'READY?
A life with God is so much greater than that without Him. The song states that our "latter will be greater than the rest"; if so, then I would say that this could not be more true than when one becomes free from the sin that so entangles and traps us. There is nothing like a life of freedom from pain and suffering! But the question is, are we truly ready to cast off the sin that so entangles and hinders us from running the race? What predisposition is key to change like that in our lives?
Age has nothing to do with it. Race and stature have no more to do with repentance than anything else I might mention. Even a love for God cannot dictate our true Godly sorrow and subsequent deliverance, at times.
Does it take horrendous circumstances, the proverbial hitting of rock bottom? What causes an individual to want to make a change that will truly make a difference? Only God's grace can lead us from a life of sin into the changes that our hearts desire. It's what is in the heart that leads us to obey God's calling and to carry out the act of making a lifechanging, transforming difference in the way that we live.
The AA crowd will tell you that the thing with which you are grappling is "cunning, baffling, and powerful". I will point out that what begins as a harmless pastime morphs into an enslaving addiction, and it only takes, sometimes, what we flippantly call experimental use. Experimental drug use can get you hooked, too. The world said, "Just say no to drugs", some years back. What I'm saying is "Just say YES, to Jesus". This is the beginning of the greater life that only God can afford.
Pride, resentment, hard feelings, victimization, trauma--all of these and more, can lead us to a life of denial and the inability to repent of our own madness. Until we get real with the Lord of Life and know in our hearts that Jesus Christ died so that we could be saved, until we are able to forgive those real or imagined scenarios in our minds and our lives that keep us nurturing our addictions, and until we find true forgiveness for those who have hurt us in some way, we cannot face the awesome truth that a change needs be made.
A man will do things in his addiction that he would never have done normally. Whether or not that act is dormant while sober I'll leave to you to decide. All I know is, that when your life is spinning out of control and you're in a bad way, the helplessness of your situation, your lack of self-control, is terrifying. I do not pretend to have a lack of compassion on folks like that, who are normally kind and basically good--they just have a stronghold that has done no less than enslave them! These people connect with family and friends, and they are affected by the pain and suffering of the one they love, as well. These people, too, feel hopeless and helpless as to what to do.
And yet, even this is not fodder for change. I'll state again, the only way to be freed is through the power of Jesus Christ! To believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He was crucified for the sins of the world, and was raised on the third day and is seated at the right hand of the Father...that He intercedes for us and has made a way to free us from those addictions, is the only way.
That's what we do here at VFO; we give them the good news. We teach them about Jesus, and what He did for them. We take men from all walks of life and give them guideposts to cling to and to lead them along a path that is at first foggy and dark, filled with doom and voices that shout and terrors in the night. These guideposts are what are set along the pathway to help them along their spiritual journey to God. To come to God on our knees and to love on Him and to believe in the love that His Word reveals transforms men from debilitated souls to disciples, fully equipped for every good work. The question is, are you READY?
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