Your Desire is Important – Don’t Waste it.
Any type of addiction is a compulsive, habitual behavior that limits freedom of human desire, but desire is not the problem. The problem is the focus of the desire. When it comes to destructive addictions to drugs, smoking, anger, sex, food, work or any other is they cause you to be emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually enslaved – in other words, they consume you.
Addiction is Slavery
In Romans Chapter 13, Verse 14 the Christian Bible says “make no provision for the flesh in regard to its desires”. Which basically means don’t let the pleasures of your body or mind dictate your actions. The biggest reason why this rule is written in the Bible is that it causes us to be slaves apart from God. It is true God created us to be servants, but not slaves to money, or sex, or drugs, or alcohol, or work, or food, or anything else on earth for that matter.
Note: For those of you who object to or are repulsed by the idea God created us to be servants read this.
Unrestrained Desire is the root of all addictions. When we desire something it is because we have a felt need. If you have an addiction one of the most important things to do is determine what you ‘actually need’. See our desires are often misunderstood. When these desires go unnoticed they often manifest themselves in unhealthy ways. If we desire security we may become a work-a-holic. If we unknowingly desire to have companionship we may turn to sex. The trick is to understand what you really want.
Psalm 37:4 “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”
The above scripture is very important because it assures us God wants us to be happy. There is another side to this. Let’s pretend for a moment you had a genie, who would give you anything you wanted, all you had to do was fully understand what you really wanted and ask accordingly from your heart.
If you had a crack addiction, would you ask for an endless supply of crack cocaine or would you have the foresight to ask for limitless fulfillment? If we’re addicted to money would ask for all the money in the world or would you ask for absolute security and peace-of-mind? The most important thing you can do is to fully understand why you have an addiction. What is the emotional driver? What is the thing that is missing in your life that you replace with the object of your addiction.
Learn more about understanding the root of your addictions.
God is Not Genie
How do you feel after giving in to your addiction? You feel worse right? I Peter 2:11 says “abstain from fleshly desires, which wage war against soul”. Is that how you feel? Do you feel at war with your very soul sometimes? It’s because you are. Find out what you can do about that here.
Have you ever laid in bed at night and begged God to let you “make it through tonight”, or “not get caught”, or “make it all go away” or something similar? The problem is God knows your heart. God has promised to give you the desires of your heart, if you make him the focus of your admiration. With this in mind, God knows when we are asking for something that is not in our best interest, the answer to those types of prayers is always “no”. The reason the prayer doesn’t get answered is because it was prayed with the wrong intention. Learn more about prayer for Drug Addiction Treatment here.
Matthew 5:6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Becoming Satisfied
Why are addictions never satisfied? The answer is because the object of your addiction is not the solution to your problem. Lets say you were thirsty and decided to drink sand – your thirst would never be quenched no matter how much sand you consume. As a matter of fact consuming the sand will make you even more thirsty, and may even kill you. This is the same with all addictions. We settle for the object of our addiction because we really have no clue what we really want. Learn more about becoming content here.
Why God Hates Addiction
It can not be argued that God demands to be honored above all things on earth – the First Commandment is clear on the matter: “Thou Shalt Not Have Any Gods Before Me”. God despises all things that are in direct contravention to God’s will and labels these things sin. When someone is addicted to something, no matter what it is, they cherish, covet and obey that addiction above everything. A smoker will smoke despite the health risk, a work-a-holic will work themselves right out of their relationships, and crack addicts have been know to steal from family to supply their habit. This is the behavior God despises and he labels it sin – addiction is a sin. Why God despises sin and is he petty?
Addiction takes control of the heart of the person. Its not so much that God is jealous of your lack of attention – make no mistake God needs nothing from you. He is the giver, you are the receiver. Think of this relationship like a radio station. God is the transmitter, always broadcasting despite who may be listening or not. You are the radio, the receiver for the signal. If your transmitter is broken you’re not listening to God. When you allow addiction to run your life, you are walking around with a broken receiver. God wants to fix it your receiver, will you let him? Find out how here.
Gerald May said, “addictions make idolaters of us all” and Phil. 4:19 – in the Bible tells us “God shall supply all your needs…in Christ Jesus”. The keyword here is “Shall” which means God “MUST supply your needs. It is a divine promise to us from God just as much as it is a commandment to us to honor God by receiving God’s gifts.
Tip:Next time you see a scripture look for the word “Shall”.
God Can’t Make Me Happy!
When some people think about serving God they they in-vision a lifestyle of misery. A world where we have to deprive ourselves of all the things that make us happy. We talk about sacrifice as a requirement to be a Goldy person, but what does type of sacrifice are we referring to.
The Bible tells us God wants us to be happy, to never worry, to have an abundance and to receive ever-lasting life. To understand sacrifice we must understand what life really means to God. When we are addicted to something we are no genuinely happy and somewhere deep inside we know this, the real problem is we don’t know what other possibilities area available to us. There is a fear present that tells us when you give this thing up, whatever it is, you’ll be miserable.
John Piper in the book Desiring God tells us we are like children who love to play in the mud, while Disney land is right around the corner. He tells us we are too easily satisfied by our desires and subsequent addictions. The reason we don’t want to stop playing in the mud is that we have no clue how much happier we could be if we chose a different path. People can tell us about the alternative, but unless we experience it for ourselves we’ll never really know.
If you’ve never been in love its hard to relate to someone’s story about how that feels. You may see the way they act and want to feel the same way, but you still just can’t relate – you haven’t had that experience. You’ll never know how it feels until it happens to you.
It is even more true with a relationship with God. The peace, joy and contentment that accompanies a relationship with God is indescribable. If you want to know how to get started on that path: Holistic Christian Addiction Treatment
John 8:82,36 – “the truth shall set you free”