Addiction

I heard a powerful message on overcoming addiction and I think the preacher was spot on, in what he said.  He preached from Romans 1.  Think of this, regardless of the addiction what is a person looking to receive from it, whether it is porn, alcohol, drugs or whatever, they are looking to escape reality.  They want a high, they want the peace and the joy that comes from the drug of choice, and they may get that temporarily, but you can’t stay up forever and when you come down you lose all these temporary things and need to figure out how you can get another fix to escape again.  There is only one way to be set free and that is to realize your situation and repent and turn from your sins and ask the Lord to be your Lord and Savior.

Some people may relate to these things as crutches, but what they really are, in all realty, are idols.  You will either worship the living God or the substitute, whatever your choice of escape is!!  You can go to your secular meetings and you will hear that you were born the way you are and be told that your brain is just wired up that way or you can go to the Lord, the only true bondage breaker, and be set free.  You can sit and listen to people tell you that once you are an alcoholic you will always be an alcoholic or whatever the addiction is, or you can chose to hear the truth and let that truth set you free.  God’s Word says that when the Son sets you free you are free indeed!!

I am talking from experience; I have been there and done the escaping thing many times over the years.  Drugs, alcohol, partying and more but in the end all I had was brokenness that resulted from it.  The problem is this; it is not a brain problem, it is a heart problem.  This is a result of idol worship.  We will all end up worshiping something, but we make the choice unless we are forced into the addiction from an outside source.  

When I started taking drugs, drinking, smoking or any of the other things I was addicted to, no one forced me into taking them, no, I chose to indulge in them.   I remember hating the taste of alcohol and smoking made me dizzy, but over time I taught myself to like these things and what they did for me; some of the other things were much easier for me to accept.  Think about food, were people born gluttons?  No, they liked certain kinds of foods and they choose to over indulge, in some cases people just get bored and instead of finding something to do they eat. What does food do for people?  It makes them feel good and it makes them happy.  Can food be addictive?  Sure it can many things can but we have the choice whether we let them be or not, that is called free will.

Why do we indulge in certain things?  It has a lot to do with how they make us feel while we are indulging in them.   Do they become habit forming and addictive?  Of course they do, that is part of the sowing and reaping process, but you are not born that way, nor is your brain wired up that way.  It is the result of our fallen nature at birth.  We are all born with the sin nature and as a result of that we allow ourselves to get entangled in many forms of addiction or idolatry.  Of course we don’t call it that, we prefer saying that we can’t help it, we were born that way instead of us taking the responsibility for the reason we are addicted to whatever it may be.  Remember this, whatever you put before the Lord can become an idol in your life!!

Now I want to get into the grace, mercy and love part of this message.  God gave us a remedy for all these addictions in the form of His beloved Son, Jesus Christ.  He is the One that can give you true peace and joy and His desire is to break the bondage in your life no matter what it is.  So, if we will stop making excuses for our addictions and call our addictions what they really are, sin, and repent of them and confess them, then we can ask the good Lord to forgive us and be merciful to us and to come into our hearts and lives and to be our Lord and Savior.  If we are serious, and only the good Lord knows the heart, I believe He will be faithful to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  And I believe He will break whatever bondage we have in our lives and set us completely free!!  The purpose that Jesus died for our sins was to set the captive free, praise the Lord!!

Enough said.  I hope this has been an encouragement to you.  I have given you something to think about and I hope you will.  May you have a super day and may the good Lord bless you and yours!   Don’t forget to thank and praise the Lord!!