Monday--zzzzzzzzz!

Notice: The message from Saturday night is now downloaded in the pod cast section of the blog)
"Hunker Down"....James 1:4

Glorious day yesterday.
My son and his family came over for lunch. I had bought a slip and slide for the grand kids, so we spent the afternoon soaked and full of laughter.
It was a memory kind of day. One that you put back so you can think on it later. One that will bring laughter and peace to your soul.
Thank you Jesus for grand kids, and "Slip and Slides"....
Thank you for ice cold watermelon.
Thank you for good conversation and family love.

I Peter 4:4
They (your old friends) think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you. But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.

One of the hardest things to wrap your head and heart around as you find sobriety and recovery in Jesus, is that you feel like you are in an "in between" kind of life.
You don't really have any new friends, simply because this life is new to you.
Yet your old friends are still there and sometimes trying to make contact with you.
First off, we need to be totally honest with ourselves.
Were they really friends?
Or were they simply people we knew when we were using?
In your old relationships, how many of your friends would come around if there wasn't any drugs or alcohol available. You see, the entire relationship was built on the substance itself. It defined the friendship. It was what held any connection between the two of you together. So they really weren't your friends.

They find it weird that you would be clean and sober.
They look at you as some kind of traitor to the cause (the cause of getting high and wasted).
They totally do not understand why you have taken these steps in your life.
I have seen women, users themselves, who brought their husbands or boyfriends out to Rapha to get them clean and sober.
The man goes through the program.
He works a really good 7 weeks on his recovery. Goes back home and she kicks him out because he has changed. He isn't fun to be around anymore (Words I have heard these women say). The drugs and alcohol were the reason that the relationship was held together. Old adage of "Misery Loves Company."

Did you catch the first part of the verse from I Peter?
"They think it strange".......their reasoning under the influence has deluded their ability to see truth and the reality of their own life. Their thought processes are under the control of the devil. Their hearts, completely blackened and hardened by sin, have shut them off from truth. As it says in Romans 1:22 - Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools. Not that they were fools to start with, but through the process of rejecting the truth of God, slowly and surely they became fools.
All sin leads downward.
All sin causes a person to spiral downward in thought, deed and behavior.
It's end is death.
I know of no one who has lived a life of sin and at the end of their days, received a wonderful reward from God.
As Paul writes in Romans 1:16 -  I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the POWER of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. First for the Jew, then for the Gentile."

I need such power in my life.
How about you?

God on you....
mb