(Formerly under the Devotions tab, originally published 9/24/21)
Welcome! No judging. No shaming. No condemnation. Hope. Help. Support. Encouragement. This will be my first devotion on this forum. Thank you for checking in and giving us some of your time. Let me make one assumption and we will launch from it. I am assuming that you have a belief or an idea about God. I am not qualified to offer you any hope apart from God. This is not a judgement. Simply, my worldview comes from my faith in God.
You and I are here today because we’ve had a problem, and we are seeking a solution. We have already discovered that we got caught in a mistake, a lie. The lie is that our addiction does not hurt/affect anyone but us. That is the way that Satan works; take the truth and bend it just enough to destroy us. Let’s unpack a few things today. A devotion does not wash everything away in a few paragraphs. Our pain did not really beat us up in a few paragraphs. Let’s agree to start taking some steps.
Grace and peace are multiplied to us through the knowledge of God and Jesus Christ. We are not going to break free by saying a prayer. You can have people pray for you until they rub all of the hair off of the top of your head. You can jump up and down, shout an unknown language and ball your eyes out on the floor. These things are good, but what we have “comes out by prayer and fasting.” Actually, some issues require the heavy lifting. The heavy lifting here starts with transforming the mind by making it new with the word of God. Study. Listen. Study. Speak.
We are going to operate according to what our mind feels is most pleasant, enjoyable, exhilarating. Think about how much energy we have put into the thing that draws us. We are letting and telling our mind to take us in the wrong direction. If that is our focus, we can’t have peace or freedom or true forgiveness. God keeps you in perfect peace when your mind is focused on Jesus. (Isaiah 26:3).
There is a cognitive fact that our thoughts pave a highway in our nervous system. The longer that type of thought runs it course, the more that it develops a path of its own. Like wagon wheels that crossed the same direction to the western frontier. The ruts that have been created become the path of least resistance. It becomes easier for our addiction to take us there. What we need to do now is to re pave the road. I used to work in asphalt paving. Resurfacing means that an old surface has to be dug up, bulldozed over, or crushed into bits so that it could be removed. Then the job of the beautiful new road requires the proper equipment to apply a great deal of a brand-new product along the desired course for the safest, easiest, most efficient line of travel. Hence, transforming our mind by renewing it and regenerating it with the word of God. This is hard but it gets easier as you practice! We can do this! A lot of things depend on it!
2 Peter 1:2-4; “Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. Confirming One’s Calling and Election. His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
Joe Fabean
* All Scripture from the Message paraphrase, 2002