Addiction Bible Quotes

The unborn” are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus, but actually dislike people who breathe. Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.

Read this book ... but understand it’s fiction. And let life be ... your most important addiction.

Men are a compilation of every experience and relationship they have ever lived through. Some experiences have bettered your man while others have battered him. The man standing before you is the result of a lifetime of surviving.

We've invented a thousand shades of gray, devising a comfortable Christian existence we can all live with—super awesome, except the Bible doesn't support it. According to Scripture, no real disciple serves God while addicted to the dollar. There is no sheep/goat hybrid. There is no middle road. There is no true believer who hates his brother. Grayed-down discipleship is an easier sell, but it created pretend Christians, obsessing over Scriptures we like while conspicuously ignoring the rest. Until God asks for everything and we answer, "It's yours," we don't yet have ears to hear or eyes to see.

The seventh and eighth grade were for me, and for every single good and interesting person I have ever known, what the writers of the bible meant when they used the words hell and pit...It was all over for any small feeling that one was essentially all right. One wasn't...It was springtime, for Hitler, in Germany. Anne Lamott

Addicts are not an isolated subset of the population. We all have the potential for addiction.

You’ve got to wonder what Jesus was like at seventeen,” Anne Lamott wrote. “They don’t even talk about it in the Bible, he was apparently so awful.

There is a beautiful moment in the bible when the prophet Elijah feels God’s resence. The Scriptures say that a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart, but God was not in the wind. After the wind, there was an earthquake, but God was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. It was the whisper of God. Today we can hear the whisper where we least expect it; in a baby refugee and in a homeless rabbi, in crack addicts and displaced children, in a groaning creation.

WHEN GOD IS A DRUG—RELIGIOUS ADDICTION Mood alteration is an ingredient of compulsive/addictive behavior. Addiction has been described as “a pathological relationship to any mood-altering experience that has life-damaging consequences.” Toxic shame has been suggested as the core and fuel of all addiction. Religious addiction is rooted in toxic shame, which can be readily mood-altered through various religious behaviors. One can get feelings of righteousness through any form of worship. One can fast, pray, meditate, serve others, go through sacramental rituals, speak in tongues, be slain by the Holy Spirit, quote the Bible, read Bible passages, or say the name of Yahweh or Jesus. Any of these can be a mood-altering experience. If one is toxically shamed, such an experience can be immensely rewarding. The disciples of any religious system can say we are good and others, those not like us, the sinners, are bad. This can be exhilarating to the souls of toxically shamed people.

We don't see the New Testament church hoarding the feast for themselves, gorging, getting fatter and fatter and asking for more; more bible studies, more sermons, more programs, classes, training, conferences, information, more feasting for us. At some point, the church stopped living the bible and decided just to study it, culling the feast parts and whitewashing the fast parts. We are addicted to the buffet, skillfully discarding the costly discipleship required after consuming. The feast is supposed to sustain the fast, but we go back for seconds and thirds and fourths, stuffed to the brim and fat with inactivity.

O, how easy it is to do religious things if other people are watching! Preaching, praying, attending church, reading the bible, acts of kindness and charity-they all take on a certain pleasantness of the ego if we know that others will find out about them and think well of us. It is a deadly addiction for esteem that we have.

In all these assaults on the senses there is a great wisdom — not only about the addictiveness of pleasures but about their ephemerality. The essence of addiction, after all, is that pleasure tends to desperate and leave the mind agitated, hungry for more. The idea that just one more dollar, one more dalliance, one more rung on the ladder will leave us feeling sated reflects a misunderstanding about human nature — a misunderstanding, moreover, that is built into human nature; we are designed to feel that the next great goal will bring bliss, and the bliss is designed to evaporate shortly after we get there. Natural selection has a malicious sense of humor; it leads us along with a series of promises and then keeps saying ‘Just kidding.’ As the Bible puts it, ‘All the labour of man is for his mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled.’ Remarkably, we go our whole lives without ever really catching on. The advice of the sages — that we refuse to play this game — is nothing less than an incitement to mutiny, to rebel against our creator. Sensual pleasures are the whip natural selection uses to control us to keep us in the thrall of its warped value system. To cultivate some indifference to them is one plausible route to liberation. While few of us can claim to have traveled far on this route, the proliferation of this scriptural advice suggests it has been followed some distance with some success.

A New York times reporter wrote about David Wilkerson,"He was the model of absolute simplicity, directness and non-sophistication. He sought out gang members, drug addicts and alcoholics with no other weapon than the Bible. He just went out on the streets, mixed with the kids and reasoned with them face to face, often quoting the Bible, and it worked.

Who dies best, the soldier who falls for your sake, or the fly in my whiskey-glass? The happy agony of the fly is his reward for an adventurous dive in no cause but his own. Gorged and crazed, he touches bottom, knows he's gone as far as he can go, and bravely sticks. I sleep on. In the morning I pour new happiness upon the crust of the old, and only as I raise the glass to my lips descry through that rich brown double inch my flattened hero. I drink around his death, being no angler by any inclination, and leave him in the weird shallows. The glass set down, I idle beneath the fan, while beyond my window-bars a warm drizzle passes silently from clouds to leaves. How to die? How to live? These questions, if we ask the dead fly, are both answered thus: In a drunken state. But drunk on WHAT should we all be? Well, there's love to drink, of course, and death, which is the same thing, and whiskey, better still, and heroin, best of all—except maybe for holiness. Accordingly, let this book, like its characters, be devoted to Addiction, Addicts, Pushers, Prostitutes and Pimps. With upraised needles, Bibles, dildoes and shot glasses, let us now throw our condoms in the fire, unbutton our trousers, and happily commit THIS MULTITUDE OF CRIMES.

Well, Espen, you're no drug addict, so why do you beg?" "Because it's my mission to be mirror for mankind so that they can see which actions are great and which are small." "And which are great?" Espen sighed in despair, as though weary of repeating the obvious. "Charity. Sharing and helping your neighbor. The Bible deals with nothing else. In fact, you have to search extremely hard to find anything about sex before marriage, abortion, homosexuality, or a woman's right to speak in public. But, of course, it is easier for Pharisees to talk aloud about subordinate clauses than to describe and perform the great actions the Bible leaves us in no doubt about: You have to give half of what you own to someone who has nothing. Thousands of people are dying every day without hearing the words of God because these Christians will not let go of their earthly goods. I'm giving them a chance to reflect.

Why do the greatest miracle stories seem to come from mission fields, either overseas or among the destitute here at home (the Teen Challenge outreach to drug addicts, for example)? Because the need is there. Christians are taking their sound doctrine and extending it to lives in chaos, which is what God has called us all to do. Without this extension of compassion it is all too easy for Bible teachers and authors to grow haughty. We become proud of what we know. We are so impressed with our doctrinal orderliness that we become intellectually arrogant. We have the rules and theories all figured out while the rest of the world is befuddled and confused about God’s truth … poor souls.

If exercise was sold in the pill form, it would be the number pill sold throughout the world because the benefits are endless.

Your new found hope is not in just a wish or hope for good luck, but your hope is in the loving and all powerful God of the Bible.

The Bible condemns the use of any substance which alters or distorts our thinking (including alcohol, which was the most common drug in ancient times).

So here is what I see when we reclaim the church ladies: a woman loved and free is beautiful. She is laughing with her sisters, and together they are telling their stories, revealing their scars and their wounds, the places where they don't have it figured out. They are nurturers, creating a haven where the young, the broken, the tenderhearted, and the at-risk can flourish. These women are dancing and worshiping, hands high, faces tipped toward heaven, tears streaming. They are celebrating all shapes and sizes, talking frankly and respectfully about sexuality and body image, promising to stop calling themselves fat. They are saving babies tossed in rubbish heaps, rescuing child soldiers, supporting mamas trying to make ends meet halfway around the world, thinking of justice when they buy their daily coffee. They are fighting sex trafficking. They are pastoring and counseling. They are choosing life consistently, building hope, doing the hard work of transformation in themselves. They are shaking off the silence of shame and throwing open the prison doors of physical and sexual abuse, addictions, eating disorders, and suicidal depression. Poverty and despair are being unlocked - these women know there are many hands helping turn that key. There isn't much complaining about husbands and chores, cattiness, or jealousy when a woman knows she is loved for her true self. She is lit up with something bigger than what the world offers, refusing to be intimidated into silence or despair.

To begin with, there is an almost compulsive promiscuity associated with homosexual behavior. 75% of homosexual men have more than 100 sexual partners during their lifetime. More than half of these partners are strangers. Only 8% of homosexual men and 7% of homosexual women ever have relationships lasting more than three years. Nobody knows the reason for this strange, obsessive promiscuity. It may be that homosexuals are trying to satisfy a deep psychological need by sexual encounters, and it just is not fulfilling. Male homosexuals average over 20 partners a year. According to Dr. Schmidt, The number of homosexual men who experience anything like lifelong fidelity becomes, statistically speaking, almost meaningless. Promiscuity among homosexual men is not a mere stereotype, and it is not merely the majority experience—it is virtually the only experience. Lifelong faithfulness is almost non-existent in the homosexual experience. Associated with this compulsive promiscuity is widespread drug use by homosexuals to heighten their sexual experiences. Homosexuals in general are three times as likely to be problem drinkers as the general population. Studies show that 47% of male homosexuals have a history of alcohol abuse and 51% have a history of drug abuse. There is a direct correlation between the number of partners and the amount of drugs consumed. Moreover, according to Schmidt, “There is overwhelming evidence that certain mental disorders occur with much higher frequency among homosexuals.” For example, 40% of homosexual men have a history of major depression. That compares with only 3% for men in general. Similarly 37% of female homosexuals have a history of depression. This leads in turn to heightened suicide rates. Homosexuals are three times as likely to contemplate suicide as the general population. In fact homosexual men have an attempted suicide rate six times that of heterosexual men, and homosexual women attempt suicide twice as often as heterosexual women. Nor are depression and suicide the only problems. Studies show that homosexuals are much more likely to be pedophiles than heterosexual men. Whatever the causes of these disorders, the fact remains that anyone contemplating a homosexual lifestyle should have no illusions about what he is getting into. Another well-kept secret is how physically dangerous homosexual behavior is.

For some of us faith comes easily. For others, especially if we have experienced betrayal, it may be more difficult. Sometimes we must exhaust all of our own resources in trying to overcome our addictive “disease” before we will risk believing in a higher Power.

THE BIG PICTURE A. WISDOM: THE FOUNDATION OF RECOVERY (1:1-27) B. FAITH: THE SUBSTANCE OF RECOVERY (2:1-26) C. SELF-CONTROL: SETTING BOUNDARIES IN RECOVERY (3:1-18) D. HUMILITY: THE ATTITUDE OF RECOVERY (4:1-17) E. GIVING OF OURSELVES: THE EVIDENCE OF RECOVERY (5:1-20)

The seventh and eighth grade were for me, and for every single good and interesting person I have ever known, what the writers of the Bible meant when they used the words hell and the pit . . . It was all over for any small feeling that one was essentially all right. One wasn’t.

The Bible warns about religious transformations that may appear good and therefore deceive many: 'For Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.' (2 Corinthians 11:13-14)

How We Approach the New Testament We Christians have been taught to approach the Bible in one of eight ways: • You look for verses that inspire you. Upon finding such verses, you either highlight, memorize, meditate upon, or put them on your refrigerator door. • You look for verses that tell you what God has promised so that you can confess it in faith and thereby obligate the Lord to do what you want. • You look for verses that tell you what God commands you to do. • You look for verses that you can quote to scare the devil out of his wits or resist him in the hour of temptation. • You look for verses that will prove your particular doctrine so that you can slice-and-dice your theological sparring partner into biblical ribbons. (Because of the proof-texting method, a vast wasteland of Christianity behaves as if the mere citation of some random, decontextualized verse of Scripture ends all discussion on virtually any subject.) • You look for verses in the Bible to control and/or correct others. • You look for verses that “preach” well and make good sermon material. (This is an ongoing addiction for many who preach and teach.) • You sometimes close your eyes, flip open the Bible randomly, stick your finger on a page, read what the text says, and then take what you have read as a personal “word” from the Lord. Now look at this list again. Which of these approaches have you used? Look again: Notice how each is highly individualistic. All of them put you, the individual Christian, at the center. Each approach ignores the fact that most of the New Testament was written to corporate bodies of people (churches), not to individuals.

The role of the Old Testament is to give an inspired telling of how we get to Jesus. But once we get to Jesus we don’t build multiple tabernacles and grant an equivalency to Jesus and the Old Testament. This was Peter’s mistake on Tabor. Jesus is greater than Moses. Jesus is greater than Elijah. Jesus is greater than the Bible. Jesus is the Savior of all that is to be saved… including the Bible. Jesus saves the Bible from itself! Jesus shows us how to read the Bible and not be harmed by it. Jesus delivers the Bible from its addiction to violent retaliation. Moses may stone sinners and Elijah may kill idolaters. And so violent holiness can be justified as biblical. But for a Christian that doesn’t matter. We follow Jesus!

I could see how you might let yourself get addicted to that kind of discipline, or denial; how it might seem like, if you kept doing it, over and over, that you were somehow living more cleanly or more righteously than other people. It was the same thing as following all those rules Lydia stuck to, and when that got old, making up even more rules to follow and then justifying them with some passage from the Bible.

This is the crisis we’re in: God-light streamed into the world, but men and women everywhere ran for the darkness. They went for the darkness because they were not really interested in pleasing God. Everyone who makes a practice of doing evil, addicted to denial and illusion, hates God-light and won’t come near it, fearing a painful exposure. But anyone working and living in truth and reality welcomes God-light so the work can be seen for the God-work it is.

    Recognizing our internal weaknesses is the first step toward recovery. When we look beyond ourself, we see that there are others who have struggled with an addiction and recovered. We know that they, too, were unable to heal themselves, yet they now live free of addictive behaviors. We conclude that there must be a greater Power that helped them. Since we can see the similarities between their struggles and our own, we come to believe that our powerful God can restore us to sanity.

I recognize that craving such an outward appearance is utterly prideful. The Spirit reminds me to find my identity in Christ, not in a façade of capability and certainly not in others’ opinions of me. Oh, how difficult this is for an approval-addicted, over-achieving, “gee, I hope she likes me” kind of gal such as I. I must swim crosscurrent and make life choices, not for the crowd, but rather and rightly only—as my Bible-teacher friend Wendy Pope states at the close of all her emails—”for an audience of One.

To most Westerners, the Philippines suffers from a lack of exoticism. Simply put, Philippine culture is just too accessible. To a young Western backpacker, sharing a bus ride with a saffron-robed Buddhist monk reading the sacred Pali texts is exotic. Sitting next to a Catholic nun reading the Bible is a lot less so. When the Buddhist monk takes out his prayer beads, closes his eyes, and chants under his breath, the Westerner swoons. When the Catholic nun pulls out her rosary and says her Hail Marys, the backpacker squirms.

Internal Bondage BIBLE READING: Mark 5:1-13 We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. When we are under the influence of our addiction, its hold may seem to have supernatural force. We may give up on living and throw ourself into self-destructive behaviors with reckless abandon. People may also give up on us. They may distance themselves from us, as though we were already dead. Whether our “insanity” is self-induced or has a more sinister origin, there is power available to restore us to sanity and wholeness.

Through reading the Bible, drunkards become sober, thieves become honest, prostitutes become pure, and drug addicts become clean. Anger, bitterness, and resentment yield to loving forgiveness, mercy, and graciousness. Selfish greed gives way to unselfish service. Crumbling marriages are rebuilt. Broken relationships are rekindled. Shattered self-esteem is restored. In God’s Word, the weak find strength, the guilty find forgiveness, the discouraged find new joy, and the despairing find hope. The same Holy Spirit who inspired the Bible writers inspires those who read it.

I like how Dallas Willard put it: “We don’t believe something by merely saying we believe it,” he said, “or even when we believe that we believe it. We believe something when we act as if it were true.” So perhaps a better question than “Do I believe in miracles?” is “Am I acting like I do?” Am I including the people who are typically excluded? Am I feeding the hungry and caring for the sick? Am I holding the hands of the homeless and offering help to addicts? Am I working to break down religious and political barriers that marginalize ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities and people with disabilities? Am I behaving as though life is more than a meaningless, chaotic mess, that there is some order in the storm?

I don't always know what to do with texts about demons in the Bible. Especially when demons talk and have names...But I do know that, like myself, many of my parishioners suffer from addictions and compulsions and depression. I do know that sometimes things get ahold of us, making us do things we don't want to or making us think we love things (substances, people, etc.) that are really destructive. So maybe if, in part, that is what a demon is, maybe if it's being taken over by something destructive, then possession is less of an anachronism and more of an epidemic. ...I, like any good middle-class, mainline Protestant, tend to arrogantly look down my theological nose at talk of demon possession as superstitious snake-handling nonsense, as though it's the embarrassing spiritual equivalent of a monster truck rally....I was feeling squirmy about people who talk of evil spirits and demons like they are beings in and of themselves, until I remembered that, at one point in my life, my own depression had felt so present, so much like a character in my life, that it actually felt right to go ahead and give her a name. I named my depression Frances

Sadly though, this side of heaven, we can only attempt to have a fore-shadow of the romance to come. Even the best marriages and the men and women who valiantly strive to follow the Bible’s model of marriage fall short. I am sure many of us have failed in obtaining the type of earthly relationship God planned and intended to display His love. Pre-marital sex, extra-marital sex, homosexuality, sex outside of a marriage covenant, and love-less, dysfunctional marriages are just the beginning. Many have been abused, sold, objectified, molested, even raped. All manner of perversion and depravity have marred the beauty God intended. We are broken, injured, hurt, marginalized, left feeling like so much less than what God requires. If you are one broken, please hear this: It should not have been. It was not God’s way or His will that you were treated like anything less than His highly valued, flawless beauty—His beloved. If you are one who lost your way and engaged in things beneath your royal standing, He died, arose and lives to forgive and restore. Yes, we know a good and solid Biblical marriage gives the closest representation of godly intimacy. But let’s get real for a minute. So few of us have ever experienced that for ourselves or grew up in homes where that was our example, we desperately need to trust God for our own healing and restoration in this area before we can ever hope to experience it in our relationships. I am convinced God’s priority for us is to learn about spiritual intimacy with Him. He can restore marriages, liberate from sexual addictions, save spouses, give us a godly man. But I think, for the most part, those things happen after we realize and accept our need for Christ. His priority will always be our spirit intimately one with His, because He puts the spirit above the flesh. We have to lay our souls bare and ask for His touch. God alone can reclaim our perception of intimacy for His holy and righteous glory. He can restore our hearts and minds to righteousness, clean and pure so we might experience holy intimacy through the Spirit until we see Him face to face in glory.

Little Nicky heads to the Badlands to see the show for himself. The Western Roads are outside his remit as a U.S. Treasury agent, but he knows the men he wants are its denizens. Standing on the corner of the Great Western and Edinburgh Roads, a sideshow, a carnival of the doped, the beaten, and the crazed. He walks round to the Avenue Haig strip and encounters the playground of Shanghai’s crackpots, cranks, gondoos, and lunatics. He’s accosted constantly: casino touts, hustling pimps, dope dealers; monkeys on chains, dancing dogs, kids turning tumbles, Chinese ‘look see’ boys offering to watch your car. Their numbers rise as the Japs turn the screws on Shanghai ever tighter. Half-crazy American missionaries try to sell him Bibles printed on rice paper—saving souls in the Badlands is one tough beat. The Chinese hawkers do no better with their porno cards of naked dyed blondes, Disney characters in lewd poses, and bare-arsed Chinese girls, all underage. Barkers for the strip shows and porno flicks up the alleyways guarantee genuine French celluloid of the filthiest kind. Beggars abound, near the dealers and bootleggers in the shadows, selling fake heroin pills and bootleg samogon Russian vodka, distilled in alleyways, that just might leave you blind. Off the Avenue Haig, Nicky, making sure of his gun in its shoulder holster, ventures up the side streets and narrow laneways that buzz with the purveyors of cure-all tonics, hawkers of appetite suppressants, male pick-me-ups promising endless virility. Everything is for sale—back-street abortions and unwanted baby girls alongside corn and callus removers, street barbers, and earwax pickers. The stalls of the letter writers for the illiterate are next to the sellers of pills to cure opium addiction. He sees desperate refugees offered spurious Nansen passports, dubious visas for neutral Macao, well-forged letters of transit for Brazil. He could have his fortune told twenty times over (gypsy tarot cards or Chinese bone chuckers? Your choice). He could eat his fill—grilled meat and rice stalls—or he could start a whole new life: end-of-the-worlders and Korean propagandists offer cheap land in Mongolia and Manchukuo.

THIS IS MY ABC BOOK of people God loves. We’ll start with . . .           A: God loves Adorable people. God loves those who are Affable and Affectionate. God loves Ambulance drivers, Artists, Accordion players, Astronauts, Airplane pilots, and Acrobats. God loves African Americans, the Amish, Anglicans, and Animal husbandry workers. God loves Animal-rights Activists, Astrologers, Adulterers, Addicts, Atheists, and Abortionists.           B: God loves Babies. God loves Bible readers. God loves Baptists and Barbershop quartets . . . Boys and Boy Band members . . . Blondes, Brunettes, and old ladies with Blue hair. He loves the Bedraggled, the Beat up, and the Burnt out . . . the Bullied and the Bullies . . . people who are Brave, Busy, Bossy, Bitter, Boastful, Bored, and Boorish. God loves all the Blue men in the Blue Man Group.           C: God loves Crystal meth junkies,           D: Drag queens,           E: and Elvis impersonators.           F: God loves the Faithful and the Faithless, the Fearful and the Fearless. He loves people from Fiji, Finland, and France; people who Fight for Freedom, their Friends, and their right to party; and God loves people who sound like Fat Albert . . . “Hey, hey, hey!”           G: God loves Greedy Guatemalan Gynecologists.           H: God loves Homosexuals, and people who are Homophobic, and all the Homo sapiens in between.           I: God loves IRS auditors.           J: God loves late-night talk-show hosts named Jimmy (Fallon or Kimmel), people who eat Jim sausages (Dean or Slim), people who love Jams (hip-hop or strawberry), singers named Justin (Timberlake or Bieber), and people who aren’t ready for this Jelly (Beyoncé’s or grape).           K: God loves Khloe Kardashian, Kourtney Kardashian, Kim Kardashian, and Kanye Kardashian. (Please don’t tell him I said that.)           L: God loves people in Laos and people who are feeling Lousy. God loves people who are Ludicrous, and God loves Ludacris. God loves Ladies, and God loves Lady Gaga.           M: God loves Ministers, Missionaries, and Meter maids; people who are Malicious, Meticulous, Mischievous, and Mysterious; people who collect Marbles and people who have lost their Marbles . . . and Miley Cyrus.           N: God loves Ninjas, Nudists, and Nose pickers,           O: Obstetricians, Orthodontists, Optometrists, Ophthalmologists, and Overweight Obituary writers,           P: Pimps, Pornographers, and Pedophiles,           Q: the Queen of England, the members of the band Queen, and Queen Latifah.           R: God loves the people of Rwanda and the Rebels who committed genocide against them.           S: God loves Strippers in Stilettos working on the Strip in Sin City;           T: it’s not unusual that God loves Tom Jones.           U: God loves people from the United States, the United Kingdom, and the United Arab Emirates; Ukrainians and Uruguayans, the Unemployed and Unemployment inspectors; blind baseball Umpires and shady Used-car salesmen. God loves Ushers, and God loves Usher.           V: God loves Vegetarians in Virginia Beach, Vegans in Vietnam, and people who eat lots of Vanilla bean ice cream in Las Vegas.           W: The great I AM loves will.i.am. He loves Waitresses who work at Waffle Houses, Weirdos who have gotten lots of Wet Willies, and Weight Watchers who hide Whatchamacallits in their Windbreakers.           X: God loves X-ray technicians.           Y: God loves You.           Z: God loves Zoologists who are preparing for the Zombie apocalypse. God . . . is for the rest of us. And we have the responsibility, the honor, of letting the world know that God is for them, and he’s inviting them into a life-changing relationship with him. So let ’em know.

The Bible says we’re to “make no provision for the flesh.” That’s because if we give the flesh an inch, it’ll take the West Coast. Sin wants to reach its utmost potential. Anger wants to become murder; bitterness wants to sprout divorce; a glance wants to become adultery.

A Humble Beginning BIBLE READING: 2 Kings 5:1-15 We admitted that we were powerless over our problems—that our lives had become unmanageable. It can be very humiliating to admit that we are powerless, especially if we are used to being in control. We may be powerful in some areas of our life, but out of control in terms of our addictive/compulsive behaviors. If we refuse to admit our powerlessness, we may lose everything. That one unmanageable part of our life may infect and destroy everything else.

We may be afraid to admit that we are powerless and that our life is unmanageable. If we admit that we are powerless, won’t we be tempted to give up completely in the struggle against our addiction? It doesn't seem to make sense that we can admit powerlessness and still find the power to go on. This paradox will be dealt with as we go on to Steps Two and Three.     Life is full of paradoxes. The apostle Paul tells us, “This precious treasure—this light and power that now shines within us—is held in perishable containers, that is, in our weak bodies. So everyone can see that our glorious power is from God and is not our own. We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed and broken” (2 Corinthians 4:7-8).

We may have already chosen to follow God, letting him define the overall direction of our life. Even so, many of us still try to keep parts of our heart hidden from God. We have devoted these parts of ourself to gratifying our addiction, to doing things that are contrary to the will of God. This sets us up for living a double life, which can fill us with guilt, shame, and instability.

What you continually choose to do will eventually become a habit, and when it does, it does not feel like a big effort anymore.

Without studying and absorbing God’s Word we might not die physically, but it’s easy to be spiritually dead. This is especially true when we fill ourselves with so much stuff that glorifies the complete opposite of God’s kingdom. It’s difficult to live holy if we constantly fill ourselves with junk.

But just as suddenly the darkness receded, the pool of light seemed to take me in, as I thought how anything we do-any job, act, gesture-becomes meaningful if done with a heart for God. Was this the diurnal paradox looming up again-nothing matters and everything does? I stared at the candle flickering before me, deciphering the seeming coolness of blue and green dancing, so improbably, within the bright orange and red. Which was hotter? Which was purer? I had to admit, to my growing concern, reading the Bible was becoming rather addictive. There did indeed seem to be something for everyone, including me.

During that time, “Hurry up or we’ll be late” was commonly heard, either yelled from the kitchen or hissed while we scurried into the back row at church. There was too much to do in too little time. Life was a blur. And I thought everyone lived like this. That was until I read about “hurry sickness” in The Life You’ve Always Wanted by John Ortberg. My heart was skewered when I read that one of its symptoms is a diminished capacity to love. My children could have told you I had a problem. Only it wasn’t hurry sickness, it was hurry addiction. God dealt with my addiction to overload and hurry by taking it all away in a cross-country move. He made me go cold turkey as I said good-bye to working at my job, directing the children’s ministry, coleading the women’s ministry, being on the praise team, having my small group, leading Vacation Bible Study each summer, and more. God moved us 2,100 miles away—so far that I couldn’t even sneak back to lead a women’s event. I had no job, no church, and no friends, just lots of time. Since two of the boys were in school and the youngest had just started preschool, I had plenty of time to think and pray. And while there were lots of tears, I also experienced God in a new way. Very quickly, God connected me with Proverbs 31 Ministries. I started to learn that God had a better plan for my life than I did, and that I should look to Him for direction on my daily activities. I also learned that my first line of ministry was inside my home. I wasn’t completely cured of my hurry addiction yet, so I decided I would become the Best Homemaker Ever. And then I picked up a book called No Ordinary Home by Carol Brazo. And right in the beginning of the book I read something that brought about the biggest change in my life: If there were one biblical truth I wish I could give my children and lay hold of in my own deepest parts, it would be this one thing. He created me, He loves me, He will always love me. Nothing I do will change who I am. Being versus doing. The error was finally outlined in bold. I was always worried about what I was doing. . . . God’s only concern was and is what I am being—a child of His, forgiven, justified by the work of His Son, His Heir.[2] You know when you feel like an author has peeked into your living room window and knows exactly who you are? That’s what reading this was like for me. God wired me to be highly productive, but I hadn’t undergirded that with an understanding of my true identity. So in order to feel worthwhile and valued and confident, I was driven to take on more. More accomplishments equaled more worth. But it was never enough.

Many of us know what it is like to be a burden to others. It is a common side effect of being controlled by an addiction or compulsive behavior. Sometimes our behavior has made us lose our job. As a result, we have found ourself in financial need. This humiliation can affect our family in many ways. We may have caused our loved ones great stress and shame because we haven’t provided for their needs.     The apostle Paul taught us to follow this standard: “For you know that you ought to imitate us. We were not idle when we were with you. We never accepted food from anyone without paying for it. We worked hard day and night” (2 Thessalonians 3:7-8). “Make it your goal to live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands. . . . Then, people . . . will respect the way you live, and you will not need to depend on others” (1 Thessalonians 4:11-12).     It is important for us to think about how our irresponsibility has affected others. Much pain may have been caused by our failure to provide for our family’s needs. We need to reflect on how this failure has caused us to lose their respect and trust. The shame of not facing this aspect of our life can be terribly discouraging. Once we face this and become willing to make amends, our sense of self-respect will improve significantly. This step will help us get rid of some of our daily stresses, freeing us to proceed further with recovery.

Christian growth is not like a combo-lock. We don’t change by dialing in the right amount of Bible reading, prayer, Scripture memory, service, and community, and then click. By all means, do the spiritual disciplines, but know that the spiritual disciplines aren’t what change us. We are transformed, and idols are shattered, by what the disciplines are meant to show us: the glory of Jesus. The disciplines are vehicles of faith, means of grace to get us on the path of the Spirit so we can behold, see, and feel the wonder of Christ.

A life that is heaven-bent on exalting Jesus will be committed to the Bible, because we believe our Lord when he said, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31–32).

Drunkenness. This Greek word means overindulgence in alcohol. Alcohol may be used for medicine, but it can also become a terrible drug. The way it is used in our world is probably one of the great evils of our day. It is a self-inflicted impediment that springs from “a man taking a drink, a drink taking a drink, and drink taking the man.” Distilled liquors as we have them today were unknown in Bible times.12

Volumes could be written on the problem of [drug] addiction. Millions of barbiturates are swallowed every night to help the nation sleep. Millions of tranquilizers keep us calm during the day. Millions of pep pills wake us up in the morning. The Bible warns that these flights from reality bring no lasting satisfaction.

In Christ alone there is deliverance from man’s tortured thoughts and freedom from the sordid habits which are destroying so many people. Why does the Bible so clearly denounce drunkenness? Because it is an enemy of human life. Anything that is against a person’s welfare, God is against.

Mood alteration is an ingredient of compulsive/addictive behavior. Addiction has been described as “a pathological relationship to any mood-altering experience that has life-damaging consequences.” Toxic shame has been suggested as the core and fuel of all addiction. Religious addiction is rooted in toxic shame, which can be readily mood-altered through various religious behaviors. One can get feelings of righteousness through any form of worship. One can fast, pray, meditate, serve others, go through sacramental rituals, speak in tongues, be slain by the Holy Spirit, quote the Bible, read Bible passages, or say the name of Yahweh or Jesus. Any of these can be a mood-altering experience. If one is toxically shamed, such an experience can be immensely rewarding.

Community and the Bible are the bumpers we need in our lives. The Spirit of Christ uses both to transform us into the image of Christ. The Word of God without a gospel community can be abused, misapplied, and ignored. And a community that isn’t centered on the gospel and the Word of God will only gutter itself person by person into nothingness. We need the refining factory of the church of Jesus.

Chance was developing a healthy addiction to the Bible, not to mention coffee, marijuana and an ice bag on his ass. All gave him relief in their way.

ADDICTION   Demons arise within us; They rear their ugly face; Addictions are all around; To ease this empty place;   Trying to mask the pain; Alcohol, Smoking, Drugs; Putting you in a happy place; Where you feel warm and snug;   Time to destroy the demons living in your soul; Fighting hard with all your might; They’re losing their control; There are others out there; With demons to be fought, Banning together for this fight; The monsters they are caught;   Caging them until they die, You’re holding the key The powers deep within you, Is not to set them free.

The Bible does not deny that we were various things—addicts, homosexuals, hateful, prideful, pornographic masturbators—but that is what we were (past tense) (1 Cor. 6:9-11; Titus 3:3-5). The emphasis in Scripture is on what we are and what we are called to be. The Christian does not say, Hello, my name is _____ and I am an X Y or Z.” The Christian says I was dead, but now I am alive. The Christian says I am a struggling sinner, yet I am a saint. The Christians says I am a new creation; I am transformed.

The addicted father. Some people grow up with dads who are alcoholics or drug addicts. In these cases, a child does not know who his father is. One day he is fun to be with, the next day he is a monster. One day he is playful and friendly, the next day he has red eyes and a frightening demeanor. This can traumatize a child who needs to feel secure at home. Children of alcoholics face severe struggles later in life because they do not know whom to trust—especially if their own fathers were out of control.

We’ve invented a thousand shades of gray, devising a comfortable Christian existence we can all live with—super awesome, except the Bible doesn’t support it. According to Scripture, no real disciple serves God while addicted to the dollar. There

The search for truth looks backward and not forward. Be warned, adventuring is addictive. Extraordinary things are waiting to be discovered. As water eventually wears down stone, the glorious turning of Heaven continues, and even the new priestly caste is powerless before it.

The unborn” are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. It’s almost as if, by being born, they have died to you. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus but actually dislike people who breathe. Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.

I had been a believer in Jesus since I was six, but here I was, trapped in the midst of pain and addiction, unable to escape. No matter how hard I prayed or read my Bible, I would find myself falling deeper into addiction.

Remember that in the Bible, “This is who God is and what he has done” always precedes “This is what you must do.

With "anything people do but shouldn't" labeled "disease," those who oppose Christianity may very well call prayer, worship, reading the Bible, faith in Jesus Christ, and obeying the Lord 'diseases" or symptoms of a religious "disease." The organization Fundamentalists Anonymous is based upon the idea that conservative Christianity (believing that Jesus is the only way and that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God) is a serious, debilitating addiction. Unfortunately, the three Christian authors of 'Love Is a Choice' have listed this anti-Christian organization at the end of their book with this recommendation: "Seek them out locally.

Until he met the Lord Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus, the Apostle Paul spent his entire life being willing to have God remove all the defects of his character.

20Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.

you’re far more likely to run into the enemy in the form of an alert on your phone while you’re reading your Bible or a multiday Netflix binge or a full-on dopamine addiction to Instagram or a Saturday morning at the office or another soccer game on a Sunday or commitment after commitment after commitment in a life of speed.

As the end approaches, people are going to be self-absorbed, money-hungry, self-promoting, stuck-up, profane, contemptuous of parents, crude, coarse, dog-eat-dog, unbending, slanderers, impulsively wild, savage, cynical, treacherous, ruthless, bloated windbags, addicted to lust, and allergic to God. They’ll make a show of religion, but behind the scenes they’re animals. Stay clear of these people.

Some people are primarily concerned with systemic evils—corporations, nations, and institutions that enslave people, exploit the earth, and disregard the welfare of the weak and disempowered. Others are primarily concerned with individual sins, and so they focus on personal morality, individual patterns, habits, and addictions that prevent human flourishing and cause profound suffering. Some pass out pamphlets that explain how to have peace with God; some work in refugee camps in war zones. Some have radio shows that discuss particular interpretations of particular Bible verses; others work to liberate women and children from the sex trade. Often the people most concerned about others going to hell when they die seem less concerned with the hells on earth right now, while the people most concerned with the hells on earth right now seem the least concerned about hell after death.

When we think of broken people, we think of addicts or the homeless. We think of circumstances that are horrible. But we don’t often think of CEO’s or celebrities. We forget that behind the fame and success and money, what this book,” he lifted his Bible, “says about human nature is true. That brokenness is a symptom of the human nature. And the rich and famous among us are just as broken as the heroin addicts. Although Paul was facing awful circumstances—he was imprisoned, likely sick or injured. But Paul wasn’t broken. In fact, he said ‘In all things, I have learned to be content.’ He said, ‘when I am weak, then I am strong’ because he found his strength and identity in Christ. That is a peace that is beyond understanding and beyond the things of this fallen world.

I believe recovery is a synonym for what the Bible calls "discipleship." That's why I believe the 12 Steps are for everyone. We all have our addictions --or what some people call "our favorite sins"-- that we continue to struggle with. That means we can all benefit from living out the principles of the 12 Steps.

The man richer than Bill Gates, smarter than Albert Einstein, more powerful than an American president, and more influential than the pope amassed a harem rivaled only by men who are porn addicts who collect women in their minds. Despite having sexually sinful parents who conceived his older brother through adultery, he did not learn his lesson. Despite being the wisest man to ever walk the earth other than Jesus Christ, he did not learn his lesson. Despite marrying a beautiful and sexually free woman who loved him, as recorded in the Song of Songs, he did not learn his lesson. Instead, he intermarried with seven hundred godless pagan women and kept three hundred additional sexual concubines from many other nations who helped turn his sinful heart away from God so that he worshipped false gods, even building pagan altars where sexual sin was conducted in worship to demon gods.a This includes his support of Ashtoreth, the Canaanite demon goddess of sex worshipped around male phallices symbolized by poles around which orgies occurred. He also funded the worship of Molech, the demon god who demanded children be sacrificed by fire; and of Chemosh, the Moabite god who demanded child sacrifice not unlike abortion. Solomon’s example reveals that the longer we wait to repent, the more damage we do. Solomon himself wrote an entire book of the Bible, Ecclesiastes, in part to repent and warn us not to follow his folly.

After watching how eagerly my Christian friends studied the Bible, I realized I wasn’t going to have what they had unless I took it seriously as well. I saw the hope they derived from its pages and how much reliable guidance it gave them. I saw how much joy they got from applying it, and I realized it was the key

An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sensible, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3not addicted to wine aor pugnacious, but considerate, peaceable, free from the love of money; 4leading his own household well, having his children in submission with all dignity

Disordered loves, like addictions, also lead to all manner of personal and social pathologies: in Augustine’s terms “The punishment for every disordered mind is its own disorder.”69

It all revolved around me. Everything I did was centered around my life, my goals, my plan, and my agenda. Even when I went to Bible studies or church, I did so in order to acquire new knowledge and friendships that would benefit me, help me do better, and make me feel better about myself. They said a Christian is someone who has deposed themselves from the throne of their lives and placed God there; a Christian is someone who has placed God at the center and the foundation of their lives.

If God really did create everything and the Bible is God’s decisive word about everything, then that means it’s not an opinion but an instruction manual.

The surprising thing was that they didn’t care what I thought about them; they cared about me. Even though I’d inwardly made fun of them for their Bible studies, sharing their life stories, and praying, I couldn’t stop thinking about how joyful they were. How utterly different they were from any other people I’d ever met.

The manufacturer always knows how to fix the mess, even with the most complex problems. He never uses shortcuts, cheap fixes, or temporary solutions that cause more problems in the long run; he gets to the root of things and addresses them at their core. In the same way, if we were designed, then our manufacturer understands us entirely, and is able to address and heal every single one of our vast array of intimate complexities. If God is who He says He is, the Bible is the instruction manual for the human race, and He is the manufacturer.

If the Bible is His instruction manual for the human race, it contains everything we need to navigate through the hardships of this life. Learning and applying the knowledge in it would be more valuable to us than reading all the books ever written.

If the Bible is God’s Word, then it expounds the objective laws of the universe. If it is not, it is just like all the other disputable theories, sometimes consistent with reality, and sometimes not.

For the love of money, Christian leaders have become addicted to the path to hell. Money is not a blessing from God; the path to righteousness is what God considers a blessing. Luke 16:13

In the Bible, Ham finds Noah drunk and naked in Noah's tent. He tells his brothers, Shem and Japheth, who proceed to cover their father without gazing at him. When Noah finds out what happened, he curses Ham's son Canaan, saying he shall be “a servant of servants.” Yet, in the earlier biblical account, Noah and his family are not described in racial terms. Before the 16th or 17th century, the racial interpretation of Ham is absent or contradictory. But as the story echoed through the centuries and around the world, variously interpreted by Islamic, Christian and Jewish scholars, Ham came to be widely portrayed as black; blackness, servitude, and the idea of racial hierarchy became inextricably linked. The racist interpretation of scripture was never adopted by the African Coptic Churches, and in Europe, some of the earlier representations of Jesus Christ, Mary, etc. depicted them as being dark-skinned. By the early nineteenth century, many supposed scholars in America supported the belief that African-Americans were descendants of Ham, who were cursed and consequently blackened by their sins, was a primary justification for their enslavement.

Even if we never engage in the activities that land us in jail, the Bible tells us that all sin has an addictive quality. “Everyone who sins is a slave to sin,” Jesus said (John 8:34). That means we have more in common with addicts than we might think. And it means we need to take the same steps addicts in recovery take if we hope to get free.

A lot of people let the past dictate their future. Don’t do that! Get past your past. We all have a past, but we all have a future. The Bible teaches us in Ephesians 2:10 that we are recreated in Christ Jesus so we might do the good works He planned beforehand for us and live the good life He prearranged and made ready for us.

What happens in one generation often repeats itself in the next. The consequences of actions and decisions taken in one generation affect those who follow. For this reason it is common to observe certain patterns from one generation to the next such as divorce, alcoholism, addictive behavior, sexual abuse, poor marriages, one child running off, mistrust of authority, pregnancy out of wedlock, an inability to sustain stable relationships, etc. Scientists and sociologists have been debating for decades whether this is a result of “nature” (i.e., our DNA) or “nurture” (i.e., our environment) or both. The Bible doesn’t answer this question. It only states that this is a “mysterious law of God’s universe.

My thought life was just completely consumed with food and what to eat or not eat and when to work out. My brain hovered there as if it were stuck on a TV channel, with no remote and no way to turn it off or switch to a different program. It had never occurred to me that this was sin that needed to be confessed and that God has given me the power to "take every thought captive to obey Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:5)" I remember the day those words leaped off the pages of my thick dark-green study Bible, soon after I learned I was pregnant for the first time. I reread and reread them. In shock as I realized that my thoughts were mine to control. It was the first time I got on my knees and confessed my addiction to my image and my worship of control. I asked God to help me take my thoughts captive. The concept thrilled me. Maybe it was possible to escape this prison of self-hate and control

Ever wonder where addictions are in the Bible? Check out Genesis 3! The first couple exploited the things God intended to be used for pleasure (trees, leaves, the garden and each other) and used them to hide, cover shame, and then blamed others for the problem. Things haven’t changed much in many thousands of years!

Our bodies have been created not only by God but also for God..We are driven today by whatever can bring our bodies the most pleasure. What can we eat, touch, watch, do listen to, or engage in to satisfy the cravings of our bodies?..in his love, gives us boundaries for our bodies: he loves us and knows what is best for us..[there are] clear and critical distinctions between different types of laws in Leviticus. Some of the laws are civil in nature, and they specifically pertain to the government of ancient Israel..Other laws are ceremonial..However, various moral laws..are explicitly reiterated in the New Testament..Jesus himself teaches that the only God-honoring alternative to marriage between a man and a woman is singleness..the Bible also prohibits all sexual looking and thinking outside of marriage between a husband and a wife..it is sinful even to look at someone who is not your husband or wife and entertain sexual thoughts about that person..it is also wrong to provoke sexual desires in others outside of marriage..God prohibits any kind of crude speech, humor, or entertainment that remotely revolves around sexual immorality..often watch movies and shows, read books and articles, and visit Internet sites that highlight, display, promote, or make light of sexual immorality..God prohibits sexual worship-- the idolization of sex and infatuation with sexual activity as a fundamental means to personal fulfillment..Don't rationalize it, and don't reason with it-- run from it. Flee it as fast as you can..We all have a sinful tendency to turn aside from God's ways to our wants. This tendency has an inevitable effect on our sexuality..every one of us is born with a bent toward sexual sin. But just because we have that bent doesn't mean we must act upon it. We live in a culture that assumes a natural explanation implies a moral obligation. If you were born with a desire, then it's essential to your nature to carry it out. This is one reason why our contemporary discussion of sexuality is wrongly framed as an issue of civil rights..Ethnic identity is a morally neutral attribute..Sexual activity is a morally chosen behavior..our sexual behavior is a moral decision, and just because we are inclined to certain behaviors does not make such behaviors right. His disposition toward a behavior does not mean justification for that behavior. "That's the way he is" doesn't mean "that's how he should act." Adultery isn't inevitable; it's immoral. This applies to all sexual behavior that deviates from God's design..We do not always choose our temptations. But we do choose our reactions to those temptations..the assumption that God's Word is subject to human judgement..Instead of obeying what God has said, we question whether God has said it..as soon as we advocate homosexual activity, we undercut biblical authority..we are undermining the integrity of the entire gospel..We take this created gift called sex and use it to question the Creator God, who gave us the gift in the first place..[Jesus] was the most fully human, fully complete person who ever lived, and he was never married. He never indulged in any sort of sexual immorality..This was not a resurrection merely of Jesus' spirit or soul but of his body..Repentance like this doesn't mean total perfection, but it does mean a new direction..in a culture that virtually equates identity with sexuality..Naturally this becomes our perception of ourselves, and we subsequently view everything in our lives through this grid..When you turn to Christ, your entire identity is changed. You are in Christ, and Christ is in you. Your identity is no longer as a heterosexual or a homosexual, an addict or an adulterer.

When you are addicted, it is I that is chained.

Notice how not even once were we told to just bow down and worship God via song for our entire lives. Yet our churches are nearly addicted to making this the high point of spiritual formation and worship. And let me be clear, this is important and true. But, at least in Genesis, it's not primary. Or another way to put it is, yes, we are called to sing to God but that singing happens through our vocation, not our mouths. Worship at the beginning of the Bible primarily was centered around the job God gave us. Our job was to make, cultivate, create, build, steward, and tame. That is the original mission, the original mandate.

person anywhere in Europe would have had a solid grounding in the classics. Certainly the coiner of addict did. Is it an exaggeration to say that Latin and Greek were known quantities in households with more books than a lone family bible? Probably, but if a member of such a household completed any kind of undergraduate or postgraduate work, there would have been significant accumulated exposure to the classical languages, and the cultures they represented, and their stories, their myths and their legends. Obviously old Gabriel Fallopius knew all that stuff. Certainly Friedrich Sertürner knew all about the Greek god of dreams. (And was probably ready to argue for forty-five minutes why it was indeed dreams, not sleep.) In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, anyone educated in Germany as a pharmacist would have known that kind of thing. Which meant Felix Hoffmann did, too. So why did he call it heroin? Even before I learned it was so, I always vaguely assumed ‘hero’ was ancient Greek. It just sounded right. I further vaguely assumed even in modern times the word might signify something complicated, central and still marginally relevant in today’s Greek heritage. Naively I assumed I was proved right, the first time I came to New York, in 1974. I ate in Greek diners with grand and legacy-heavy names like Parthenon and Acropolis, and from Greek corner delis, some of which had no name at all, but every single establishment had ‘hero sandwiches’ on the menu. This was partly simple respect for tradition, I thought, like the blue-and-white take-away coffee cups, and also perhaps a cultural imperative, a ritual genuflection, but probably most of all marketing, as if to say, eat this mighty meal and you too could be a legend celebrated for millennia. Like Wheaties, the breakfast of champions. But no. ‘Hero’ was a simple phonetic spelling in English of the Greek word ‘gyro’. It was how New Yorkers said it. A hero sandwich was a gyro sandwich, filled with street-meat thinly carved from a large wad that rotated slowly against a source of heat. Like the kebab shops we got in Britain a few years later. Central to modern culture, perhaps, but not to ancient heritage. Even

Jesus came to bring life more abundantly. He came to save the soulsick, to deliver those bound up in sin, to break the chains of bondage and addiction. He came to heal the hurting, and comfort and restore the used, abused, bruised, battered, and broken. He came to forgive the worst sinner and to bring life to the lifeless. He came to reconcile us with God so we can have relationship with our Father.

One of the main points of this book is that people are starving for the grandeur of God. Most of them don’t know that this is what their hearts are longing for. It is the great work of the preacher to show them the greatness of God, Christ, salvation, life, death, heaven, hell, and the ways of God in the world. It is our job to help them see that their addiction to entertainment is like addiction to sugar. It gives ever-shorter highs and then lets you fall lower and lower. But a steady diet of Bible-saturated truth and wonder enlarges the soul and strengthens the heart, and makes Jesus precious beyond words.

19But Joseph replied, “Don’t be afraid of me. Am I God, that I can punish you? 20You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good.

17He did all this so you would never say to yourself, ‘I have achieved this wealth with my own strength and energy.

GOD, the Master, says: 5-6 “‘On the day I chose Israel, I revealed myself to them in the country of Egypt, raising my hand in a solemn oath to the people of Jacob, in which I said, “I am GOD, your personal God.” On the same day that I raised my hand in the solemn oath, I promised them that I would take them out of the country of Egypt and bring them into a country that I had searched out just for them, a country flowing with milk and honey, a jewel of a country. 7 “‘At that time I told them, “Get rid of all the vile things that you’ve become addicted to. Don’t make yourselves filthy with the Egyptian no-god idols. I alone am GOD, your God.” 8-10 “‘But they rebelled against me, wouldn’t listen to a word I said. None got rid of the vile things they were addicted to. They held on to the no-gods of Egypt as if for dear life.