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Addiction is a serious issue with far-reaching effects. Many times a person's behavior becomes so entrenched and so harmful that he or she needs treatment in a formal rehabilitation program to begi...
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All rehab does is cover the real problem. People go to rehab to rehab themselves, but the problem is still there. Jesus said a leopard can not change its spots. Man can not save himself. Only Jesus can save us. We can not save ourselves. The bible has the right way. We are to turn it over to the lord and wait for the righteousness of Christ. Galatians 5:5 Only the spirit of God that lives in the believer can deliver us from sin. If we trust in the Lord to do what we can not do, He will do what He said. If we try in our own strength to overcome our own weakness, we might do it for a while, but it almost always comes back. When Jesus removes it, it will be gone forever. When we remove it we have something to boast in and it will come back. When Jesus removes it we have nothing to boast because it was a work of the spirit to remove the sin. 12 step programs are man made ways to deal with sin that do not work. Only Jesus can remove sin. We have no power over sin, but Jesus does. All the believer can do is confess he has a sin problem. Then Jesus will begin to work in the believers life to remove the sin. But we have to trust Him to do it. The flesh can not overcome the flesh. Man has no power over sin. Only Jesus does. But Christians are never fully sinless in this life. First John 1:8 If you say you have no sin, you deceive yourself and the truth is not in you. But where sin abounds, grace much more abounds. If we could live a sinless life, then Jesus died in vain. But drug addictions and alcoholism destroy families, and the person that is addicted. We do need to distinguish between drinking alcohol and drunkenness. Drinking is not a sin. Paul said be not drunk with wine, where in is excess, but be filled with the spirit. We are not to judge people that drink the same the same as a drunk. We are to do all things in moderation. What that means for some may be different for others. We are all made different. No two people are alike. Some can drink in moderation, and some can not. Those that can't are not to judge those that can. In many things we all stumble. None of us are perfect yet. We are all sinners to a degree, We are not to treat others like dirt because they do not live up to our own standard. We are to love one another remembering that we are not perfect either. When we came to Christ for salvation, He gave us His perfect righteousness and covered us from all sin. We are still sinners and have no righteousness of our own. Treating other believers like dirt is only self righteousness and not from God. Why do people gossip? To make them selves look better. If they have some one else to look down on they think it makes them better. It is a lie. God is our judge. We are not God. What God allows in one persons life, He may not allow in another. I smoke tobacco, and God has allowed it in my life. He said He even has a purpose in it. If God allows it in my life, why should you tell me otherwise. It just feeds your spiritual pride that you do not smoke. What God allows we are not to judge as sin. We are not to make mountains out of mole hills. Adultry is sin. Stealing is sin. Fornication is sin. But minor details of the law we are not to judge. Living under the letter of the law kills the spirit that lives in us.
When I answered my call to ministry in 1991, God put me to work in a Christian rehab called the House of Compassion located in Paterson, NJ. I had lived a life of drug and alcohol use and abuse from the time I was 15, but Jesus Christ became the only solution for what was really behind all of the abuse. Addictions are merely symptoms of a much greater issue, which is rebellion against God. Having been truly delivered from a life of sin my first realization had to be that it was no longer my problem; as long as it continued to be my problem, I had to find my own solutions. When I turned them over to Jesus, they became his problems that he had already overcome at the cross, thus deliverance is already there before we actually need it. The only solution for the drug addict, alcoholic and anything that rebels against God is the crucified, resurrected and glorified Jesus Christ. Programs of men will fail but where Christ is in the midst there is sufficient grace for physical, spiritual and emotional healing. I worked extensively with rehab programs for the first 12 years of my life in ministry and many of the young men that went through the rehabs have gone into full time ministry and many are now Pastors. I don't recommend just any rehab. A person bound in a life of addiction needs a place that has Christ at it's center and that person should consider a residential rehab that is going to immerse them in prayer, the reading and study of God's word and a preparation for active Christian ministry. It will only work if you work it. You will only get out of something what you put into it. If a person is not willing to change a rehab will just be a place to get some clean time before they use again. They will either succeed or become a statistic.
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