Today I want to talk to you about something that is a topic that I feel is very close to home, especially to our local community. I hope that as I begin to talk about this that you help us in starting to change the outlook of the people of God.
An addiction is defined as being abnormally tolerant to and dependent on something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming. When considering the various amounts of things that are in our world today that people can find addicting, it’s brings me to a state of fear. I couldn’t even begin to tell you how many things come to mind when I think about what we could come dependent on. Rather than talking to you about the things that I do not know anything about, I’ll speak on the things that are close to my heart and try to relate my battle with my former addictions to convey the message that is on my heart today.
For several years, I had addictions that were a physical and psychological dependence on drugs. Not only that, but the friends and environments that were surrounded with it also. I’m not going to sit here and talk about all my party stories or tell you how awesome life was on the wild side. I’m going to tell you about the reality of the situation.
First and foremost, my life and my body has suffered greatly from the constant intake of all the poisons that I constantly put in it over time, and I feel like after the years that I’ve been clean now, that I finally feel normal. My family has also suffered from all the lying and all the taking from them through all the years of my needing to have the fix. They had to witness how bad it really was, seeing me go from a person who had a good heart, to a person who was heartless and wanted nothing but to feel high and just escape reality. Worst of all, the God who created me with such a special purpose in life, was there to help me all along and yet I refused to help when I chose to go my own way and to live the life that I chose with this lifestyle.
Listen, you can go and do the 12 step programs, the NA meetings, the self-help books, and go to the doctors if you wish. Try as you may. You can be as willing as you can to try and go and do all these things on your own. I even tried to beat my own addictions by myself too. At the end of the day, however, after you try all of that stuff, you are still stuck with the emptiness of knowing that you are still unhappy with your life, still unsatisfied, and still have no peace and no joy, which for most of us which was the reason that we started with drugs to begin with.
To all of you out there that are listening that need to hear this, I pray you hear this clearly. There is no better way to be free from your addictions than through deliverance by the spirit of God.
I’m here to tell you that it is a way that works, for I am here before you as one that is a tried and true believer of practicing what I preach. You don’t have to try and do this on your own, but there are some things that you have to try to do to make this kind of deliverance to come to pass. God sees the very moment in your mind and in your heart when you TRULY are ready to put it all down. It’s that moment when you finally are ready to be ABOVE your addiction, and not to let it rule your life any longer. When you are beneath it, it still controls you, and rules your thoughts, and makes you believe that you still have to have it, and makes you believe there is still some form of dependency.
1 Thessalonians 5:4-10
[4] But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
[5] Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.
[6] Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.
[7] For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.
[8] But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.
[9] For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,
[10] Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.
Do you understand where I’m coming from now? Do you know why my heart is so heavy? You see, there are legions of people out there, just waiting for the people of God to go, to use that power of prayer, the power and gifts and callings that you have inside of you, to make a difference in all of their lives. The saddest part of it all is that people’s lives aren’t being changed because we are at a standstill. We do nothing but talk about how bad that it is, talk about their problems, and never utter the first prayer to God. We’ll say, “There’s no hope for them” instead of “Lord I pray that you bring deliverance their lives, break the chains of addiction!” If you stay persistent in your fight for God to remove the holds that the enemy has on your loved ones, God will win the battle.
We put limits on God when we use terms like maybe, possibly, hopefully, and doubtful. God does not operate on our vocabulary. Words in the bible are words like SHALL BE, AND POSSIBLE, HEALED, FREE, SAVED, AND VICTORY, do you see where I am going? The world leads us to have an attitude of hopelessness; essentially to think that we have to give up on something based on the evidence that we see with our own eyes.
What if that would have been the case for me? It really pains me to wonder where I would be now if there wouldn’t have been that compassion and dedication for people to forgive me every day for what I was doing, and pray for me anyways, REGARDLESS of what they SAW or what they HEARD. If we put off the addictions we have and give them over to God, and truly surrender, and let the spirit have its way in our lives, God will set us free, so long as we are willing to believe! And in turn for all of the loneliness, emptiness, and despair that we feel, God will help us by filling us with love, joy, and peace!
Putting on the faith to believe you are free every day after that deliverance means you are one more day free than you were before, and helping you to finally be that person that God has always wanted you to be. You’ll begin to feel something build up inside of you, something in you that will want you to say no to temptation, to say no to your former friends, to say no to going to the places you use to go! Don’t let all the junk around you corrupt your life from bearing the good fruit. Even if you literally have to get rid of things, get rid of habits, lose some friends that are bad influences, or anything that would hinder you from being as fruitful as you can possibly be, it is well worth it. Cleansing your life from the things that would hinder you only brings you closer to God, which only unlocks even more blessings coming your way.
Be encouraged this day! Let’s take the chains off of our people that are in bondage! Use the power in your hands! Be above your addictions! You don’t have to live this way! You and God can run your life!
