if we preach the Gospel to ourselves. We can only avoid guilt and condemnation if we a) deny the weight of our wrongdoing and idolatry and claim that we have no sin ("it's not a big deal!"); or b) accept that God "made Him who knew no sin to become sin, in order that in Him we might become the righteousness of God." (2 Cor 5:21)

    So to deal honestly with our defects/idolatries without hating ourselves, we need Christ.
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  • Addiction and Humility

    • 14 Apr 2010
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    "Sooner or later, addiction will prove to us that we are not gods."

    --Gerald May, Addiction and Grace, p. 20
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  • Rock Bottom

    • 14 Apr 2010
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    "To state it quite simply, I had tried to run my life on the basis of my willpower alone. When my supply of success at this egoistic autonomy ran out, I became depressed. And with the depression, by means of grace, came a chance for spiritual openness."

    --Gerald May, Addiction and Grace, p. 10
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  • Understanding and Addiction

    • 14 Apr 2010
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    "Understanding will not deliver us from addiction, but it will, I hope, help us appreciate grace."

    --Gerald May, Addiction and Grace, p. 4
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  • About

    Pastor of Spiritual Formation at First Baptist Church, SLO (www.fbcslo.org). Working on figuring out how a local church community can move toward a healthy, Gospel-centered rhythm of spiritual disciplines, community and missional presence. Sure that, whatever it looks like practically, the mechanism is "beholding the glory of the Lord."

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