POINT OF LIGHT OUR ADDICTIONS
Sending greetings in the name of Jesus our Lord and Savior:
In this point of light series many different areas will be covered. I want to talk in particular about the problems that today's churches are faced with. Addictions today are among the most devastating of all things to our unity and the power of the spirit.
It is a frightening thought to be addicted to something so much that you cannot function without it. Millions of people in this world are literally strung out on medications to avoid pain in their bodies that would otherwise be too great for them to bear if it were not the painkillers they take each day. As the Holy Spirit teaches me more each day about our human condition I can see myself along with the throngs of others who become dependent on this medication more every year. I also realize that there is a greater pain still that we have yet to awaken to from this world. That is spiritual pain. All of this however points to reasons for their being a large number of people who want to escape it in any way they can. In the 1960s people would take trips without ever really having left their rooms, and the addictions to these escapes grew in such numbers that it changed the face of our social structure. We went as far as to become so addicted to this escape mode and no matter what the cost was we had to remind people that their mind was being wasted because of the need that had been developed to escape. Drawings just happened to be the easiest way at the time and so that was what we used. Our country and many others felt the sting of the results of drug addiction, and alcohol addiction because the drugs high always wore off in the escape always brought us back to face the same reality that we had tried so hard to forget.
Today the addiction is in the Internet and the computer games that take away people from reality for hours at a time without the physical side effects of drugs. These have become our new addictions, but no matter what the vehicle we use the result was still the same because sooner or later we all have to return to reality. When we come back to that reality we always find that our lives have not changed at all from what they were when we left them. We still must face the same daemons that were there staring at us from the beginning. Were going to take a closer look at all kinds of addictions that we as mankind are currently going through these are all in some way tied together with an eye and ask capable link to the relationships we have with everyone and everything that our lives touch here. As the Holy Spirit guides us will be shown how these various relationships are actually linked with what I call life addictions. No one's been able to escape from these addictions, and without a right relationship with God no one ever will.
What is it that drives us to need the escape first place? In order to find those answers we must go back to the source of the problem which is once again spiritual. You see our need for escape came from the constant influence of this world that tells us that we want and need what we don't yet have. Satan and the very beginnings was the first to want what he could not have and the desire to be God. Lucifer had everything that he could want except for the fact that he himself was a created being who could not create. The desire for that one thing was on his mind so much that he risked all that he had been given to rule over God's creator. Satan's failure was so deep that he would pay for an eternity for it. When God created again mankind with the idea that we would be his crowning glory to his creation of this world Satan took it in his heart to hate and destroy us as well is to hurt God whom he could not defeat. With all of that in mind let's look again at this thing that I call life addictions. From the time that you and I were born we have been beaten down by pitches thrown at us from every angle. It is almost the constant bombardment of things that we must accept or reject. It has become a sensory overload for us to deal with and so we desensitize ourselves at an early age from the effects of it.
This becomes just another part of life or so it would seem to us. What we don't realize is that all that we see going on around us is for reason the addiction become so much a part of who we think that we are that we no longer question. We no longer seek the advertisement as a pitch to us to buy something because it is now become a role model for us to imitate. The ways that we relate to each other is in every way influenced by what we see, hear and touch around us every day. What that means is that we have a relationship with a lifestyle we become in our own minds the things that we see around us instead of the people that we really are. We have been since escaped once again into a created reality for us that is not the real world. We are addicted is individuals, as couples, and as a nation. What is scary is that we are addicted his children of God as well we have not yet learned that every distraction that we experience in this world is somehow connected to the efforts to keep us spiritually unable to function. All that we see is geared to dream world that does not exist. We see ourselves in the perfect car, the perfect close, and always on vacation in a perfect it away which puts us in a perfect state of mind to just float through our lives. We never see the realize because we're never shown the real us. Addictions are often that way. The real truth and life is found in a good talents between our physical and spiritual parts and that true balance has no real rules based on what mankind has set up for himself it is that desire for control of all things that is caused us to become self addicted in order to maintain to this life. We refuse to see the truth of who we are because we can escape into a world created by those who would seal us into their ideas of perfection. No no matter whether it is beauty or intelligence or power or greed this world seeks to keep us addicted to an impossible goal of attaining that which we were not and were never created to be. There's no wonder why we have difficulty in our relationships based upon the things that this world instructs us in.
In God's word in Philippians 3:13-14 Paul speaks to those he writes to about the needs to press on toward the things that are yet to come rather than clean to those things that have already been. The truth freezes from the mind bleeding tendency to cling to this world and what we already know in our hearts is going to end death. What we must do from that point is to press forward toward those things that God wants to create out of our newly formed lives. We must die in our thoughts to the life that we had lived here until we came to Christ. That means that we die as much as we can each day to the memories of what we've done in the past to hurt others as well. It means that we must die to the memory of sin because it will no doubt be used against us time and time again by the enemy to confuse us about our own station in Christ. Guilt is just another form of addiction to this world that we are in that is used by the enemy to keep the child of God from living victoriously. Each day that we live we're given the challenge to seek to include the whole person that we were created to be. If we fail to acknowledge that creation we sink ever further into the depths of the addictions that we have to this life in so many ways that it is impossible to count them. Each time we choose not to be involved in taking the responsibility for making positive decisions Christ we grew weaker because we once again given the power of decision over to someone who would destroy us. Our ultimate warning then is that of knowing that we have the power within us to stop this from happening, and the responsibility to respond to the challenge of a world balanced life not only for ourselves but for those who are around us is well. We have the desperate need to respond to the call to take action against this addiction, and the ultimate right to make the choice as to what our response will be. May you richly bless God through your life in him.
THE UNWORTHY SERVANT
In this point of light series many different areas will be covered. I want to talk in particular about the problems that today's churches are faced with. Addictions today are among the most devastating of all things to our unity and the power of the spirit.
It is a frightening thought to be addicted to something so much that you cannot function without it. Millions of people in this world are literally strung out on medications to avoid pain in their bodies that would otherwise be too great for them to bear if it were not the painkillers they take each day. As the Holy Spirit teaches me more each day about our human condition I can see myself along with the throngs of others who become dependent on this medication more every year. I also realize that there is a greater pain still that we have yet to awaken to from this world. That is spiritual pain. All of this however points to reasons for their being a large number of people who want to escape it in any way they can. In the 1960s people would take trips without ever really having left their rooms, and the addictions to these escapes grew in such numbers that it changed the face of our social structure. We went as far as to become so addicted to this escape mode and no matter what the cost was we had to remind people that their mind was being wasted because of the need that had been developed to escape. Drawings just happened to be the easiest way at the time and so that was what we used. Our country and many others felt the sting of the results of drug addiction, and alcohol addiction because the drugs high always wore off in the escape always brought us back to face the same reality that we had tried so hard to forget.
Today the addiction is in the Internet and the computer games that take away people from reality for hours at a time without the physical side effects of drugs. These have become our new addictions, but no matter what the vehicle we use the result was still the same because sooner or later we all have to return to reality. When we come back to that reality we always find that our lives have not changed at all from what they were when we left them. We still must face the same daemons that were there staring at us from the beginning. Were going to take a closer look at all kinds of addictions that we as mankind are currently going through these are all in some way tied together with an eye and ask capable link to the relationships we have with everyone and everything that our lives touch here. As the Holy Spirit guides us will be shown how these various relationships are actually linked with what I call life addictions. No one's been able to escape from these addictions, and without a right relationship with God no one ever will.
What is it that drives us to need the escape first place? In order to find those answers we must go back to the source of the problem which is once again spiritual. You see our need for escape came from the constant influence of this world that tells us that we want and need what we don't yet have. Satan and the very beginnings was the first to want what he could not have and the desire to be God. Lucifer had everything that he could want except for the fact that he himself was a created being who could not create. The desire for that one thing was on his mind so much that he risked all that he had been given to rule over God's creator. Satan's failure was so deep that he would pay for an eternity for it. When God created again mankind with the idea that we would be his crowning glory to his creation of this world Satan took it in his heart to hate and destroy us as well is to hurt God whom he could not defeat. With all of that in mind let's look again at this thing that I call life addictions. From the time that you and I were born we have been beaten down by pitches thrown at us from every angle. It is almost the constant bombardment of things that we must accept or reject. It has become a sensory overload for us to deal with and so we desensitize ourselves at an early age from the effects of it.
This becomes just another part of life or so it would seem to us. What we don't realize is that all that we see going on around us is for reason the addiction become so much a part of who we think that we are that we no longer question. We no longer seek the advertisement as a pitch to us to buy something because it is now become a role model for us to imitate. The ways that we relate to each other is in every way influenced by what we see, hear and touch around us every day. What that means is that we have a relationship with a lifestyle we become in our own minds the things that we see around us instead of the people that we really are. We have been since escaped once again into a created reality for us that is not the real world. We are addicted is individuals, as couples, and as a nation. What is scary is that we are addicted his children of God as well we have not yet learned that every distraction that we experience in this world is somehow connected to the efforts to keep us spiritually unable to function. All that we see is geared to dream world that does not exist. We see ourselves in the perfect car, the perfect close, and always on vacation in a perfect it away which puts us in a perfect state of mind to just float through our lives. We never see the realize because we're never shown the real us. Addictions are often that way. The real truth and life is found in a good talents between our physical and spiritual parts and that true balance has no real rules based on what mankind has set up for himself it is that desire for control of all things that is caused us to become self addicted in order to maintain to this life. We refuse to see the truth of who we are because we can escape into a world created by those who would seal us into their ideas of perfection. No no matter whether it is beauty or intelligence or power or greed this world seeks to keep us addicted to an impossible goal of attaining that which we were not and were never created to be. There's no wonder why we have difficulty in our relationships based upon the things that this world instructs us in.
In God's word in Philippians 3:13-14 Paul speaks to those he writes to about the needs to press on toward the things that are yet to come rather than clean to those things that have already been. The truth freezes from the mind bleeding tendency to cling to this world and what we already know in our hearts is going to end death. What we must do from that point is to press forward toward those things that God wants to create out of our newly formed lives. We must die in our thoughts to the life that we had lived here until we came to Christ. That means that we die as much as we can each day to the memories of what we've done in the past to hurt others as well. It means that we must die to the memory of sin because it will no doubt be used against us time and time again by the enemy to confuse us about our own station in Christ. Guilt is just another form of addiction to this world that we are in that is used by the enemy to keep the child of God from living victoriously. Each day that we live we're given the challenge to seek to include the whole person that we were created to be. If we fail to acknowledge that creation we sink ever further into the depths of the addictions that we have to this life in so many ways that it is impossible to count them. Each time we choose not to be involved in taking the responsibility for making positive decisions Christ we grew weaker because we once again given the power of decision over to someone who would destroy us. Our ultimate warning then is that of knowing that we have the power within us to stop this from happening, and the responsibility to respond to the challenge of a world balanced life not only for ourselves but for those who are around us is well. We have the desperate need to respond to the call to take action against this addiction, and the ultimate right to make the choice as to what our response will be. May you richly bless God through your life in him.
THE UNWORTHY SERVANT
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