Teen Challenge - November update

Gavin Sant - working with Teen Challenge Dorset

Working in the field of addiction can be tough, with so many setbacks with individuals, one step forwards three steps back, relapses and tragically even deaths. Understandably this can bring questions and doubts as to my calling in this work at times. But this is where the Good News of Jesus Christ is so very vital to anyone persevering in this work and even more vital to the men and women that are looking for a way out of the awful situations in which they are living. 

In many places in the bible, we are directed to put off the old self and put on the new.  This is something that resonates so loudly to those trapped in addiction - the idea that we can lose the wretched person that we find ourselves being and become a new version, one that is restored with healthy desires and outlooks, is like a dream beyond anyone’s reach.  

But this is what the word of God tells us so clearly - that there is an old self that was corrupt through deceitful desires, and that was spiritually dead in transgressions. In Romans we are told that our old self was crucified with Christ, so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, and we should no longer be slaves to sin. In Christ the old self has been decisively dealt with. 

Through faith in the crucified and risen Jesus, we can know full forgiveness that our past failures, shame, guilt, and old ways of life can be completely left behind, and learn to live in a new way, empowered by the Holy Spirit, to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. And that this process and eventual outcome is not ultimately down to us, for we are not our workmanship, but God’s own workmanship, (re)created in Christ Jesus.  What a mighty burden that lifts from off our shoulders when we truly realise that! 

Something else I love to share with the lads I’m supporting is that this journey of recovery they are on is not an exclusive thing to those in addiction; that all of us before coming to Jesus are in just as desperate a place spiritually, and although some lives might appear sorted, beneath the veneer of the comfortable western materialism lies an equal amount of corruption that is just as much a work of the old self as addiction. Pride, envy, slander, bitterness, lust, jealousy, anger, divisions…. etc. the list goes on.   All these things we battle with as we face the task of putting off the old self - so they should not feel that they are in anyway more sinful than anyone else in church, and the fact is that all of us when we come to Christ are on a journey of recovery… recovery from sin. 

So, as we see more folks with difficult and complex lives coming into our church building, let us remember we all have old ways the Lord expects us to do battle with, although not outwardly as deadly, but just as destructive spiritually and harmful to our relationship with God and others. And as we welcome these folks and get to share our lives with theirs, that we will see more clearly how real that battle is for all of us, and that they would find in the Church a loving family that is prepared to listen, understand, and support.  As we fight this good fight together, I believe we will all find that the body of Christ here will be all the richer for it.

Gavin