Fill Up Your Old Ditches

James 1:21-22
So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the message God has planted in your hearts, for it is strong enough to save your souls. And remember, it is a message to obey, not just to listen to. If you don't obey, you are only fooling yourselves.

This is a hard concept for some.
The idea that I am to rely on Jesus, once I'm saved, to lead me, guide me and empower me in my daily life. But even with this, I have to make some decisions that will place me at the center of his will.
I call it the great trade off.
I am getting ride of every character defect (Step # 6 and # 7) asking God to rid me of my patterns of sin.
I like that term.........patterns of sin.
We could even say our habits of sin.
As we sin, over and over, we create a habit that, when confronted with certain circumstances or situations, we turn to the sinful behavior without giving it any thought. We do it simply because that is what we have always done.
It's like digging a ditch so that when it rains, the rain is channeled in a certain direction. No matter how hard you want to the water to not go in that direction, it continues in the ditch. The only way to change the direction of the water is to dig a new ditch. The only way to move from addiction to a life of sobriety is to fill up the old ditches and dig some new ones.

No matter how much you want to be free from addiction, it begins with the acknowledgment of being powerless. From this place of being powerless, we see the ditches that we have dug in our life. They get deeper and deeper as we have let the water flow without thought or willingness to stop it. The behavior that has landed us in jail or in rehab was the only behavior we knew. It seemed normal to live this way when, in reality, we were spiritually blind to the truth. We had become so use to the pain and depression and darkness that we assumed everyone lived like this. We wanted out but had bought the life that it was only a pipe dream to think we could escape.

Jesus did for me what I could not do for myself.
He paid the price for my sin (Death).
He took the keys that the devil possessed, keys to death, hell and the grave.
He accomplished the will of his Father so that I could be free from the bondage of sin and addiction.
He has offered it to me............the gift of eternal life with Him.
Man, it doesn't get any better than this.
Think on these things....

God on you....
mb