Addiction
Recently I suffered with a trapped nerve in my back. The pain was intense and visits to the doctor brought nothing but increasingly strong pain relief tablets. I very quickly realised that one type turned me into a zombie, unable to think or function in a normal way and a little bit of research showed me that this was quite common. Indeed there were people who took the same drug daily to help them get through life and, as an opiate, it can be addictive.
More recently we had a talk at church from a doctor who specialises in treating drug users, helping them to kick the habit. We realised that this was a life’s work and that it took an incredible amount of expertise, compassion and patience dealing with people who were often extremely unattractive because of their drug fuelled lifestyles. And, by a strange coincidence, in the previous week the news had been full of drug related problems – cocaine as the recreational drug of choice at middle class dinner parties, the spice epidemic in Manchester, turning people into zombies, drugs now available for ordering by mobile phone and then delivered to your door. Drug addiction is a terrible, life destroying thing.
But when we turn to the Bible we find an addiction problem far worse than anything any known drug can produce. It is a 100% killer, once taken you are completely hooked and can never give it up. It has infected everyone in the whole world except for one man.
It is of course sin and the Bible talks about it in this way, as something highly addictive with terrible consequences for the wages of sin is death and everyone dies because we have all sinned.
The Apostle Paul, one of the greatest disciples of Jesus who ever lived, was distraught about its effect on his own life. He wrote ‘I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Because of sin that dwells within me’.
The Bible also tells us why it is so addictive as it describes it as ‘the pleasures of sin’. We can understand this, we all enjoy doing what we want, what pleases our egos and satisfies our desires.
Fortunately the Bible offers a solution involving the greatest doctor who ever lived. The Lord Jesus Christ, the only sinless man who ever lived died on the cross that our sins might be forgiven and our addiction cured. His promise is that, through God’s grace, our mortal, dying lives might be changed miraculously into immortal perfect and sin free ones when he returns to set up his kingdom If we believe in him, when he comes we shall be changed to be like him.
Here is a doctor worth visiting, one who has a complete understanding of our addiction and can cure it through his healing touch. Why not book a consultation?