More precious then you realize: A Guide to avoiding relapsing over the Holidays.
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Your sobriety is a miracle. Sometimes we forget the fact.
Your sobriety is a miracle. Sometimes we forget the fact.
8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. 9 Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.
6 Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober. 7 For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. 8 But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation.
it is a scary reality but a reality none the less that we get so comfortable in our relationship with Father God that we take His blessings for granted. maybe you have never taken the blessings of God for Granted but I have.
I have been the pastor here nearly 21 years and I have seen brothers and sisters come into the Holiday Season and loose it all because they begin to think that getting and maintaining sobriety was all their work, we forget that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (God), have so much more to do with it than we realized.
Many people do not realize that they will have to work harder the second third or whatever time this is for you than you did the first time.
often its harder to get sober again, then it would be to stay sober in the first place.
often its harder to get sober again, then it would be to stay sober in the first place.
43 “When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. 44 Then he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. 45 Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. So shall it also be with this wicked generation.”
11 As a dog returns to his own vomit,
So a fool repeats his folly.
18 Pride goes before destruction,
And a haughty spirit before a fall.
Go back to the opening verse.
it gets harder and harder with each relapse to stay sober. as bad as things can get a relapse is worse.
we struggle with the same things over and over, do not feel guilty about the repetitive nature of the struggle. but remember not to snuggle, but struggle against the things that so easily be set you.
a lot of times we get prideful and do not realize that it is pride that is trying to work in us. (I don't want to bother anyone).
we need to be honest about what is Going on inside of us.
we need to be honest about what is Going on inside of us.
13 but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
11 Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm;
But how can one be warm alone?
25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.
2 Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
We need to be apart of not apart from.
We need to be apart of not apart from.
23 And being let go, they went to their own companions and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them.