June 16, 2015 ISI Radio Show with Don Holder of Hebron Colony Christian Drug & Alcohol Rehab

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity on the planet Earth. Listening via live streaming, this is

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Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on the 16th day of June 2015, and I have been waiting to do this interview for a long time and I'm so glad that the

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Lord has finally given me the opportunity to conduct this interview. I've been waiting to do this interview since I entered through the doors of a drug and alcohol recovery ministry in Boone, North Carolina after suffering, experiencing a horrible backslidden state of my own after 18 years of sobriety as a born -again believer in Jesus Christ, falling back into the sin and enslavement of alcoholism.

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Thank God I discovered Hebron Colony Ministries in Boone, North Carolina, and today we are going to be discussing

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Hebron Colony and their sister ministry in Santee, South Carolina, Grace Home, and it is my genuine honor and privilege and delight to have for the very first time on Iron Sharpens Iron my dear old friend

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Don Holder, Executive Director of Hebron Colony Ministries and Grace Home. Thank you for being with us today,

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Don Holder. Yeah, thank you, Chris. It's a real honor for me to be here, brother. Yes, and I am obviously thrilled that you're here.

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First of all, tell our listeners something about what Hebron Colony and Grace Home are.

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Well, we are a cross -centered, faith -based drug and alcohol recovery center here.

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The men's facility is located in Boone, North Carolina, up in the mountains of the

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Blue Ridge, and our women's facility is down in Santee, South Carolina, which is about an hour north of Charleston, South Carolina, kind of in the,

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I guess, the low country plains of South Carolina, and that's where our women are located there since 2000.

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Yeah, I guess it was a very wise move to separate the men's facility and the women's facility far, far apart, wasn't it?

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You know, five hours is almost far enough. That's worked out real well.

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It's been a great blessing to us having both the properties and, you know, the ministries are certainly similar in their format, but obviously the ministry to women and men are totally different, so we realized that, and so it's allowed us to do it in the same way, but yet in a somewhat different way,

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I guess you would say. I want to announce immediately, in case during the course of an interview

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I might forget to announce it later, the website for Hebron Colony Ministries is hebroncolony .org,

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that's H -E -B -R -O -N colony dot O -R -G, and you'll also find out all the needed information about Grace Home, the sister ministry in Santee, South Carolina, and I want to also announce my email address for those of you listening who want to ask a question to our guest today,

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Don Holder, the Executive Director of Hebron Colony and Grace Home. My email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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chrisarnson at gmail .com, and this is a live broadcast, so if you would like a question answered by our guest, please, as soon as you can, send that email to us at chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N. Now, Hebron Colony is one of the oldest facilities of its kind still in operation in the

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United States, isn't it? Tell us something about the fascinating history behind this organization. Well, it did begin, it officially began in 1947, that was shortly after, you know, obviously the end of World War II, and it was born into the heart of a pastor who was at that time doing ministry in Charlotte, North Carolina, and he constantly seemed like, continually found himself ministering and dealing with men struggling with alcohol addiction, and he had a real passionate heart for them.

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He saw the hurt and the pain that it was causing, not only in their own life, but to everyone around them that loved them, and certainly began to pray about that, and as God does in His miraculous way,

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He begins to speak to us in personal ways to direct our lives, and out of that, he really sensed that God was, you know, directing him and pointing him in a very specific direction to begin to deal regularly in the lives of people struggling with addiction, and certainly in 1947, it was primarily, at that time, alcohol as its, you know, transitioned, certainly more in our experience, to drug abuse, at least in our experience, and of course we have many people that are still struggling with just alcohol, but it is a dual addiction, it seems today, and, but, back to the history of it, he and his family began to pray about how

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God would direct them further, and on into what he felt like God was saying to him, and at that time, they had vacated on occasion up in the mountains of North Carolina, which is a beautiful, beautiful area.

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If you've never been here, I would encourage you to come, because it is certainly one of the most beautiful places in this part of the country, for sure, and so they remembered a really nice spot that they used to vacate near, that beautiful farm at the base of Grandfather Mountain, which is a pretty famous mountain here in western

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North Carolina. A lot of tourists come here to, you know, sightsee and camp and fish and do all those wonderful things that, you know, that we all love to do, and so out of that, he inquired about that one little farm that he remembered there, and really through God's miraculous movement, that farm became available, and he started involving some other

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Christian people in the prayer time, and so out of the heart of several people coming together, funds were provided in order to purchase a small farm.

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At that time, it was probably 10 to 12 acres, if I remember correctly, and, you know, an 18 -room farmhouse, and so God began to put all that together, and then they made the move one day.

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They gathered their family together, made the trek from Charlotte, North Carolina to Boone, which would probably have been about a three -hour trip at that time or longer.

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Today, it's quicker, but the road systems weren't quite as good at that time, and they made their way here and brought five men with them, struggling with what they understood to be alcohol addiction in their life, and Hebron County Ministries was birthed basically that way, and it, you know, began to show dividends, and it was completely cross -centered at the time, and it still is.

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It is truly based upon a personal journey of faith with Jesus Christ, and owning in your life

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His purpose call on what He has designed for you, and that began the ministry of Hebron Colony for men, and then it was a little bit further down down the road, 1953, about a mile and a half up a small gravel road here where the men's facilities located, a three -story beautiful farm -style home was built, erected by, you know, volunteer labor and different people been involved, and in 1953,

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Grace Home for Women began, and so there was some joint ministry that took place among the pastor and a few helpers at that time, and then, of course, it is 68 years later, and now it is a full -blown ministry that sees about 300 people a year from all walks of life, from all over the

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United States, and even this past year we had some students we call the people that come here because we are teaching and training them in the principles of God's Word, and we had,

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I think, three men this past year that came here from outside the United States to be a part of this 10 -week program, and so Hebron Colony Grace Home continues to go forward in the name of Christ today.

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Amen, and to show you how Romans 828 is still a reality just as much today as it was when

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Paul penned it, that all things work together for the good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose, this is actually a part of the birthing of Hebron Colony was the fact that the founder,

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Reverend E .A. Dillard, who was a Presbyterian pastor in Charlotte during what is known as the fundamentalist modernist controversy, he wanted to remove his congregation out of the liberal denomination that it was in, the denomination that became liberal, and when they refused, he left

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Charlotte, as I understand, to found Hebron, so there you have something horrible happening and then turning into something beautiful and wonderful and something that is serving a great purpose, a vital purpose in this very day and age still today.

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Yeah, that's absolutely a true story. He was committed to the complete inerrancy of Scripture and believing truly that all

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Scripture is God -breathed, and he stood firmly upon that, and made a stand and certainly has founded a very solid biblical foundation for all of us to come behind and continue to lay, and so that's a great part of the history for sure,

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Chris. And when I was there as a student at Hebron, if I'm not mistaken,

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I believe the curriculum that you were using was still the curriculum that Reverend Dillard had created. Is it still today?

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Yeah, it's had some addition to it that expands it in some ways.

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It was at one time an eight -week program, and now it's a ten -week program, and that basically just expanded out of the basic ten principles that the ministry is founded upon, and the basic doctrines of really foundational

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Christianity, and so that's really what we lay. We really don't mess with denominational issues.

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We deal totally with biblical issues, and that does bring up denomination at times in the hearts of people, but that's okay too.

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That's a part of life and a part of some of the doctrinal differences that may arise on occasion, but we don't let that bog us down in any way.

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We continue to go forward what we believe to be really just a biblical track, and that is absolutely the curriculum that Reverend Dillard laid down, and there's been other directors following him that have been absolutely faithful to that same journey.

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Now, do you accept any governmental financial aid? Because one of the things that I found to be one of the attractive elements of Hebron Colony is that you were strictly a biblical and unashamedly

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Christian and unwaveringly Christian organization, and many times when the government gets their hands into things, they have to bend things a little bit or a lot, usually a lot, and it winds up turning from a

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Christian organization to a very secularized one. How does Hebron Colony remain in existence?

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Well, we certainly don't. We do not take any funding from any governmental agency of any kind, state, federal, local, and we just really believe that God is the one that birthed this ministry, and certainly we all live off the biblical principle that he says, seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

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All of these things will be added unto you. If you go back and look at the scriptures leading up to Matthew 633, it's talking about the things that we need for our life, and certainly we believe that for this ministry, the things that we need for the life of this ministry, we are totally convinced that God will provide it with only his hand attached to it, and it won't have the strings of bureaucracy or, you know, man's philosophies or all of that connected to it, and as you well know,

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Chris, as you've already mentioned, it becomes real easy to get distracted by the desires and will of man in any kind of a situation, and we have never taken any kind of funding from, you know, those kinds of places.

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God provides through many different avenues that are totally connected to his people, and it's, you know, certainly through church budgets, we have some incredibly faithful churches that, of all denominations, all solid

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Christian evangelical denominations that really believe in the ministry of Hebron Colony and Grace Home, and they've been on board with us for many years, and we bring new people on all the time, that all you have to do is visit here one time on this property, and you will sense why people are involved, because God owns the place.

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He certainly has full reign and full authority over what takes place here, and you can sense that,

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Chris. You've been here yourself, you know you can sense that when you get here. It's obvious that God has the authority in the place, and so it's easy to get pastors encouraged and involved, and then they go back to their churches and encourage the people to be a part of it, and so through mission budgets, we get a lot of great prayer support and financial support, and certainly individual believers that have been blessed with finances, which, you know, are part of our life.

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They invest in what God is doing here, and it costs us about,

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I mean, we have a budget, an annual budget of about 1 .2

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million, and like I said, we see typically around 300 people a year, which, if you break that down, that's about $4 ,000 per investment per individual for a 10 -week in -house stay at either here or Grace Home, which is really peanuts to some of the secular 28 -day programs or other facilities that are out there, and so it is,

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I think we are absolutely good stewards of what God gives us in that, and I mentioned churches as part of the individuals.

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We also get incredible input back from our graduates that have come through the program through the years that are faithful to invest in other men and women that come here.

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We, about 12, 14, I guess 14 years ago now, we began a thrift store ministry locally here in the

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Boone area. One is just across the line in a little small town in Tennessee, in the state of Tennessee.

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It's 30 minutes from the ministry. We're right at the corner of North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.

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It's kind of where we're located up in North Carolina, and so just across the line in Tennessee, we have a wonderful thrift store, and then we have just an outstanding second -hand thrift store here in Boone in town that we operate, and out of that, we generate a great deal of finances in order to invest back into the ministry in order to touch people.

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Let me repeat your website again, HebronColony .org. This is a really worthy charity for you as an individual who are listening or for your church to financially support.

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One of the reasons I specifically chose Hebron was not only its

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Christ -centeredness, but the fact that when I entered into the program of Hebron Colony, I was financially destitute.

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Alcohol had really destroyed a lot of my life, including my work ethic and so on, and thankfully

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Hebron Colony was free to enter into the program, other than at the time it was a $300 refundable deposit for pharmaceutical and medical needs should they arise.

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Has anything changed in that regard? Oh, that's still true. It's still $300, and any unused portion of that we offer back to the individual, and so we're grateful to say that that's still true.

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And I want you to send my personal regards to Pastor Larry Young at Brookside Presbyterian Church there in Boone, who was a

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God -sent to me also. It was great to form a friendship with him, and I really valued his visits to me while I was there in Hebron.

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I was one of about three Yankees up there, surrounded by rednecks and all kinds of folks.

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There were two other Yankees down there, but I don't even know if I would consider them being a

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New Yorker, native New Yorker. I don't know if I could consider Ohio boys real Yankees. They're closer than South Carolina boys.

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And there were all different kinds of accents that I had to get used to, and almost needed a translation dictionary from rebel to Yankee.

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But I developed some wonderful friendships, still remain in touch with a couple of the guys from down there, and I hope to rediscover some of them through this radio program, because I unfortunately have lost some of their contact information, and I would love to start dialoguing with them again.

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I don't know how accurate you can be as far as statistics, but do you have any in regard to a quote -unquote success rate in regard to people who have remained sober and off drugs after leaving

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Hebron and Grayson? Chris, we went back, it's really been a few years ago now since we've done any kind of,

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I guess, poll of former graduates, and we went back and did some pretty serious phone interviews with people that had been in the program within the last three years, and we found that at that time it was about 48 percent, you know, just a little under 50 percent of the individuals who came here.

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And Chris, I think you made a great attempt at just expressing in your own life how desperate addiction puts people, what kind of lifestyle it puts them in.

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This robs them of everything going on in their life, and so we're talking about total recovery here.

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We're talking about, you know, reconnection with family. We're talking about actively involved in church life, not just living in sobriety.

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That is, we've got a higher goal than sobriety. As wonderful as that can be in someone's life that's been living in addiction, we have a higher goal than that.

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We really believe that God, as He very clearly says in His Word, that God has predestined us to be conformed into the image of His Son, and I am convinced that that is one of the highest goals that God has for anyone, is to live within Christ.

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And when I'm talking about going back and looking at these people's lives, we're looking at, I'm talking about the statistics that I'm speaking of, are people that are truly living in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, free of those things that once had abound in.

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You know, our foundational verse, Chris, is, as you know, is 2

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Corinthians 5 17, and for you that may not know that right off the top of your head, it is, anyone who is in Christ is a new creation.

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Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.

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And that is really, you know, that's really our goal. That's really what we are aiming for in the lives of anyone that comes here to Hebron Colony of Grace on, is certainly they have to deal with their own, you know, personal sins.

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And you know, what's amazing, Chris, I don't want to totally get off of the subject of, you know, the success, but to me, we really believe that it is a hundred percent successful when you come to Hebron Colony, simply because you get the privilege of God's Word being invested in your life for a serious diet for ten weeks.

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And what God says very clearly, that His Word will not return void, but it will accomplish what

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He sent forth for it to accomplish. And if we will stay faithful to investing that Word into people's lives,

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I mean, that is success. It is, you know, but many, many, many, many women through the years have been gloriously delivered from their incredible, devastating lifestyle and are now living in total freedom in Jesus Christ.

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And you know, I can tell you that that is an honor to our Savior, no question. Amen. Before we go to a break, let me repeat the email address to send in questions, chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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chrisarnson at gmail .com. We do have an anonymous question that asks that,

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I know that you are a Christian and Bible -based facility, but can those who are either non -believers, atheists, or members of other religions be students at Hebron Colony?

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And I can personally attest to the fact when I was there that there were a number of men there that were not genuine repentant believers.

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So how would you answer that question, Don? Oh, without question. You know, we, another thing that we are saying to anyone that comes here, we have the curriculum.

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The curriculum that we use is found in the scriptures that Jehovah God gave us, and it is a cross -centered curriculum.

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We welcome everyone and anyone that is willing to come and receive that teaching, and we have, look,

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I'll give you another statistic, Chris. We did go back, oh, let's see, we went back 10 years.

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This happened about two years ago. We went back and we looked through some statistics that go back 10 years, and if you remember,

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Chris, the week of your graduation week, which would be the 10th week, going in, you know, to your

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Saturday night graduation event, which we have every Saturday night, there are about three places that you get to indicate what kind of decision for Jesus Christ that you made while you were here, and you get to sign that and date that, and it is, and out of those statistics, one of them is, you know, a recommitment, if you will, to Jesus Christ.

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That someone came here already as a believer, and while they were here, they realized how off track they had become in their journey with Christ.

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Not just that they were drinking or drugging, but everything about their life had really lost its purpose, and so they made a recommitment to Jesus Christ.

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Well, the past 10 years, this was two years ago that we went back 10 years, about over 2 ,000 men and women together had made a recommitment to Jesus Christ, but what was really staggering to us was that during that period, over 750 men and women had made first -time commitments to Jesus Christ while being here.

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I can answer the question by that way. There were 750 people that were non -believers when they came here, but they left here born -again believers.

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Amen. We have to break right there. We'll be right back after these messages. If you have a question for Don Holder, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back with Don Holder, Executive Director of Hebron Colony Ministries in Boone, North Carolina, and Grace Home in Santee, South Carolina.

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Welcome back, this is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned in to Iron Sharpens Iron, our guest today is

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Don Holder, Executive Director of Hebron Colony Ministries in Boone, North Carolina and Grace Home in Santee, South Carolina, which are

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Christian drug and alcohol recovery ministries. The first for men and the latter for women and our email address is

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ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. If you have a question for our guest, ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

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We have a question from Tom in West Islip, New York and he says, before I ask my question

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I would like to extend a huge thank to you for being the hands and feet of Christ in this world.

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Over the last year I have come to greatly appreciate and understand the challenges and the challenges that organizations such as Hebron are up against.

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I've seen the dedication and love of those serving in hope of saving persons at risk who are in many cases one step away from death.

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I am humbled beyond words for if it weren't for Christ's saving grace through organizations such as yours, my daughter would likely not be here today.

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So again, thank you and God bless. As for my question, as alluded to in my preamble, my daughter is currently a student at Teen Challenge.

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She has been there for about eight months and has about eight to ten months to go before graduating, God willing.

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Her addiction before entering was severe. She was literally minutes from death.

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My wife and I have been praying unceasingly for her recovery in addition to attending Families Anonymous to better understand how to live with an addict.

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Although we attempt to keep in the day and leave the tomorrows to our

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Lord, we can't help but think about when she will one day rejoin the mainstream world.

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It is a reality we need to prepare for but don't necessarily look forward to at this time. Given the anxiousness surrounding such, what would you recommend to the families and to the recovering addicts to assist them in the challenges that lie ahead post -graduation?

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Are there any best practices or activities that you may be able to recommend?

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That is a really excellent group of questions there, Don, if you could. Yeah, Tom, thank you for that great question and also for the encouragement too and certainly we'll be praying for your daughter.

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You know, that's a pretty common story every day we deal with families.

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The beauty of Hebrew Oncology and Grace Home is that, you know, we don't have a fence and we don't lock people down.

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We do welcome families here on the property to worship with us on the weekends and what begins to happen is families begin to see how critical family worship is together and certainly what we're talking about here at Hebron is a relationship with Jesus Christ who is obviously from Scripture very well defined as the head of the body of Christ in the world of church.

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There is no doubt that the best follow -up for any new born -again believer, new dedicated life, is to plug in their life into a local church where they can get the regular diet of God's Word, get the regular fellowship of other believers, find a special place where God can use them to plug in their special spiritual gift that God has given to every believer in order to serve one another and service, you know,

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Jesus the last lesson that he taught his disciples before being arrested and ultimately then shortly thereafter going to the cross was that he got down on his knees and he began to wash the disciples' feet and I'm convinced that the

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Christian life is not a lot of give me, give me, give me, but it's a lot of here you go,

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I give, I give. It's a lot of service and so I really believe that one of the first things that that you need to encourage your daughter to do is to begin to own in her own life what

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God has placed within her life. And that is a ministry.

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If Tom is still listening, I mentioned that our foundational verse is 2

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Corinthians 5 17. The following verses to 2

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Corinthians 5 17 says that we have been reconciled to God and what has happened because of that that we have been given now the word of reconciliation so that we now have been given the ministry of reconciliation.

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And it goes on in verse 20 to say that we are now ambassadors for Christ, which means that we speak on behalf of Christ.

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We speak on behalf of the kingdom of heaven. And so the absolute necessary lifestyle of a believer is to be an ambassador for Christ and his kingdom.

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And no better place than that can ever happen except surrounding yourself with the body of Christ to find support, resources, training, whatever else the church offers to go out into the world and become that vessel, you know, of honor for the

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Lord. And so I would, you know, encourage Tom, your family together to find a ministry that you could somehow plug into maybe as a ministry.

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I don't know exactly how old your daughter is, but what a beautiful thing to see families serving other families with the hope that God is placed within you.

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And, you know, and certainly there are cross -centered addiction groups that are connected to the church.

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You know, I'm not, I can tell you that I am thankful for a ministry that is all across the

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United States today. It's a Celebrate Recovery, is the ministry.

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Chris, you may be familiar with that. I've heard of it, but I don't know a lot about it. Well, there's, you know, they have a website that is a pretty extensive website, and it was, you know, it was formed and founded out of Rick Warren's church, and that's where it basically started from.

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And it's material, you can get material, and it's really a, to be probably very elementary on the description of it, it is a cross -centered 12 -step program.

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And certainly it is all the material in the curriculum and the whole format is that Celebrate Recovery defines who that great power is that we need to accomplish these things that God has for us.

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And so there's, you can go online in the area wherever you live, and you'll find on their website the name of the meeting place, and it's typically always at some mission -minded church out there.

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You'll find the contact information, the name, the number, and the whole nine yards, and the meeting could be on, they may have the meeting two nights a week, one night a week, it varies, but, you know, we've recommended

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Celebrate Recovery to a lot of men and women that, you know, maybe do not have that real foundational church life yet, but they can at least connect with people that are looking to Christ for their hope and help in a similar kind of journey that they're on.

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And so that is one way to, you know, to be proactive in, you know, a further recovery, if you will.

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And so those are, you know, two suggestions that I would certainly give to Tom and his family.

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Of course, I'm sure you would agree that the developing of friendships with godly

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Christian people who are committed to local church membership is a very important factor, because continuing the life as you left, the life that you left before you went into rehab, and catching up with your old buddies immediately, or, you know, even fairly soon after leaving the recovery could be devastating and could be suicidal, couldn't it?

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Yeah, no question. You know, there may be a time that God will send you back to them, but I don't think it will be immediate.

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I do believe that every strong believer that we read about in Scripture, there was a preparation time for them before they were ever sent, and I think it's true in all of our lives, and certainly in a life of one that has already demonstrated a weakness for something.

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And, you know, it is, I think it's obviously that one of the great

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Scriptures that we base our Christian life on is Romans 12, 1 and 2.

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It says to, you know, to submit our bodies as a living sacrifice to God, and do not be conformed by this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

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And I think the greater part of that is that you have to change your thinking, but God is the one that does the changing, and you, as He changes your thinking,

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He changes your vision of things. And so you begin to think about things differently, you begin to see things differently, which results in a different kind of lifestyle.

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So it really is basically owning now God's purpose for your life instead of maybe your own purpose for your life and the world's purpose for your life.

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And so there's no question that godly friendship and, you know, a good environment is critical to a continued growth process in your life.

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By the way, Tom, our listener in West Islip, New York, says Vinnie in Massapequa says hello.

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So, and we, that's Massapequa, Long Island, New York. And we're gonna go to a break or final break right now, and before we go to the break,

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I want to read the question from another listener. It's actually a two -part question, and you could answer,

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Don, when we return after the break. And these are two excellent questions. Bill from Levittown, New York asks,

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I just wanted to know what are the differences between a state drug rehab and Christian -based rehab, and do you use the

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Bible or a 12 -step program? And we'll have you answer that or those questions when we return.

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This is our final break, so if you have a question, we're running out of time, so please email it right away to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

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That's ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. We'll be right back with Don Holder, Executive Director of Hebron Colony Ministries and Grace Home Christian Drug and Alcohol Recovery Ministries.

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Don't go away. We'll be right back. I'm James White of Alpha Omega Ministries.

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That's wrbc .us. Welcome back.

46:39

This is Chris Arnzen and this is our final quarter hour of Iron Sharpens Iron today and our guest is

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Don Holder, Executive Director of Hebron Colony Ministries in Boone, North Carolina and Grace Home in Santee, South Carolina, which are

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Christian drug and alcohol recovery ministries, the first for men and the second for women.

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And Don, if you could answer the two -part question of our listener Bill in Levittown, New York.

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Yeah, I think, Chris, you might want to remind me exactly. I didn't quite totally get the first question.

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He asked what was the difference between a state rehab facility and a

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Christian rehab facility. The second question was do you use a 12 -step program or are you

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Bible -based? Well, you know, the difference, I would think, in its basic sense is that in a secular rehab, which would be, could be a state rehab,

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I don't know of any cross -centered state -funded rehab facilities, but I would say in my terminology a secular way of treatment would be, typically, it would be a

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AA program, a 12 -step program, which in the basic sense of what 12 steps are, you know, encouraging people to do are absolutely wonderful things.

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I promise you that there is nothing wrong with the 12 steps of AA or NA, narcotics anonymous.

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They are wonderful things to accomplish in our lives, you know, to admitting that we're powerless over our addiction to, you know, turning our lives over to God's care.

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Those are things that 12 -step programs offer and encourage us to do, but the unfortunate thing in a secular program is that they leave it up to the individual to identify now, because they encourage us, to seek a power that is higher than we are, okay?

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That is the foundational thing, but they leave it up to the individual to identify and to,

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I guess, discover what that power is, and the unfortunate thing is that that is dependent upon nothing but the mind of man, and that's in a secular treatment center, but in a cross -centered treatment center, you could take those same 12 steps that AA is offering, and certainly we would say, you need,

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I need a power that's greater than I am to accomplish these things, and the

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Bible identifies that power very specifically to be the resurrection power of Jesus Christ, and so in a

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Bible -centered, cross -centered facility, you would be led to begin to discover this

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Jesus that the Bible talks about, this Messiah that God sent to the earth to become the

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Savior and the Lord of our lives, which gives us, as a matter of fact, there is a scripture that comes to my mind that is really a part of our foundational teaching here, and it's found in 2

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Peter chapter 1, and just to recite a couple of the verses of it, the word says, of the divine nature, talking about a godly nature, having escaped the corruption that is in this world through our lust, and then he goes on to talk about that not only is that the foundation of it, but he says, add to this, add to your faith, and to virtue of knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, or patience, and to self -control, then to godliness, and he says, if these things abound in you and from you, you will never be unfruitful nor barren, and this is really what's a beautiful thing,

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I think, Chris, there's a buzzword that's all around the life of addiction, it's the word,

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I was doing well and then I failed, that's kind of a terminology used in someone that goes off of the wagon or whatever, but in verse 10, following these scriptures that I've just read, it says, wherefore rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and your election sure, for if you do these things, the things that were mentioned in the verses prior, you shall never fall, so what we're talking about is a power that is certainly greater than my power, it's the power that God delivered to the earth in order to bring into person, into personal lives, in order to give them freedom from where they're living, and the bondages that sin so quickly puts us in, and the difference is that we believe that addiction begins with a moral decision, and it begins with a heart decision that is founded upon fallen nature instead of upon solid nature, and so the only hope for that is a delivering force that comes from God who is delivered to us through the person of Jesus Christ, that's the difference between a secular treatment and a

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Bible based treatment. Yeah, the thing that I can't help but mention here, because of the modern -day 12 -step movement directing people to embrace any

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God that they believe in or choose to, or any higher power, that the irrationality of those that are not based on Jesus Christ, you have step two of the 12 steps, we became, we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity, and then the step three is we made a decision to turn our will and lives over to the care of God as we understood him.

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If you're insane, you're not going to be making or having a right understanding about who

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God is and making a decision to follow the right God if you're insane as the step clearly identifies.

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So I think, Chris, just to follow up on that thought a little bit, I think, you know,

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I think really if I began to formulate this

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God based upon my understanding, then that God is only as big as my mind.

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That's right. If I receive the God that God has developed out of his mind, his word says that his thoughts are not our thoughts, his ways are higher than our ways, and it says that I have not seen, ear has not heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man what

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God has in store for those that love him. That is such a promise that I can tell you that man's mind cannot really, really put into any kind of a concept the fullness of what

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God really has in store for him, and so the foundation of, you know, the weakness of these steps that you just mentioned are my understanding

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God. It has to completely transform our mind. We have our final listener question that we have time for because we only have less than five minutes left.

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We have Rick in Summerton, South Carolina asks, what is your greatest satisfaction and biggest challenge since coming to Hebron?

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Well, certainly the biggest satisfaction is really easy. It is seeing men and women transformed by the gospel.

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To, you know, watch people walk out of darkness and death into glorious light and life.

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It is without exception one of the most privileged things that I've ever done in my life is to watch someone really, really fall in love with Jesus, and I'm convinced that happens on a regular basis here, and so there's no doubt that that is one of the greatest privileges that I have.

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I would say that the biggest challenge that I have is my own life, is to make sure that I awaken every single day of my life, and the first thing that I do is to put myself really on the altar of God in order to be used by Him and not to be distracted by administration, by fundraising, by task, and by all the things that are necessary,

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I guess, to live life, but to always what a tragedy it would be to, for God to look at my life like He looked at the church at Ephesus in Revelation 2 and say,

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I've got this one thing against you, you have left your first love, and I think for every one of us as believers to stay fresh every single day of our life in love with Jesus is probably one of the most necessary challenges of any of our lives, because we can become so overcome by duty and task that we forget how important that personal devotion really is, how necessary it is to be with the

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Lord. Amen, and one of the things that I appreciated about Hebron was the difference between, one of the main differences between the typical 12 -step recovery groups and Hebron being

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Bible -based, is that I think Hebron is best described really as a men's discipleship ministry and Grace Home being a women's discipleship ministry, because the issues of addiction are rarely brought up.

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It's really the challenges of unbelievers to repent and believe upon Christ and for believers who are backslidden to return to their first love.

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Isn't that basically the core of what you're doing? Yeah, no question about it. You know, I think personally, you know, and Chris, I would like to say just in the few minutes that we have.

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We actually have less than a minute now. Okay, I was delivered personally by the glorious resurrection power myself from addiction, so I do know that that is the most necessary thing that can happen in life, is to be walking in a free life with Jesus Christ, and so we, you know, addiction is just a symptom of something deeper, and so we address the deeper man and the whole man and woman, no question.

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And I really am honored and I'm so overcome with more of a feeling of blessing than you could know, brother, that you're on my show, on my program today.

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I'm losing words here, I'm mumbling, but I want to thank you so much for being on. I look forward to having you return to the program, and I want all of our listeners to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far, far greater

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Savior than you are a sinner. God bless, we'll see you tomorrow, and don't forget,

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HebronColony .org, HebronColony .org. Thank you.