Addiction

Today we are beginning a 5 Week series called “Sound Mind” where we are going to be diving into the topic of mental health and attempting to address some of the major struggles we have regarding our mental health by looking to God’s word for comfort and strength in order to deal with these issues and find healing and victory.

Our theme verse for this series is

2 Timothy 1:7 (NKJ)

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

So many of the mental and emotional challenges we face in life can be boiled down to our battle with fear. Fear paralyzes us and causes all kinds of emotional struggles which are designed by our enemy to rob us of joy and ultimately enslave us and destroy our lives as we seek ways to cope with it.

If you’ll read verse 6, you will see the way by which we address this fear. He says, I want to “remind you” To remind you of Who God Is. To remind you of the Spirit of God that is given to believers. To remind you of the truth.

Paul writes, notice the three resources God promises to give us to help us combat our battle with fear. He promises us:

Power – Remember the power of God in you. You have divine strength so that we have the ability to overcome any and all threats to our lives. Whether they are physical, spiritual or emotional there is no need for us to be overcome with fear.

Love – Remember the love of God. Perfect love casts out all fear. And understanding our relationship with God leads us a peace and stability. out of an understanding of the love God has demonstrated toward us through Christ we can be secure in our relationship to God and thus show others love.

Sound Mind - a disciplined, self-controlled, and emotionally balanced mind that flows from a place of security and peace.

Mental Health is relevant, because it is under spiritual attack.

Remember, the devil is an angel. Messenger. He does not have control over the physical world beyond what God gives. If He could, all of us would be sick with cancer, houses burnt down, dead. He does not control the physical world, only in what God allows him to do (as with Job)

Satan is a messenger..he does not have power over the physical realm beyond what God allows..but he speaks to the mind. Not in an audible voice like you would hear me..but in subtle thoughts and lies that we embrace.

Satan’s primary battlefield is within our mind.

2 Corinthians 10:3–5 NIV

3 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

Satan can not make you do anything. At no point does satan overpower our free will. However, satan’s strategy is to attack our mind so that we belive something not true and live in a way that does not glorify God.

Sing at a piano- Satan, knowing what is in our heart..plays the notes which resonate with who we are. If you are an angry person, he will play that note, causing us to think about how we were wronged..or what they deserve..so that they think a certain way, feel a certain way, then act a certain way. Satan will try to play us

Satan plays the strings of our heart, by appealing to our own desires.

So, Paul tells Timothy to be reminded of truth. And to depend on the Spirit of God in you.

As followers of Jesus this is what is available to all of us! Power, Love, Sound Mind. The question is, Are we fully tapping into these resources which we have been promised?

We have 3 main Goals we hope to accomplish over the next 5 weeks with this series.

Goal #1 is to help you understand you are not alone!

The mental health issue is a human issue! We all struggle in some way with our mental health! You are not alone. Whether you see a therapist or not, whether you have been diagnosed by a mental health professional or not, we all have struggles. One of the lies Satan tries to sell us is that you are the only one who is struggling with your particular issue whatever that may be. We want to encourage you by helping you see that you are not alone in this battle! 1 Corinthians 10:13 (NIV) No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind……

Goal #2 is to help you see that therapy (seeking the help of a mental health professional) is not a sign of spiritual weakness but is actually a step of courage.

Sharing your burden with others who are equipped to help you is a blessing God has given us. Sometimes we need help sorting through and working on things that have us bound up emotionally. Don’t isolate yourself and don’t let pride cause you to fight by yourself. Instead reach out for help when you find yourself overwhelmed. There is comfort and healing to be found by sharing your burden with those who can be trusted to care for you and help you in your struggle. Whether this be a good Christian friend, a pastor, or a licensed Christian counselor, don’t attempt to fight this battle alone! Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 (NIV) Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: 10 If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. 11 Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.But how can one keep warm alone? 12 Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

Goal #3 is to help you see Jesus is the answer for whatever your struggle may be!

Whatever your struggle is, Jesus wants to heal you. Jesus wants to comfort you. He wants to give you victory over whatever is coming against your life. Jesus wants you to be of a SOUND MIND walking in His POWER and filled with His LOVE!

Psalm 18:1–3 NIV

1 I love you, Lord, my strength. 2 The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. 3 I called to the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and I have been saved from my enemies.

Psalm 18:17-19

Psalm 18:17–19 NIV

17 He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me. 18 They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the Lord was my support. 19 He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.

Here is our schedule for the next 5 weeks. Today we are going to start by talking about ADDICTION. Next week we will address the issue of DEPRESSION. Then Week 3 we will deal with ANXIETY. Then, during our fourth week we will tackle GRIEF and LOSS. And then the last week we are going to close out our series by talking about how God can use professional help to bring healing into your life as well as a healthy discussion concerning ways that we can help those in our life who may be severely struggling with mental health issues. Let’s PRAY and ask God to lead us through this journey. Let’s ask Him to set people free and let’s open our hearts to what God wants to do in our lives over these next 5 weeks.

(Play first Half of Robert Locklear Video)

When it comes to the issue of addiction we tend to think of stories like Robert’s and we tend to think that only certain types of people are susceptible to the addiction struggle.

Most of the time we focus on the fruit of addiction, which is the lifestyle, the drug abuse, the broken relationships..but what we hope to help you see today is the root of addiction. Understanding addiction is deeper than that. .

Addictions express themselves not because people want to be addicts..no one sets out to be an addict. Which is why we say that addiction is not simply a choice..yes choices are involved, but when we simplify helping addictts to just telling people to make better chioices, we are simplifying the problem and not offering real help.

Addictions look different, but ultimately addiction is a misplaced attachment and dependence. It is attempting to put the weight of your soul on something…and seek life from it.

Now these choices however are not just black and white. The choices are the result of trauma, brokenness, and a desire to escape the suffering of life.

You see, we all have a deep desire to be happy or to find peace of mind and soul. This is part of what it means to be human. However, due to the nature of life in this broken world it is impossible to feel this way all the time because as we all know, life has its ups and downs.

Pictures: Relationships. When your relationship with God is right, it impacts all relationships, with creation, ourselves, and others. But when Sin entered the world, it impacted all relationships. We don’t think right about ourselves, we don’t think rightly about others, and we don’t view creation rightly.

What a want you to see is that Mental Health struggles are the result of sin and living in a broken world. There are physcholocial factors, societal factors, biological factors, spiritual factors…but all of it is the result of a world that is seperate from God…and humanity trying to cope with the suffering it causes.

When our happiness and peace of mind is disturbed we begin to feel sadness and even mourn the fact that we are no longer happy or at peace. But because this is a natural cycle of life we cannot control it. But addictions are responses to the suffering of life. Trying to grab onto something we can control to help us with what we can’t.

For example, the porn addict may be feeling lonely or bored due to relational circumstances beyond their control, so to help ease their feelings of loneliness or sadness they turn to a mechanism that enables them to change those feelings when and where they want. This attempt at controlling their feelings and emotions ultimately leads to a porn addiction that ends up controlling them.

Likewise, the drug addict or alcoholic, when frustrated with sad feelings caused by anxiety and stress or some trauma experienced from some event or situation that happened to them, turns to a substance to alter their feelings and what they thought was a mechanism to control those feelings ends up controlling them.

Addiction in its purest and most simplest form can be viewed as an attempt on our part to try and control the uncontrollable. In the end it leaves you with less control and ends up controlling you.

Addiction, on its most basic level, is an attempt to control and fulfill this human desire for happiness.

Who among us has not at some point in our life looked to something or someone to mask a pain or cover over a sadness or numb a deep hurt. In fact, addictive substances can also be:

Sleep-

TV/Cell Phones/Entertainment

Exercise

Gambling

Work

Sports

Sex

Caffeine

Success

Gossipping (and we could go on and on)

They are attempts at escape. And though not all of these are bad in themselves, they become bad..when our love ant attachment grows beyond God’s heathy sesign.

It may be helpful for us if we think of addiction in terms of cancer. For us to understand all the different forms of cancer we must first understand what they all have in common.

All cancers share a similar process: the uncontrolled multiplying of cells. There are all different types of cancers but one thing they share in common is they all have multiplying cells that are uncontrollable.

Likewise, we must understand what all addictions and the addictive processes have in common: the out of control and aimless searching for wholeness, happiness, and peace through a relationship with an object or event. Through an object or event the addict seeks to produce a desired mood change.These objects or events can be anything from alcohol and drugs, to food, to gambling, to even working too much. All of these objects or events are vastly different but, for the addict engaged in them, they all produce desired mood changes which they feel they can control, or so they think.

The Bible gives us a great picture of the ADDICTION CYCLE. Man’s struggle with addiction extends all the way back to the beginning of human history. Drunkenness is the prototype for all addictions and here in Proverb 23 Solomon is trying to warn his son regarding its dangers and the grip this addiction cycle can have on one’s life.

Proverbs 23:29

Proverbs 23:29 NIV

29 Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaints? Who has needless bruises? Who has bloodshot eyes?

Proverbs 23:30–31 NIV

30 Those who linger over wine, who go to sample bowls of mixed wine. 31 Do not gaze at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly!

In our pain we begin to look for something that can help us change our current state by changing our feelings or altering our mood. Either creating a temporary altered state of mind or by numbing the pain as much as possible. Notice the captivating appeal of the wine in this case. It looks good and it even tastes pleasant. The pleasantness becomes a temporary distraction as it disguises the dangers laced within.

Btw, Satan always makes the counterfeit to God look good on the outside and we are even made to believe that it is a solution, but its way eventually leads to death.

Proverbs 23: 32-34

Proverbs 23:32–34 NIV

32 In the end it bites like a snake and poisons like a viper. 33 Your eyes will see strange sights, and your mind will imagine confusing things. 34 You will be like one sleeping on the high seas, lying on top of the rigging.

Proverbs 23:35 NIV

35 “They hit me,” you will say, “but I’m not hurt! They beat me, but I don’t feel it! When will I wake up so I can find another drink?”

Despite these warnings and the adverse effects and consequences, the benefit of numbing one's pain and the ability to have some control over that, even though it may be temporary, is enough to say, When, will I wake up so I can find another drink?”

Our desire to take control of our lives and our own happiness and to have some say over feelings that are unpleasant is a greater motivator than are the consequences we may endure as a result of our addiction.

This is why it is not enough to just point out the consequences of addiction and urge the addict to just stop what they are doing. It is at this point that our addiction now has control over us and we are trapped in bondage which was not what we were after. We were in pursuit of happiness and something to help with our pain. What we received in return was bondage to something that now has control over our life.

The reason the addiction cycle is so strong and hard to break is because of THE APPEAL it has TO OUR SIN NATURE. You see, we don’t sign up for addiction initially. The addiction is the result, or the consequence, of choices we have made as we choose to follow the dictates of a wayward and sinful heart. Rather than look to God for healing or wait for Him to supply us with His peace of mind and with His joy, we pursue other avenues that appeal to our fleshly desires and gives us some control over when and where we may find relief. When we are determined to do that we settle for a lie instead of the truth and we allow ourselves to be placed in bondage to our flesh and ultimately to the substance or event that we chose to submit to rather than our heavenly Father.

When it comes to breaking addiction we want to focus on the act of the addiction itself when in essence we really need to deal with the pain that led us to seek relief in the first place and the sinful decisions made in our own heart that caused us to choose other things instead of God to cope with our pain.

Let me read you a text from Isaiah that drives this home. This is Isaiah 46

he Israelites are in exile. They are under the rule of Assyrian powers, brought captive by the Babylon king, and find themselves waiting for their God to save them! They had been separated from their home, their temple had been destroyed, and they were a scattered people. In spite of all this however, their biggest problem was not a fallen temple. Their biggest enemy was not the Babylon king. It was not the physical turmoil around them that was most tragic. Rather, it was the spiritual collapse within them that had brought them so low. Isaiah, the prophet, reminds God’s people that it was their idolatry that landed them in this place. God had not failed them, their idols had!

In spite of their unfaithfulness, God had not given up on His people. In just one chapter before this, Isaiah 45 , Isaiah tells them that God is going to bring in another king, Cyrus of Persia, to destroy the Babylonian powers. It is under this chosen instrument of God, that God will work in the heart of Cyrus to set the Israelites free so they can return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. They were simply going to have to wait for God’s time and promise!

But as they wait, Isaiah brings them a serious challenge. They were going to have to surrender those idols that they were holding on to. They were going to have to choose the one true God.

Isaiah 46:1–7 NIV

1 Bel bows down, Nebo stoops low; their idols are borne by beasts of burden. The images that are carried about are burdensome, a burden for the weary. 2 They stoop and bow down together; unable to rescue the burden, they themselves go off into captivity. 3 “Listen to me, you descendants of Jacob, all the remnant of the people of Israel, you whom I have upheld since your birth, and have carried since you were born. 4 Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you. 5 “With whom will you compare me or count me equal? To whom will you liken me that we may be compared? 6 Some pour out gold from their bags and weigh out silver on the scales; they hire a goldsmith to make it into a god, and they bow down and worship it. 7 They lift it to their shoulders and carry it; they set it up in its place, and there it stands. From that spot it cannot move. Even though someone cries out to it, it cannot answer; it cannot save them from their troubles.

Bel and Nebo were idols. Egyptian Idols. They were ties to the places that God has rescued them from. So they had an unhealthy tie to something which could not give them life. They were suffering so they looked to these idols that they could make from wood or stone, touch, control, move and tell to come and go when they needed. Sound familliar?

Rather than trust God in thier suffering they looked for rescue in the things that God had rescued them from!

God offers good things, but those good things could never save them!

We all have a tendency, when things get hard…to press into something. To work and grab harder to something. We all have a tendency to have an unhealthy attachement to things which can not save us.

Marriage is having issues, but instead of praying and seeking God together, we escape into more work or pornography, or relationshisp we shouldn’t be in.

You feel guilt and shame for your past and failures, but instead of dealing with your heart, you work out to get your body right..but your heart still isn’t.

Or, we feel like a failure and escape in the comfort of good food.

Or, we want to be loved so badly, we make our kids and family into our everything, and thier love, rather than God’s become so much to us.

Addictions don’t just look like a drug or alchohol.

Listen to me, we all struggle with addiction…its just that some of our addictions are more socially acceptable. .

But listen to what God says to the Israelites,

Isaiah 46:7 NIV

7 They lift it to their shoulders and carry it; they set it up in its place, and there it stands. From that spot it cannot move. Even though someone cries out to it, it cannot answer; it cannot save them from their troubles.

They carry these idols, they cry to it it can’t answer. They seek it for rescue..but it can’t rescue them.

When the enemy comes…the things that they looked to for rescue, the idols, they have to rescue them To put them on animals and run away.

And God says in verse 4, I will carry you..and I have carried you.

Heres the picture, we can carry the things that can’t save us, or be carried by the God that can.

All of us, sooner or later, will find that the addiction we have..the work, the drink, the relationship, the sex, the money, the praise, the success, the comfort..will fail us. That it never could really rescue us..it lied to us, and in the end…it will be a burden we carry rather than a hope that carrys us. God says..you and your idols will be carried away into captivity.

God says, the hope you have been looking for in them has always been in me. The hope you need in this problem is the same hope that has carried you your whole life!

And heres the truth...

Growing up…looking back I had addictions I didn’t even realize. I wasn’t brought up in church, went to school in Tennessee. And felt like an outsider for alot of my years growing up. I longed for intimacy and closeness and in middle school one of the ways I started to find comfort was through pornography. It became my addiction.

I struggled with it through highschool, and into college. And even times when I wanted to quit..I couldn’t. I was trying, but you see when I removed the pornographyI still had the longing for love and intimacy that I had felt as a kid. And even if I stopped the fruit of my addiction, the root hadn’t changed. And so I kept going back. And this expressed iteself in people pleasing, seeking relationships..trying to fit in. I had lived so long for other peoples love and connection, that I forgot who I was. I had changed myself so much for others..I didn’t recognize myself.

Well, towards the end of freshman year, march, my grandmother died. And nothing could help. My grandma was one of the closest people in my life. I felt loved and seen. So when I lost her, it wasn’t just love and intimacy now it was grief. And nothing I had could fix. My addicitons couldnt save me.

It wasn’t long after that God drew me to a church to submit to him and recieve in Him all that I was hoping for.

You know whats crazy, the feeling I thought pornography was providing, was just a faint glimpse of the love and intimacy I found in Jesus.

And you know whats crazy…it wasn’t me trying to stop my addiction that did…my desire for pornography and people, was cast out not by removing desires…but finally fulfilling those desires in the one through which they were made for.

The way we deal with addiction is not to perse..just tell people to stop desiring those things. The buddhist will say that true happiness is found in not having desire. So when you desire nothing you wil be happy. But that is not the biblical model.

It problem isn’t the desire for happiness or joy, the problem comes in the things we make the object of our desire.

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” - C.S. Lewis

Your desires are not the problem…God has given us a desire for peace, joy, and happiness. The problem is we are too easily satisfied with mudpies..when God offers us dinner at his table.

So what am I saying…addictions at the root of it..is tryign to deal with the sufering of this world through the temporary and superficial pleasures rather than our God who is the object which can satisfy our deepest desires.

Christ Gives Hope!!

The Bible Describes our HOPE in FOUR distinct ways:

We have HOPE in God’s power to CHANGE us and HELP us to live for Him FAITHFULLY

2 Corinthians 5:14-15 (NIV) 14 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

2 Peter 1:3-4 (NIV) 3 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. 4 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.

Titus 2:11-14 (NIV) 11 For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. 12 It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, 13 while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, 14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.

It is love which compells. It is his grace which changes us!

The old desire is cast out by a new desire. A greater desire!

The way the dead leaves of winter are removed from some trees is not that people go around plucking them off; no, it is the new life, the shoot that comes and pushes off the dead in order to make room for itself. In the same way the Christian gets rid of all such things as bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and evil speaking and all malice. The new qualities develop and the others simply have no room; they are pushed out and they are pushed off.

Thomas Chambers..describes it as such ““The root power of sin is severed by the power of a superior pleasure — a more compelling joy.”

The old desire is killed by the new one. The old life replaced by the new life.

Thats how we are changed. Thats how we are made new.

We have HOPE that in HIM we can find EVERLASTING JOY.

This joy is eternal and found in an unhindered relationship with Jesus. It is not subject to the cycles of happiness that comes and goes in this life. It is better than happiness and offers us something that happiness cannot.

Romans 14:17 (NIV) For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit,

Psalm 16:11 (NIV) You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

The temperary joy will be replaced by a fuller and greater joy!

We have HOPE that Jesus will HEAL our hurts and WALK WITH US through our pain so as to give us VICTORY over our addictions.

Luke 4:18 (ESV) “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind,to set at liberty those who are oppressed,

Matthew 11:28-30 (NIV) 28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Christ does not ignore your pain!

He knows it and he sees it. He want’s to heal you, an deliver you from the trauma that caused you to seek rescue in that drink, or place, or person, or thing.

You see the hurt and trauma may not be our fault, but the healing is our responsibility!

I come from a family where addiction runs rampant..but heres what I believe. No more! The generational cycle ends here!

I am not just a product of my experiences, I am a produce of grace and I have hope in Christ!

We have HOPE that in Jesus we will have complete FORGIVENESS and CLEANSING of ALL our SIN

This is a vital step because once we come to a place where we are ready to be set free from our addiction Satan wants to hit us with guilt and shame for what we have done. He hopes to bring despair and drive us back into our addiction. But we need to cling to the hope that in Jesus we have been forgiven of all our sin!

1 John 1:9 (NIV) If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

When we consider the HOPE we have in JESUS we can be encouraged and we can encourage others that there is deliverance from their addiction. There is a way out and there is freedom to be had.

This is the root of our healing. This does not mean that being saved removes all struggle, but it does mean that we have the resources to walk out of any and every addiction.

And every struggle that we have been through, God will use it for good!

Let today be the day!

As we close, I want to share with you 5 important steps one must be willing to take if they ever want to be free of an addiction. In a sense, these are HEART commitments one must be willing to take in order to find true freedom and break the chains of addiction that have enslaved their heart.

1. Identify what trauma, pain or feeling of unhappiness have you been trying to numb and begin trusting God to heal it or grant you His peace to overcome. (This is a place where you may want to seek the help of a Christian counselor to help unpack this and help you begin a process where you can find God’s peace)

2. Allow God to show you how you have been exchanging Him for a counterfeit. Submit your mind to the word of God in daily reading. Pour yourself into worshiping God throughout each day. (Start reading in the Book of Psalms and let David’s cries to the Lord become your prayers to God)

3. Repent of your desire to control your circumstances. (Confess where you have tried to play God and start learning how to trust HIM for circumstances and situations that are outside of your control)

4. Keep speaking TRUTH over the LIES your heart has a tendency to believe. Addicts are notorious for telling themselves lies. Here are some of those lies: One drink isn’t going to hurt / I am hopeless anyway. Why bother trying to stop / If they wouldn’t have treated me that way I wouldn’t have to get high / I just need a little something to relax me

Because of our sin nature our heart is drawn to a lie. We must combat our heart’s sin nature by constantly preaching the TRUTH of God’s Word to our hearts.

Self deception #1 - “God is not Good!” We need to preach to ourselves, “God is Good and our circumstances do not define Him otherwise.”

Self deception #2 - “I am good, but I occasionally do bad things.” The first deception is about God. But this second deception is about us. We need to preach to ourselves, “We are corrupt and in need of a SAVIOR”

Romans 3:10-12 (NIV) As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one;11 there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. 12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good,not even one.”

Notice how we tend to get these first two backwards. We want to believe we are basically good but God is not. How messed up is that. The thing that makes us corrupt is our selfish desires! Nothing highlights this truth better than James 1:14-15 (NIV) 14 but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. We cannot find freedom from the things that want to bind us up without understanding who God is and who we are.

Self deception #3 - “My idols are harmless.” We need to preach to ourselves, “Idols/counterfeits want nothing more than to destroy us!” When we think of the object of our affection that led to our addiction we need to see it as a representative of death. It is like a harlot whose house leads to the grave. Proverbs 2:18-19 (NIV) Surely her house leads down to death and her paths to the spirits of the dead. 19 None who go to her return or attain the paths of life.

Self deception #4 - “I can’t say NO!” We need to preach to ourselves, “You can say NO! We are not helpless because through the Holy Spirit we have the power of SELF-CONTROL. It may not feel like it sometimes but we can say NO and we need to speak it to those things that are wanting to take our eyes off of Jesus! We don’t have to give in. Our theme verse says 2 Timothy 1:7 (NKJV) For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. A sound mind gives us the ability to make sound decisions and sometimes that decision needs to be, “NO, I will not give in!”

Notice the last step we need to make in order to be free from addiction

5. Don’t isolate yourself but instead become part of the Body of Christ. You need the love and support of the church. We are to encourage one another and pray for one another until Christ returns. When you are struggling, ask for help! Reach out but don’t isolate!!

(Close with the end of Robert’s testimony)

Invitation:

Invitation to get help through counseling

Highlight resources available

Ephesians (highlight the spiritual element and that we don’t wrestle with flesh and blood but with principalities and powers of darkness) This battle cannot be won with physical weapons.

Prep for week 5 by asking if anyone has a question concerning mental health or questions concerning how to get help or how to help someone they know to text their questions to our PRAYER # 910-736-6615