HOW THE GOSPEL GIVES HOPE TO ADDICTS
GNN Note – It is only by the Power, mercy and grace of Jesus Christ – learned through the Gospels – that I am alive and before you today or any other day. As a recovered addict, and born again Christian, thanking God everyday is a must. Remembering where I came from, and how easy it is revert, keeps me close to God.
by Mike Brummel for Core Christianity
Can you imagine a young boy who, against the counsel of his parents, overindulged in apple pie and vanilla ice cream? Knowing that his parents were entertaining guests in the other room, the boy gave free vent to his temptation and jumped on the opportunity to serve himself a rather generous portion. However, it wasn’t long after he devoured the dessert that he began to feel sick to his stomach.
Now is your chance to support Gospel News Network.
We love helping others and believe that’s one of the reasons we are chosen as Ambassadors of the Kingdom, to serve God’s children. We look to the Greatest Commandment as our Powering force.
This simple story has some parallels with addiction. If you replace the sweets with narcotics or alcohol and the stomach ache with the various physical and spiritual consequences, the connections become clear.
Satisfaction Not Guaranteed
Poet Frank Bidart captures a significant feature of addiction when he writes, “Understand that there is a beast within you that can drink till it is sick, but cannot drink till it is satisfied.” Those of us who have had a run-in with addiction know that the pleasure associated with the rush or the high is short-lived (Heb. 11:24-25). It’s like trying to tackle and hold down a greased pig. Once you think you have the pig in your grip, it slips out of your hands and results in a renewed chase. The high, a high that has occupied the throne of one’s heart, leads to chasing false promises of freedom and relief. Satisfaction here becomes illusory (Prov. 27:20).
When we are curved in on ourselves, making our desire for immediate pleasure the highest criterion, we end up dissatisfied and destitute. What the Proverbs say about the misuse of alcohol applies equally well to drug abuse: that “[i]n the end it bites like a serpent and stings like an adder” (Prov. 23:32).
More Than a Preference
Despite the distaste for the negative consequences associated with substance abuse, it’s no secret that those enthralled to addiction are lovers of whatever substance they are inclined towards. We become “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” (2 Tim. 3:4; cf. John 3:19). Our heartstrings become inextricably tied up with those things we treasure (Luke 12:34). This love, though deadly, becomes, quite literally, more important than life itself.
