Luke 9:23
And He said to all,"If any person wills to come after Me, let him deny himself (disown himself / forget / lose sight of himself and his own interest / refuse and give up himself) and take up his cross daily and follow me (Cleave steadfastly to Me / conform wholly to My example in living, and if need be, in dying also).
Recovery from addiction is more than the absence of drugs and alcohol.
Recovery is more than the absence of any mood altering chemical.
If that was all recovery was about then there wouldn't be any problems.
I would take you into a treatment program.....
lock you in a room.....
shove food and water under the door....
keep you there for 49 days, and then release you.
I guarantee you'd be free from the presence of your D.O.C in your system.
But the odds are that you'd go right back into that old lifestyle.
Why?
Because the problem isn't the drugs or alcohol.
The problem is you.
Recovery is the mending of a broken relationship.
We are born with a bent to do the wrong thing, to make the bad choice.
This bent manifests in different ways.
Not everyone who is born turns out to be an addict, but they still possess this bent none the less.
We born separated from God.
Oh, He is constantly reaching out to us, but because of this bent in our nature, we run from Him.
Sometime in the midst of running, we turn to other things for comfort, or to help us deal with our problems.
This is where everything goes south for someone with an addictive personality.
No one ever starts out to be an addict.
It is a progressive trail that takes the individual in a downward spiral toward destruction.
Addiction is really a lifestyle of compromise.
You will compromise family and friends for a feeling.
You will compromise your morals and values for a high.
You will compromise your freedom for the next hit.
And so on, and so on, and so on till you find yourself hitting rock bottom.
Sometimes you'd think that hitting bottom would bring a person to the senses to the fact of what has happened to their life. In some cases, when an addict hits rock bottom, they grab a shovel and dig a little more.
Sad but true.
So what is the answer for those who find themselves in this state?
If you check out the big book of A.A., you'll find a section titled "There Is A Solution". Isn't that a strange way to title a chapter? To be bold enough to state that for anyone in addiction there is a solution to the problem they are facing. So what is the magic bullet for this epidemic?
"A Vital Spiritual Experience".
There I said it, or rather I quoted it from the book.
The recognition that you don't have a drug or alcohol problem.
You've got an identity crisis.
You have forgotten who you are.
And you have forgotten whose you are.
The greater need to break free from addiction is found in the love and forgiveness offered to you by Christ Jesus.
Of, and just for the record....
I'm not talking about church-Jesus...
Or denomination-Jesus....
Or religious-Jesus.
I'm talking about the real-deal Savior of all mankind.
Real recovery begins at the cross of Christ.
An acknowledgement of being powerless.
An acknowledgement of a life that has become unmanageable.
You have looked within and found no answers to your problem.
Now you have looked outward and found, in Christ, a POWER greater than yourself. Someone who could speak a Genesis week into your life and bring order out of the chaos.
Finding such a POWER you turn will and life over to His care. That is the very heart and basis for the verse at the beginning of this post.
Jesus throws out an invitation to anyone who would desire to follow Him.
You loose the old ways....
You embrace a new way.....
You find new life in this relationship with Him.
Life that has escaped you in the past.
Why not reach out to Him today...
What do you have to loose?
Only....
Guilt...
Shame....
Fear....
Hopelessness....
and the list goes on and on...
God on you..
mb
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