Breaking Addictions – Live Free and Happy
Breaking addictions is very important because being bound, entangled, hindered and distracted with addictions (whether pornography, prescription drug abuse, marijuana, cocaine, pain killers, etc.) burdens your heart and mind, weighs you down emotionally, steals and misdirects your energy, dwarfs your potential, derails and delays your purpose. Living free and happy requires you to live pure, be prayerful, remain mindful of the many minefields, snares and pitfalls that exist all around you in the world in which we live. Associating with people in the wrong type of lifestyles and with various sinful tendencies (even using inappropriate speech and vocabulary) can wrongly influence and corrupt you. “Paul with young men from a drug rehab
he ministered to and went hiking with in Java, Indonesia.”
As an educator of teenagers, I often say, “Show me your friends and I will show you your future” to my students. My grandfather used to say to my mother, “Take away the letter R from friends and what do you get?” This is why I put an emphasis on breaking addictions to live free and happy, because I grew up the son of a mother who was an alcoholic and drug addict. My beloved grandfather also had a drinking problem, although he was a respected Army Colonel and professional who kept it hidden well. My uncle was an alcoholic and addicted to cigarettes. My cousins and younger brother have drinking problems. My brother told me once of all the drugs he has used, nicotine (found in cigarettes and vapes) is the most addicting of all. For me, sexual sin, lust and perversion has tried to ensnare me over the years (as our culture is full of lustful imagery, young ladies dressing seductively and inappropriately to lure men).
Breaking addictions is an ongoing battle, which we must TAKE HEED regarding the people and influences we allow into our life, lest we go back into bondage, be overcome, fall and find ourselves possessed and tormented by demons (Exodus 34:12; Mark 13:5; Luke 21:34; 1Corinthians 8:9; Hebrews 3:12).“Therefore let him that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (1Corinthians 10:12). Jesus warned, demons can return with their friends to re-inhabit a person and make the person’s life sevenfold worse than before (Matthew 12:43-45).
Demons are so aggressive and desirous to possess people, once they have been inside a person and are forced to leave, they seek to return and refer to the person as “my house” (Matthew 12:44), because demons live, dwell and operate through people; usually unbeknownst to the person being used by the demons.
Addictions begin slowly and seemingly harmlessly. Addictions sneak in like a calm and quiet python snake, not biting you abruptly or striking at you aggressively when you are looking. Instead, they are slow, seemingly harmless and seductive as they ease their way into your life and gain their grip over you. Then once you are hooked and snared, like the python snake that wraps itself around its victim, the demons working with the addiction begin to squeeze the life out of you until your personality and disposition are dwarfed, diminished and darkened until you are fully enslaved and only thinking about pursuing and feeding your addiction. Addictions are very demonic.
Thankfully, reading God’s Word, prayer, praise and worship and being around a fiery faith filled atmosphere in church can expose and remove demons (Hebrews 12:29; Acts 28:3). “God has not given us a spirit of bondage to fear, but a spirit of adoption whereby we cry out to our tenderhearted, loving heavenly Father” (Romans 8:15).
When you have surrendered your life to Jesus Christ, repented and been forgiven of your sins by the blood of Christ, and experience the love of your heavenly Father; you then can live with contentment within, be whole, nurtured and satisfied when you discover and know God’s endless, bountiful and the depths of His great love for you His child. God the Father welcomes you into divine relationship and the family of faith through Christ, whereby you become His son or daughter.
As we come out from among the crowd of corrupt people to be separate unto God and refuse to touch unclean things, God the Father will welcome and receive us, be a Father unto us, and make us His sons and daughters in His divine family (2Corinthians 6:17-18). “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen” (2Corinthians 13:14).
The Holy Spirit is the spirit of liberty (2Corinthians 3:17), meaning the Spirit of God liberates us from the chains of oppression that come from addiction. Breaking addictions begins with the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God (Ephesians 6:17); as we read God’s holy Word and renew our minds, we experience transformation body, mind and spirit to empower us to live free and happy.
www.PaulFDavis.com/substance-abuse-prevention-speaker
www.DreamMakerMinistries.com
www.EducationPro.us
RevivingNations@yahoo,com
Breaking Addictions – Live Free and Happy
