Discernment – Page 21 – Michelle Lesley

Welcome to another “potpourri” edition of The Mailbag, where I give short(er) answers to several questions rather than a long answer to one question.

I like to take the opportunity in these potpourri editions to let new readers know about my comments/e-mail/messages policy. I’m not able to respond individually to most e-mails and messages, so here are some helpful hints for getting your questions answered more quickly. Remember, the search bar (at the very bottom of each page) can be a helpful tool!

Or maybe I answered your question already? Check out my article The Mailbag: Top 10 FAQs to see if your question has been answered and to get some helpful resources.

I confessed and repented of a certain sin after I got saved, but my husband doesn’t know about it. Do I need to confess that sin to my husband in order to receive God’s blessings or be considered a Proverbs 31 wife? And should he also confess his past sins to me? By the way, my husband is a pastor.

What a beautiful heart you have – wanting to be clean before the Lord and wanting to please Him!

There might be a few very specific scenarios in which it would not be wise to bring up a past sin to your husband, but, generally speaking, in a Christian marriage yes, you should be able to talk to your husband about your past sins (and he should also be able to discuss his past sins with you). But not to get God’s blessings or to be a Proverbs 31 wife.

Marriage is about trust. In the same way that Christian husbands and wives should trust each other enough to feel comfortable being physically naked around one another, we should also trust each other enough to feel comfortable “baring it all” when it comes to our past sins.

It sounds like this is a sin you simply haven’t told him about, but it should go without saying that you should not be lying to him about it or trying to cover it up. Those are direct sins against him, and if you’re doing that, you definitely need to confess and repent to him.

All of that being said, there can be more helpful / wise ways and times to talk to your husband about your past sin and less helpful / wise ways and times to talk to him about it, and you may want to get some help figuring that out from someone who can be more objective about it than you can.

Normally, I would suggest setting up an appointment with your pastor to get some pastoral counsel about it, but since your husband is your pastor, I would suggest locating an ACBC certified Biblical Counselor (not the same thing as a “Christian counselor/therapist”) who is not a member of your church (you don’t want your husband to be embarrassed or make it difficult for the counselor to sit under her pastor’s leadership) and set up an appointment.

Some denominations offer counseling services to pastors and their families, so you may want to contact your denominational leadership to find out about that. (I’m not sure what to tell you about other denominations, but if you’re Southern Baptist, contact your local SBC association or state convention.)

Hello! I found your website while trying to see if a Christian singer was a false teacher. I started reading over your beliefs to make sure that you weren’t a false teacher (I don’t mean that in a rude way, it’s just that I have to be really careful especially since I am only a teenager). I agree with everything except Calvinism. I was just wondering if our beliefs would still align enough to where your positions on whether or not people are false teachers would align with my beliefs. I can always ask my parents afterwards, but I just wanted to know basically if you talk about or reference Calvinist beliefs a lot. Thank you!

Wow. Just, WOW. Honey, your parents must be so proud of you. I know I would be if you were my daughter. I am thrilled – hear me: THRILLED – that you checked me out to make sure I’m not a false teacher before reading my stuff. Do you know how many adults don’t do that before following people? Most of them. I wish I had been as discerning as you are when I was your age.

Calvinism is not a factor when I sit down to evaluate whether or not someone is a false teacher, so that isn’t something you would need to worry about. In fact, there are some people on both my Popular False Teachers page and on my Recommended Bible Teachers page about whom I have no idea whether or not they’re Calvinists. There are even Calvinists I recommend against (such as Matt Chandler), or decline to proactively recommend (such as John Piper). I will say this, though – and, understand, this is a very general statement – having studied dozens of teachers, I find that those who adhere to Calvinism / Reformed theology are less likely, on the whole, to be false teachers than non-Calvinists.

I guess it depends on what you mean by talking about or referencing Calvinism “a lot”. From my perspective, I hardly ever mention it directly, but I’m sure it does come across indirectly in some of the terminology I use and the way I handle Scripture.

This is kind of humorous, but, probably about once a month or so, I get a message or an email from somebody saying, “Why don’t you talk about the false teaching of Calvinism?” or “I see you recommend John MacArthur. Don’t you know he’s one of those [gasp!] Calvinists?”. So I guess I’m not exactly beating people over the head with it if they didn’t know and I have to tell them straight out, “Yeah, I’m a Calvinist, too.”

I don’t know, I’m probably not the most objective person to answer this question. Let’s turn it over to my regular readers and you can see what they have to say in the comments section.

Readers – do you think I talk about
Calvinism “a lot” on the blog?

Answer in the comments, and help out this charming and discerning young lady.

Could you tell me where Scripture teaches “fake it till you make it” ?

“fake it ’til you make it”. A phrase easier said than done. But where stands it written? I would say this is not true. Michelle I trust your wisdom and knowledge, but this phrase…not so much. I asked sarcastically where I could find it in Scripture knowing it’s not written. I was hoping to have a response to my previous email, but no reply as yet. God’s word is based on truth not feelings. Trusting feelings when it comes to “fake it ’til you make it” I find is not sound wisdom. Allowing the Holy Spirit to change me is trusting in Him not myself…whether it’s fear or feelings.

These two comments (from the same commenter) were left on my article Fear Not: 9 Biblical Ways to Trade Worry for Trust regarding the phrase “fake it til you make it” in this paragraph:

Those worries may start creeping in, but you don’t have to set the table and turn down the bed for them. Push them right out of your mind, slam the door behind them, and say (out loud is helpful), “No. I’m not going to worry. I’m going to trust the Lord.” You’ll still feel worried at first, but “fake it ’til you make it.” Your feelings will eventually follow.

I’d like to address two issues regarding these comments, first the commenter’s attitude, then the content.

Attitude: First, I did not receive an email from you about this, so I can only assume “email” in your second comment actually refers to your first comment. However, if you had sent me an email, you would have to have obtained my email address here, where I clearly state (in bold type, no less):

“I regret I am unable to answer most e-mails
unrelated to speaking engagements…”

So if you had emailed me, you shouldn’t have expected a reply at all, much less on your timetable.

Since you commented, you should have read – in large font directly above the comment box:

“Before commenting please see the ‘Welcome’ tab in the blue menu bar at the top of this page. Comments are handled manually, so there will be a delay before approved comments are posted.”

So, a) you should have expected some sort of delay, and b) if you had clicked on the Welcome tab as instructed, you would have seen this:

The “Please click here…” hyperlink goes to an article further explaining my email and comments policy and why emails and many comments usually go unanswered. I have bent over backwards to make it clear to my readers that I can’t answer most correspondence and why, even though I really wish I could.

Furthermore, you sent your first comment three weeks ago and your second comment a week later. To give you a little perspective, the first question I answered in this article was sent in almost a year ago. The second one, a month ago. Some people don’t get their questions answered for months. Others never get their questions answered, because I simply don’t have enough hours in the day to get to everyone’s questions. I hate that, but that’s just the way it has to be.

Not realizing your initial question was sarcastic, I had saved it in order to answer it in a Mailbag article, but I’ll be honest, when I got your second comment, my gut level reaction was to just delete both of them. Being impatient, demanding, and snarky when you’re asking someone else to do something for you (i.e. answer your question) is neither becoming of a Christian nor very effective.

But since I had already decided to address the content of your question, I decided to go ahead and do that and also add the part about your attitude as a teaching moment for you and anyone else to whom it might apply.

Content: I thought most people in my audience would be familiar with the phrase “fake it til you make it” (and, indeed, in the four times this article has run on my blog, you’re the only one who has commented objecting to it), but I can see where it might not be the clearest wording in the world, especially for people who aren’t familiar with the common usage of the phrase.

No one who has read the entire article could surmise that I was saying that “God’s word is based on feelings,” or that I was saying people should “[Trust] feelings when it comes to ‘fake it ’til you make it’”. (I’m not really even sure what that means since the theme of that paragraph, that section, and the entire article is that we should not trust or be controlled by our feelings.)

“You’ll still feel worried at first, but ‘fake it ’til you make it.’ Your feelings will eventually follow,” simply means that we should obey Scripture (in this case the Scriptures that tell us to trust God) regardless of how we feel about it and trust God to eventually line our feelings up with His Word. I thought that was clear from the context, but if it was not, I sincerely apologize. I have added a footnote to the article with this explanation in case it’s unclear to any other readers.

UPDATE (9/8/21)

I received what I thought was a very gracious response from this reader. With her permission, I share it here:

Dear Michelle,

“fake it ‘til you make it”…here…

I ask your forgiveness. I had no intention of appearing impatient, nor demanding, nor snarky. Thank you for your very frank response and clarifying your answer to my question.

I am grateful for the knowledge and wisdom God has given you. My question was sincere as were my comments. And again I’m sorry if you took them as you did, as I had no intention to raise your ire in responding. I did indeed read the “welcome”, and again didn’t expect a response from your busy schedule and many emails you receive.

My heart was to speak as one sister to another. I have been told this phrase before. Words have consequences, and quite honestly for me, as I filter words and phrases through God’s Word, I am reminded to speak truth in love, not snarky, or demanding. We can all learn to be effective in our walk with the Lord by not jumping to conclusions that are incorrect, being teachable and gracious.

Blessings on you and your ministry.

If you have a question about: a Bible passage, an aspect of theology, a current issue in Christianity, or how to biblically handle a family, life, or church situation, comment below (I’ll hold all questions in queue {unpublished} for a future edition of The Mailbag) or send me an e-mail or private message. If your question is chosen for publication, your anonymity will be protected.

Podcast Appearances

Interview with Doreen Virtue on Beth Moore

August 13, 2021August 11, 2021 Michelle Lesley

It was such a pleasure to once again appear on my friend Doreen Virtue’s videocast. We had a warm time of fellowship around the Word discussing Beth Moore, false doctrine, the sufficiency of Scripture, the role of women in the church, and more.

I encourage you to check out Doreen’s website, and follow her on social media. Doreen is most active on Instagram, but you can also catch her on Facebook. Be sure to subscribe to Doreen’s YouTube channel so you won’t miss any of her videos. I also highly recommend Doreen’s book, Deceived No More.

Articles / resources mentioned or touched on in the videocast:

Basic Training: The Bible Is Sufficient

Living Proof You Should Follow Beth (No) Moore

Rock Your Role: Jill in the Pulpit

The Mailbag: Counter Arguments to Egalitarianism

Rock Your Role: Oh No She Di-int! Priscilla Didn’t Preach, Deborah Didn’t Dominate, and Esther Wasn’t an Egalitarian

Rock Your Role FAQs

A Word Fitly Spoken Podcast

The Mailbag (This isn’t a newsletter, but a weekly {Mondays} blog article.)

Recommended Bible Teachers

Bible Studies

Speaking Engagements

Got a podcast of your own or have a podcasting friend who needs a guest? Need a speaker for a women’s conference or church event? Click the Speaking Engagements tab in the blue menu bar at the top of this page, drop me an e-mail, and let’s chat!

Speaking Engagements

Report Back: Staying on the Path Conference

August 10, 2021August 10, 2021 Michelle Lesley

I had such a wonderful time of fellowship and teaching recently with the ladies of Providence Baptist Church in Opelika, Alabama, and their guests from the surrounding area, at the Staying on the Path in a World of Compromise women’s conference.

PBC was the staging area for disaster relief operations following the devastating tornado in the area in March of 2019. A beautiful memorial to the victims has been erected on the church grounds.

Providence’s WOVEN (Women Of the Vine Encouraging and Nurturing) women’s ministry put on a fantastic conference.

Everything was so nice and no detail was left unattended…

Here are some of the charming ladies who attended the conference…

I had the pleasure of teaching three sessions, God’s Word, Our Foundation – on the necessity, authority, and sufficiency of Scripture, Discernment 101 – an introduction to discerning false doctrine and false teachers, and a great Q&A session where these ladies asked some really smart questions! (Sorry, no audio of the conference sessions at this time.)

Hostess bags are never necessary for a speaker, but I’m always so humbled and grateful to receive a special treat like this, especially after a long, tiring day of traveling. Although the contents are appreciated, the gesture of hospitality and caring is so precious and meaningful to me. I’m not especially gifted in that area, and I so admire sisters in Christ who are.

April, WOVEN’s director, machine embroidered the bag (notice the monogram
on the bag is LSU purple and gold!) and the hand towel herself. So pretty!

Many, many thanks to the conference organizers, especially April and Lynda, for taking such good care of me and making me feel so at home. It was a pleasure fellowshipping with them and with the ladies who attended the conference.

If your church or organization is ever in need of a speaker for a women’s event, I’d love to come share with your ladies as well. Click here for more information.

Photo Credits

Photos by others credited in captions

Remaining photos by Michelle Lesley

Discernment

Celebrate Recovery

June 25, 2021April 3, 2026 Michelle Lesley

If you are considering commenting or sending me an e-mail objecting to the fact that I warn against certain teachers or ministries, please click here and read this article first. Your objection is most likely answered here. I won’t be publishing comments or answering emails that are answered by this article.

This article is kept continuously updated as needed.

I get lots of questions about particular authors, pastors, Bible teachers, ministries, and evangelical fads and trends, and whether or not I recommend them. Some of the best known can be found in the blue menu bar at the top of this page at my Popular False Teachers tab. The ministry below is one I’ve been asked about recently, so I’ve done a quick check (this is brief research, not exhaustive) on it.

Below are the biblical criteria I use when deciding whether or not to recommend a teacher, ministry, etc.

Generally speaking, in order for me to recommend a teacher, speaker, author, or ministry, he/she/it has to meet three criteria:

a) A female teacher cannot currently and unrepentantly preach to or teach men in violation of 1 Timothy 2:12. A male teacher or pastor cannot allow women to carry out this violation of Scripture in his ministry. The pastor or teacher cannot currently and unrepentantly be living in any other sin (for example, cohabiting with her boyfriend or living as a homosexual). A ministry or trend cannot allow or encourage any of these things.

b) The pastor, teacher, ministry, or trend cannot currently and unrepentantly be partnering with, yoked to, or frequently appearing with false teachers. This is a violation of Scripture.

c) The pastor, teacher, or ministry cannot currently and unrepentantly be teaching false doctrine.

I recommend against any teacher, ministry, or evangelical trend that violates one or more of these biblical tenets.

If you’d like to check out some pastors and teachers I heartily recommend, click the Recommended Bible Teachers tab in the blue menu bar at the top of this page.

Celebrate Recovery
Not Recommended

Celebrate Recovery (CR) was created by John Baker, a member of false teacher Rick Warren’s Saddleback “Church”. It was “born out of the heart of Saddleback Church” with Rick’s approval and under his oversight, and, as you might expect, is fraught with unbiblical issues at nearly every turn. In the U.S. and abroad, over 35,000 churches and many secular organizations and businesses now offer Celebrate Recovery programs, and over 5 million people have completed CRs “Step Study” program.

CR is open to professing Christians as well as the lost (in the CR program at Saddleback, non-Christians make up over 70% of CR participants – see below), and is modeled after secular 12 step programs (ex: Alcoholics Anonymous). Adapting worldly means and methods for use in the church (though characteristic of Saddleback) is not biblical. The biblical means for helping a lost person deal with addiction is to call him to repent and believe the gospel, and, if he gets saved, disciple him in obedience to God’s Word. The biblical means for helping a saved person who is committing the sin of drunkenness is to follow the steps of church discipline (beginning with a one on one call to repentance and restoration) commanded in Matthew 18, and if he repents, disciple him in obedience to God’s Word.

That CR adapts worldly means and methods is abundantly evident below in the video introduction to CR (found on the CR website’s What is Celebrate Recovery? page):

Notice Johnny Baker (son of founder John Baker) and his wife Jeni start with the typical AA introduction: Johnny: “Hi, I’m Johnny and (rather than “and I’m an alcoholic”) I struggle with…” Jeni: “Hi Johnny!”.
Rather than finding their identity in Christ who has graciously saved them out of their sin, they identity themselves by their pet sins and/or problems. This teaches people to see themselves (and presents them to others) as helpless and non-responsible victims rather than victors through Christ.
The terms they use to identify themselves are secular and psychologized (“addiction” “co-dependency” “adult child of family dysfunction”) rather than biblical (the sin of drunkenness, fear/idolatry of man, and sinful family relationships, bitterness, unforgiveness, or whatever “adult child of family dysfunction” actually means. Jeni defines this term at the 5:30 mark as growing up in a “dysfunctional family that caused hurt in your life…which I think we pretty much all have.” That definition doesn’t do much to clear things up).
In the caption “PastorS of Celebrate Recovery” there are two biblical issues: First, Celebrate Recovery is not a church, it’s a parachurch ministry (if it’s functioning as a church, that brings us to three biblical issues with this caption). Biblically, only churches have pastors. If what is meant by “pastors” is that they are “directors” of CR divisions (as the CR website’s Our Team page says) then that is what the caption should say rather than adulterating a biblical term which has a specific meaning.

Second, Scripture expressly forbids women from serving as pastors.

And all of that is in the first nine seconds of this 21 minute video.

Another issue made plain in the video is that Celebrate Recovery teaches a false gospel:

At 3:24ff, speaking to lost people, Johnny gives an incomplete (and partially false) presentation of the gospel as a means of differentiating secular recovery programs from CR. Notice the number of times he says “We believe…” instead of “the Bible says…” or simply stating the terms of the gospel as irrefutable fact. This leaves room for lost people to infer, “These are their beliefs, but they don’t have to be mine.”

The facts Johnny states about Jesus’ life and that He sent the Holy Spirit are technically correct, but what’s missing? Repentance and faith. No mention is made of personal repentance of sin or placing one’s faith in Christ – as the Bible defines it – anywhere in this video. In this particular segment, Johnny skips directly from “Jesus died as a sacrifice for our sin, rose again, and lives now,” to “He sent the Holy Spirit to live inside of us.” That is a false gospel. The indwelling Holy Spirit is a sign, seal, and guarantee of our salvation, and salvation does not take place without the repentance of sin and placing one’s faith in Christ.

Johnny goes on to say that “that [the indwelling Holy Spirit] is what gives us the power to find healing from our hurts, hang-ups, and habits”. But the lost people he’s talking to do not have the indwelling Holy Spirit to help them because they’re still lost, because CR’s “gospel” doesn’t call them to repent and believe.

Further evidence of CR’s false gospel can be found near the end of the video. At 20:11ff, Johnny quotes Romans 3:23, and then proceeds to define sin as “mistakes”. That’s unbiblical. A “mistake” is accidentally calling your son by your daughter’s name, or taking the wrong exit off the interstate, or forgetting to carry the one. Mistakes are, by definition, unintentional and usually morally neutral. Sin is always immoral and frequently intentional. We are born with a sinful nature, but we also choose to sin.

Johnny further describes sin as “hurting other people” and “other people hurting us,” and that’s partially true, but that’s where he stops. Again, this is unbiblical. Sin is primarily rebellion against God. God taught us this way back in Psalm 51 where David, repenting of his sin with Bathsheba said, “Against You [God], You only, have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight.” God is the first, last, and ultimate object of our sin.

You’ll probably also notice that even though Johnny uses the word “sin” a few times, he never speaks in biblical terms about everyone’s need to repent of their sin. Rather the terminology he uses is “hurts, hang-ups, and habits” (instead of “sin”) and “healing from your hurts” (instead of “repentance”). This likely stems from the idea in secular recovery groups like AA that alcoholism is a “disease” you need to “heal” and “recover” from like the flu or the chicken pox.

This medical model of sin is completely unbiblical because it removes personal culpability and responsibility for sin, i.e. you can’t help “catching” alcoholism (the sin of drunkenness) any more than you can help catching the flu. Nowhere does Scripture suggest that we need to “heal” and “recover” from sin. Jesus commands us to repent.

Sin is breaking God’s law and rebelling against the holy God of the universe. That’s not the same thing as a “mistake” or “hurting/being hurt by others” or “hurts, hang-ups, and habits”. And we don’t need to “heal” from our sin, we need to repent of it, forsake it, and mortify it.

Finally, Johnny (probably not even realizing he’s doing so) substitutes CR for the biblical gospel. Follow what he’s saying:

All have sinned >> sin = mistakes/hurting others/others hurting us >> we’ve all made mistakes/hurt others/others have hurt us >> “that means all of us qualify for Celebrate Recovery”

Whereas the Bible says:

All have sinned >> sin = rebellion against God >>
we all qualify for the gospel

Celebrate Recovery is not the gospel, nor a substitute for the gospel, for drunkards or drug addicts or anyone else. The gospel is the gospel. And the gospel is what we all need.

Another dangerous and unbiblical component of this concept of “sin is hurting others” is that the CR “gospel” conflates sinning against others with being sinned against under the banner of “hurts”. There is an enormous difference between a man getting drunk and beating his wife half to death and a wife who has been beaten half to death by her drunkard husband.

The Bible puts those two people in two different categories and addresses them discretely and justly. The man has sinned. The wife has been sinned against. The man needs to be brought to justice and repent. The wife needs to be cared for, helped to heal, and ultimately, to forgive.

CR throws both the husband and the wife into the same category because it doesn’t have a biblical definition of sin. The husband needs to “heal” and “recover” from his “addiction” and whatever “hurts” led him to “hurt someone else”. The wife needs to “heal” from being hurt by someone else. Treating the one who sinned and the one sinned against as though they’re the same by placing them in the same “recovery” program is damaging to both because it teaches the sinner he’s not responsible for his actions and has no need to repent, and it teaches the one sinned against that she’s no different from the one who sinned against her.

Now let’s take a look at some of the unbiblical 8 Principles and 12 Steps of the Celebrate Recovery program:

It’s a little confusing as to why CR has both 12 Steps and 8 Principles of recovery, but if I’m understanding it correctly, CR’s 12 Steps are designed to be sort of a bridge to assimilate people already familiar with the 12 steps of secular recovery groups (such as AA) into CR. CR’s 12 Steps are almost identical to the secular 12 steps. (The most noticeable difference is that the phrase “God, as we understand Him” has been changed to simply, “God”.)

The 8 Principles are CR’s own so-called “Christ centered” version of the secular 12 steps, supposedly based on the Beatitudes, and following the acrostic “R-E-C-O-V-E-R-Y”. But the ideas in the 8 Principles are very similar to the ideas in the secular 12 steps. So similar, in fact that each Principle is followed by a notation as to which of the 12 steps it corresponds to. For example, Principle 5 (“V” in the acrostic) corresponds to steps 6 and 7 of the secular 12 steps. And, although it should go without saying, the Beatitudes aren’t about hurts, addictions, or recovery.

So, on the macro-level, CR has taken a worldly philosophy and attempted to “Christianize” it slightly in order to appeal to the lost, which, again is typical of the way Saddleback – the original seeker driven “church” – tends to operate, and which, as I mentioned earlier, is unbiblical.

But what about the micro-level of the individual P rinciples?

Principle R¹, the first half of V, and E² aren’t bad. It would be better if CR actually cited and explained the Scriptures that teach these concepts and used biblical terminology, but overall these small snippets of the 8 principles are mostly aligned with Scripture. 2.5 principles. Out of 8.

Principle E¹ is problematic:

Earnestly believe that God exists, that I matter to Him and that He has the power to help me recover.

Believing that God exists, that you matter to Him, and that He’s powerful is not the same thing as being born again by repentance and faith in Christ. Not by a long shot. The Egyptians at the Red Sea believed in God’s existence and power. The prophets of Baal all believed in God’s existence and power (right before Elijah slaughtered them all). And they definitely mattered to God, just not in a good way.

The issue here is that the unbeliever is not indwelt and empowered by the Holy Spirit to resist and flee from sin. It’s not that God isn’t powerful, it’s that as an unbeliever you don’t have access to, or a right to that power.

Principle C is another big nope:

Consciously choose to commit all my life and will
to Christ’s care and control.

Biblically, there’s no such animal. As an unbeliever, you cannot just make a fleshly decision of the will to commit all of your life and will to Christ’s care and control. It cannot be done without repentance, faith, and regeneration in response to the biblical gospel.

Principle O:

Openly examine and confess my faults to myself,
to God, and to someone I trust.

Sins. “Sins” is the word you’re looking for, not faults. Faults are not equivalent to sins. “Confess your sins to one another,” is what the Bible says. And while confession is a good thing, it’s not the same thing as repentance. A murderer can confess his crime, but feel completely justified in having done it, and be perfectly willing to do it again if given the chance. Repentance is grieving from the heart that you have sinned against a holy God, wishing you had never done it, and striving never to do it again. Also, look who comes first here in this line of confession – not God, but self.

The second half of principle V…

Voluntarily submit to any and all changes God wants to make in my life and humbly ask Him to remove my character defects.

As I said above, the first half isn’t bad. The second half isn’t going to work for lost people because it doesn’t biblically identify their problem, which is sin, not “character defects”. And God is not going to remove their sin without repentance and faith in Christ. And if they’re trying to circumvent repentance, faith, and the biblical gospel in order to steal what they want from God, they’re not asking “humbly,” they’re asking pridefully.

Principle R² is great if you’re saved, since all Christians are supposed to be doing these things anyway…

Reserve a daily time with God for self-examination, Bible reading, and prayer in order to know God and His will for my life and to gain the power to follow His will.

But not so great if you’re in the majority of CR participants who are lost. “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned,” 1 Corinthians 2:14 (emphasis, mine) tells us. And a lost person cannot “gain the power to follow His will” without the indwelling Holy Spirit.

Principle Y takes us back into false gospel territory:

Yield myself to God to be used to bring this Good News to others,
both by my example and my words.

Hold the phone, Henrietta. “This Good News” – capital G, capital N? What “Good News”? The “Good News” of Celebrate Recovery? That is out and out heresy. (And God doesn’t “use” people to bring heresy to others except as a judgment against them.) The only capital G, capital N “Good News” is the Good News of the biblical gospel, which CR has repeatedly failed to present and instead has substituted its own false gospel which is devoid of sin, faith, and repentance.

A final point to consider, and not a minor one, is the fact that Celebrate Recovery is embraced by the world. Contrary to what the powers that be at CR think, that is not a good thing. From the History of Celebrate Recovery page on the CR website:

“Celebrate Recovery is the number one outreach ministry at Saddleback Church, with over 70 percent of its members now coming from outside the church….Celebrate Recovery is not just growing in churches, but in recovery houses, rescue missions, universities, and prisons around the world. New Mexico was the first state to adopt Celebrate Recovery into its state prison system and now has Celebrate Recovery pods in all its state prisons. In August 2004, Celebrate Recovery was announced as California’s state-approved substance abuse program for prisons...We are part of a movement that God is blessing.”

God does not “bless” heresy and worldliness. And if we’re walking in obedience to Scripture and preaching and teaching the true biblical gospel the world will hate us, not love us. I’ll just let Scripture speak to those points:

If the world hates you, know that it has hated me [Jesus] before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. John 15:18-19

Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. 1 John 3:13

They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. 1 John 4:5

You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. James 4:4

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. Galatians 1:6-10

These findings barely scratch the surface of Celebrate Recovery’s means, methods, and philosophy, but I think Christians who value sound doctrine will agree that this information is more than sufficient to warn people away from this unbiblical “ministry”.

If you aren’t a Christian and you need help with any sort of addiction or other problem, let me give you step 1 of Jesus’ program for addressing that: Repent and believe the gospel. Once you’re saved (or if you’re already saved as you’re reading this), find a doctrinally sound church, make an appointment with your pastor, and ask him to point you to someone who can disciple you in obedience to God’s Word. (If you absolutely can’t find a doctrinally sound church in your area, you could seek out an ACBC certified biblical counselor.)

The question is not, “Does Celebrate Recovery ‘work’?”. That’s pragmatism. The question is, “Is Celebrate Recovery biblical?”. And the answer to that question is a resounding no. Celebrate Recovery’s very foundations are unbiblical, and Jesus stressed just how crucial biblical foundations are:

Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.
Matthew 7:24-27

Additional Resources

An Analysis of Celebrate Recovery Addictions Program at the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC)

I am not thoroughly familiar with the websites below. I do not endorse anything on these sites that deviates from Scripture or conflicts with my beliefs as outlined in the “Welcome” or “Statement of Faith” tabs in the blue menu bar at the top of this page.

A Way Which Seemeth Right at The Berean Call (This link is not a blanket endorsement of this blog or author, only this particular article.)

Celebrate Recovery (several articles, plus many more resources on secular/Christian recovery) at The Way R122 Ministries

Freedom that Lasts– Biblical alternative to AA and CR. Things can vary from group to group, so be sure to thoroughly vet your local group.

Share Your Testimony, Uncategorized

Testimony Tuesday: An Anonymous Sister’s Story

June 15, 2021June 15, 2021 Michelle Lesley

Anonymous’ Story

I certainly never expected that I would fall into the trap of false teaching. I was raised in a Christian home with loving parents who took me to church, taught me Christian values, and even sacrificed to send me to a Christian school where I learned the Bible and practiced spiritual disciplines daily. I made the decision to follow Christ for myself at age 15 and never really went through the rebellious teenager stage. I have memorized Scripture and would estimate that I know probably 75% of the events that take place in the Bible. I married a Christ-following man after college and have continued to seek after the Lord and attend Bible-believing churches in the years since we have been married. I would have told you that there was no way I could have fallen into deception as far as what the Bible taught! And I would have been very wrong. Let me briefly tell you our story of becoming parents.

I would have told you that there was no way I could have fallen into deception…

My husband and I felt God’s leading to start the process to become foster parents as fresh, young 26-year-olds who had never been in the role of “Mom and Dad” before. We had the willingness to parent kids from hard places, but very little experience.

As we embarked on the journey of being parents to our first little one, we realized that not only did we have an instant toddler, walking, talking, running…(away from us in parking lots), we did not have the bonds that most parents and toddlers have who were biologically stitched together. We were getting a trial-by-fire introduction to parenting, and as most parents do, we needed some wisdom from those who had gone before us.

Through our church and social media pages, we kept hearing about taking classes which help parents raise kids who have come from traumatic situations. We signed up and took a class over the course of six weeks. The classes we attended and books we read were full of good ideas. They equipped us with different strategies to engage children of all ages to exercise self-control and practice calmness and thoughtfulness. The idea was that, over time, greater depths of discipline could be achieved as the child learned to operate inside a foundation built on trust and love for their parents- something that newborn babies all the way up to teenagers may not have experienced in their birth families.

The classes helped us understand brain physiology and develop empathy and compassion for what trauma and abuse can do to a person and how to be more patient in training our children who are in foster care. The classes in and of themselves were helpful and gave us some tools to address the behaviors and needs of our children that we hadn’t considered before.

Since we found the class to be helpful, I began to surround myself with other trauma-focused women through church, friendships, social media, podcasts, etc. I loved my life as a foster mom and was eager to glean wisdom from these older, wiser ladies that had a lot to say about raising children from traumatic situations. This is where the problems began.

These older, “wiser” women, all of whom attended Bible-believing churches, many of whom were even pastors’ wives, never said anything to me about the Bible, other than to tell me that this way of parenting aligned to the Gospel. They never pointed me to the Scriptures or encouraged me to hold my children accountable for their sin. They never reminded me that only God could heal my children from their past abuse. They only pointed me to the “religion” of trauma-based parenting and its ideologies.

They never pointed me to the Scriptures…

Admittedly, I even pushed my husband into these ideologies as we tried to bring a unified approach to parenting in this way, as was the case for most of the couples that I had contact with over the years who were also in these circles. These ideologies were not explicitly taught but were intrinsic to the conversations, the memes, and the discussions on podcasts, social media pages, and during Mom’s Coffee Night. Here are four of the most common ideas that I observed creeping into the minds and hearts of the women involved:

You aren’t modeling God’s love and grace if you are unyielding in your expectations for your child’s behavior.
Kids misbehave because of the trauma they have experienced, and if they could make a better choice, they would. Therefore they don’t because they physiologically can’t.
If you don’t subscribe to and practice nearly everything produced by these parenting programs, you are not helping your child heal from their trauma (and might be making it worse).
You should identify your own “triggers” from childhood that might be causing you to take offense to your child’s wrong behaviors (you may never have known you had any triggers- getting counseling will “reveal” these to you.)

As you can see, these ideas are not without spiritual implications. What started out as the desire to teach and train my children in a way that is conducive to reshaping their past experiences, quickly morphed into an expected lifestyle. Those pushing these ideologies employ a worldview which blames the parents’ hidden character flaws for a child’s misbehavior, places the weight of mental and emotional healing on the parents’ discipline efforts, and absolves kids almost completely of their sin simply because of their circumstances in life.

Though my husband and I didn’t immerse ourselves fully in the practices that these “leaders” were pushing, as we continued to foster and eventually adopt, we regularly felt defeated in our attempts to parent the way we heard others in these circles were parenting. I tried to keep a mental checklist of what to do and what not to do based on the social media posts and heartfelt stories that I saw from those I thought were doing it “the right way.” I berated my husband when he didn’t handle something “right”, and beat myself up and felt like a terrible mother when I reverted back to the “less loving and gracious” way of parenting (which I did regularly).

Our kids didn’t seem to really care about any of the non-punitive consequences that we attempted to enforce, and actually responded better to the way we were told not to parent, though we felt guilty for reverting back into some of these tendencies. We weren’t seeing the results we wanted to and ultimately we felt powerless as parents.

Over the next couple of years, we started seeing that what we had considered to be resources, encouragement, and even discipleship were actually just lies. We unsubscribed from the social media, the podcasts, the church classes, etc. and ultimately unsubscribed our family from the ideologies making us weak, ineffective parents producing weak, excuse-filled children.

We have now been foster and adoptive parents for several years and have had over a dozen children in and out of our home, adopting several of them. Our children are very happy, healthy, and successful at home and school and love the Lord. My husband and I argue less about
the right way to handle something, we are more confident as parents, and we are able to delight in our kids instead of wondering if we’re worsening their trauma.

I am forever thankful to the faithfulness of God to eventually help us see that we had strayed from what He says is the right way to view misbehavior and the discipline of our children. Now, it is my mission to make sure that other moms, whether they are foster and adoptive moms or not, see parenting programs for what they can be: God-given resources to equip us to be godly parents, and what they are never to be: the indoctrination of a different worldview, seeing children as inherently sinless or as a product of their circumstances who want to do the right thing but can’t.

I am forever thankful to the faithfulness of God…

Let me be clear, the reason that I fell into this pattern of wrong thinking was not because I didn’t know that the Bible said anything raising children. It is because I subconsciously did not consider Scripture to be the only valuable resource out there and I mistakenly placed my trust in the advice of women who marketed themselves as Gospel-centered trauma experts. Turns out their approach was very light on the Gospel.

When I started to really believe that Scripture was solely sufficient for all issues in life, I understood that what I had been following were very covert lies. And I began to see everything outside of Scripture as either deception or a resource that is only useful if you are using it within the bounds of what God says in Scripture.

Ladies, if you haven’t recently read 2 Timothy 3, stop right now and go read it. In it, Paul has a lot to say about how people will think and behave in the last days. It warns women to not fall prey to people who “have the appearance of godliness, but deny its power.” It tells us to stay away from those who “creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.” Paul says that people who do this “will not get very far, for their foolishness will be plain to all.”

Second Timothy 3 also calls Christ-followers to “continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” It reminds us that “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

When we are vulnerable to believe anything that we see from leaders that claim to be Christians, without examining what they’re saying against the whole Word of God, we are these weak women. We want what is best for our children, but we are sinful because we are not trusting God with their healing or to guide us to appropriate discipline through the study of His Word and the knowledge He allows us to have through others who have gone before us.

Instead of taking useful strategies, thanking God, and applying them to what He has already told us to do, we are led astray by the leaders who have created entire movements based on a few good principles, turning instead to their social media pages, to their classes and teachings. We feel that we can never know enough about how to help our children because we do not believe that God’s system of discipline and instruction is sufficient. And as a result, our children are also carried away by excuses, in searching for what will make them whole. We have spent our lives looking for the solution to their trauma and as a result we have trained ourselves and our kids that God is not it.

In fact, God is the one who teaches us through His infallible Word that He is the solution for every circumstance that belies us. His Word is helpful for teaching and correcting our kids, for training our entire family in the way of righteousness, and to equip us for every good work, including raising our kids.

Our children can be complete by knowing God, knowing His Word and coming to salvation through Him. Any resources God brings to us from other humans, is simply that. A resource. Not a way of life. Not a worldview. Not a religion.

We have all we need in Christ.

Ladies, God is still at work in the hearts and lives of His people, including yours! Would you like to share a testimony of how God saved you, how He has blessed you, convicted you, taught you something from His Word, brought you out from under false doctrine, placed you in a good church or done something otherwise awesome in your life? Contact me, or comment below. Your testimony can be as brief as a few sentences or as long as 1500 words. Let’s encourage one another with God’s work in our lives!