God has this way of delivering news before He delivers the result. Usually, the person who receives the news has a hard time believing the result. The reason God does this is that He needs to challenge and shake-up our thinking to get us to perceive things as He does.
Consider the most hopeless case of addiction you know...perhaps that's you reading this right now. Imagine God saying, "Greetings, my clean, sober, healed, victorious child!" You may not believe that could ever be true, but God has already declared it to be true. There's a great story in the Bible about a man named Gideon that illustrates this principle. "The angel of the LORD came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. When the angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon, he said, "The LORD is with you, mighty warrior." "But sir," Gideon replied, "if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about when they said, 'Did not the LORD bring us up out of Egypt?' But now the LORD has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian." (Judges 6:11-13 NIV) Gideon is hiding from the enemy who is so oppressive that anything the Jews have is immediately and forcefully stolen. God sends and angel to proclaim that Gideon is a "mighty warrior!" Sound ridiculous? It certainly did to Gideon. He was not able to conceptualize his own victory but God already had it planned. In the grip of addiction, you cannot conceptualize your own freedom, but God has already declared it to be true. Beyond the declaration, God calls Gideon into multiple steps of obedience, one at a time. Gideon is faithful and has enough belief to take God at His word, one step at a time. Are you willing to believe God enough to take things one step at a time and be obedient to His will? God even does the irrational, unthinkable, and gets Gideon to reduce the size of his army to 300 men so that God shows him that the victory over their enemy was due to the Lord's strength, not the power of their army. God is willing to display His power in your weakness and deliver you to a place of freedom. Ultimately, Gideon gets the victory God promised and there is peace in the land. You can experience the victory and deliverance you seek from the grip of drugs. It takes God's power and your willing obedience. That combination simply cannot and will not fail! You are one decision in the direction of God's will for your life to begin your miraculous journey to freedom. If you can't believe it, don't worry, because God can! Father, in the name of Jesus, we receive your promise of freedom for our lives when we cannot believe it for ourselves. We say, "I believe, help my unbelief!" Show us, step by step, your will and your ways and help us to walk away from the drug, away from the alcohol, away from the toxic relationship, away from whatever has us in bondage and into your light. Give us the needed strength and wisdom. We need you and believe you even when we cannot believe in ourselves. Amen.
1 Comment
10/27/2022 11:53:09 am
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AuthorThe team of Addiction Response Ministry responds with messages of hope, help, and healing. Archives
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