Desperate Joy

  Addiction always has its roots in sin, and that sin in turn springs up from our own lustful, selfish desires. This is the idea that we have been looking at in James 1 over the last few posts. There is a process that sin always follows. We sometimes feel like we just stumble into it, or it just happened, like a meteor falling from the sky. But if we learn to pay attention, we will see that it happens gradually, step-by-step. The medieval Christian thinker Thomas a Kempis digs deeper into the ideas we saw from James and offers us some useful insight into the process that sin takes: "First there cometh into mind a bare thought of evil, then a strong imagination thereof, afterwards delight, and evil motion, and then consent. And so little by little our wicked enemy getteth complete entrance for that he is not resisted at the beginning." First, we have the "bare thought of evil."   The world, the flesh and the devil will all send images, thoughts, and ideas into ou...

  King David Sees Bathsheba Bathing, James Tissot (1836-1902) Each and every one of us is in the middle of a battle for our hearts and souls. Satan is perpetually on the prowl, seeking to devour us. He is our greatest enemy and if we do not resist him, we will be snared by his temptations and fall into destruction. The Apostle James described this process of temptation, "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." (James 1:13-15) In the previous post we examined how temptation and enticement work. Lust always originates in our own hearts and minds. We can never blame the Devil or God for our sin, every temptation originates within us, from our own unclean desires. Satan comes along with his enticements to seduce us ...

Much of my adult work has been spent in the classroom, teaching junior high and high school students math and science. Often one of the challenges I faced was getting students to take responsibility for their own actions. The missing homework is always a classic example. I have not heard, "My dog ate it!" but have heard a litany of other excuses, "It's my sister's fault!"  "It's my parents’ fault!"  There was always something or someone else to blame. This is a common theme in addiction as well. We blame shift or point fingers at others and do not want to take responsibility for ourselves. We blame our family of origin, we blame our wives and kids, we blame our employer, Biden, or Trump. Some of us even dare to blame God. Everyone else is at fault, except us. We want to look to others, to the external environment to find the cause of our problems. We know we have issues and that our behaviors are out of control, but we fail to realize that th...

  The Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones, Gustave Doré, 1866 One of the most significant and powerful tools we have in fighting addiction and living a life of righteousness is the Word of God. Often, we enter the struggle with the world, the flesh, and the devil as if it is an armed conflict and we must overcome them by strength of will alone. We believe if we just try harder then we can overcome. But we can never have enough willpower to overcome the devil, because he doesn't come at us that way. Satan always comes at us sideways, with lies and deception. He didn't overcome Eve by wrestling her into submission, no, he told her what she wanted to hear. He fed her honey-coated lies, and she swallowed them one by one until she had eaten the forbidden fruit and plunged the world into chaos. In order to effectively fight the lies of Satan and the addiction we must have the truth. The reason the Word of God is so effective is because it is the Truth. Not a truth. Not your truth or ...