Note from Pastor: “Addicted to God” New Ways of Seeing and Walking Free Part 4
“The unfolding of Your words gives life; it gives understanding to the simple.” (Psalm 119:130) The world uses only one metaphor to describe our struggle with addiction: “disease.” But the world does not say, “Addiction is like disease.” The world says, “Addiction is disease,” which is neither theologically nor medically correct. To truly “recover” from addiction, sinful addiction must be replaced with holy addiction, for addiction is merely a perverted form of worship. Even organizations like AA confess that addiction is a “spiritual struggle that needs spiritual healing.” The word “disease” certainly does describe how addiction makes us feel controlled by something, but it omits that the control of addiction is a voluntary enslavement by the addict. The Bible gives us five metaphors to describe addictive behavior: idolatry, adultery, foolishness, attacks by a wild beast, and disease. A theme in Scripture that overlaps with idolatry and adultery (which we previously studied) is foolishness. The Bible presents only two paths in life: wisdom or foolishness (see the book of Proverbs). Foolishness is the decision to pursue a thoughtless course that is briefly pleasurable but ultimately painful. Our natural, sinful inclination is the path of foolishness. A fool fancies himself wise in his own eyes but acts in completely ridiculous ways. Sinful thinking, apart from guidance from God in the Bible through the Holy Spirit, makes us morally stupid. Isaiah 44:20 says, “His deluded heart misleads him. He knows nothing. He understands nothing. His eyes are plastered over so he cannot see and his mind is closed so he cannot understand.” A fool ignores all consequences. A fool follows his feelings not realizing his feelings can mislead him. He thinks he is the exception to the rule. And even though at times the fool may feel the pain of his actions on himself and on others, he continues because he lives for the brief, momentary pleasure (Proverbs 17:24; 14:12; 28:26; 15:3; 14:8; 17:2; 27:22; 26:11). A striking feature of the Bible is that it presents man in “unretouched” form. The Bible does not “air brush” man to hide his blemishes. God has done this to motivate us to come back to our senses. Coming to God is coming to one’s senses. God always delights in giving grace, mercy, and wisdom to any who would “confess and forsake their transgressions and find compassion.” (Proverbs 28:3) The Apostle James exhorts us, “If anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask God for it, for God will give wisdom graciously to anyone who asks for it.” To help the addict, we must encourage him and teach him how to choose the way of wisdom and to turn away from the way of foolishness. We must teach him and help him to act against his foolish feelings and make wise daily choices, one small choice at a time, baby steps. Pointing out the consequences of his behavior on himself and on others will not help him overcome, because foolishness doesn’t care about consequences. He must retrain himself to make wise choices because he understands that wise choices are the way of God, and his main motivation to make right choices is not for himself, not for others, but ultimately because he wants to value and cherish what God has called wisdom (James 3:17).
