Is addiction an issue of unbelief? "If you use drugs you must be an unbeliever.."
Unbelief blocks the experience of a vibrant relationship with God.
What are the distractions from the message of hope?
People are looking to the addiction of choice to fix what ails them.
Trusting ourselves. That's the heart of unbelief.
Prov 3:5 tells us to NOT trust ourselves.
Even when the circumstances are hard.
Be not wise in your own eyes. We lean on our own understanding and in those moments doubt God.
Not falling away totally because of the perseverance of the saints which I believe in.
But overdosing and dying from a sinful choice based on unbelief and doubt can lead to the death of the body. But because of their faith in Jesus, their return to their sin didn't nullify their salvation. There are people I know in heaven right now even though they overdosed and died.
The bigger message is more than clean and sober. It's about making Jesus Lord and Savior so they don't go back to the old ways of their flesh.
Unbelief is a key problem in the heart of the addicted.
Operating as if they are "god," they trust in their own solutions.
With all the fear inside the height of pandemic times, there are people who were and are still trusting in God – going into the hospitals and other essential service work for their employment. Their boldness exudes a trust in God.
We need exhortation and community every day. So I don't just need church on Sunday. I need to be talking to Christians every day.
90 meetings in 90 days. That's actually awesome instruction from the self-help movement.
I wish it were 90 church meetings 90 one on one meetings
We need someone every day!
It can be lonely and you can be deceived by your own sin in your own heart and become hardened in your heart.
Find somebody to exhort you.
That's the number one danger of isolating and living in your own world during this time..
We can become hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
Unbelief...doubting God and trusting self as if you are a king or "god."
You need somebody outside of you to point that out.
We have three different types at Grace Fellowship Church: care groups, community groups, and large group worship.
God loves you and wants good for you.
He knows that you are weak.
I want my kids to know that they are weak. You need Christ.
Don't try to do it in your own strength.
Don't think you've gotta be superman and do this without help.
"Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." Hebrews 3:12-13 (ESV, from biblegateway.com)
