The Addictions We All Have. Yes, Every Last One Of Us.
Monday, October 31st, 2016 2:18pm

Have you ever wondered what it looks like when someone with an addiction "falls off the wagon" in a moment of weakness? For an alcoholic, you will find a bottle or two, upwards of a case of beer or liqueur in their place. Someone who is addicted to drugs, you might find a few joints or some small bags of pills. But when a sugar addict falls off the wagon, it does not take long for their entire house to be converted into a fully featured candy store complete with its own chocolate fountain and 150 varieties of gumdrops. :P

Now the funnier part (not the haha kind) of that is, we'll treat drugs and alcohol addiction seriously, even sending people to rehab. Yet you never hear of one single person anywhere who goes to rehab (that I know of at least) for a sugar addiction. I know there's a few who go for food addictions, and only the most severely addicted at that. But when was the last time you heard of someone at a rehab meeting saying, "Hi, I'm Joe and I'm a Almond Joy addict?"

Has that ever dawned on anyone? Why do we treat one addiction as if it's life and death, and another one as something cute and funny but hardly harmful? I would think that ANY addiction of any kind should be treated just as seriously, IMHO. I say that because I know people who were fast food junkies (note "were") and as a result they died of their bad eating habits. Yet you never once saw anyone tell them to stop, or if they did, it was a very half hearted, "Ya know, you really ought to stop that", but never any sincere intervention or heart checking or any of that.

Is it perhaps because, in some small sense, we're all addicts? And in being so we're ashamed to call out someone else on their addiction because it would in turn shine too much light on our own? All addictions, even the ones that don't seem unhealthy at the time, ultimately impact our lives. Sure, we won't die on the spot if we OD on Twinkies or Big Macs, but the end result is the same. It will kill us. Period. Maybe not as fast as binge drinking or an LSD overdose, but it will be our death if we continue in it. On top of that we have to look at the spiritual side of this.

Why are we addicted? We feed an addiction because it salves over, or gives the perception of doing so, some hurt or emptiness in our lives that we wish to see fulfilled. Yet in every case where I've seen people miraculously and instantly break out of their addictions, never more to return to them, those same people have turned to the one and only infinite source, and with all their being I might add, that can fill that need and never run short of supply. And that one and only thing that can conquer those addictions, even the really, really stubborn ones, is Jesus. Him and Him alone, period. He is our ultimate anti-drug, to use a 90's era anti-drug catch phrase.

So, as you go about your life today, remember this one thing. We are ALL addicts. Even if we do not want to admit it, we are all addicted to something. And it doesn't have to include things we consume. TV can be one thing, football (or sports in general), sex, exercise (ie, excess gym time or going overboard on fitness), sports cars, clothing, shoes, etc. Again, to be an addiction it doesn't need to be consumed. It only needs to consume us. And that consumption may be subtle, but it is there, it is spiritual in nature, and it is the Devil's tool to keep you from fully committing yourself to Christ, to fully sinking your all into Him.

An addiction is a substitution for Christ and what He truly offers us. So if we are to be true to Christ, and to shed ourselves of these destructive addictions that all of us have, yes, every single one of us, we must surrender all we have, in their entirety, to Christ. But to begin that, we must first identify what it is that is our addiction (or addictions, as for some people that's plural as they have many), and then turn our entire being, all that we are, and all that we hold, over to Jesus and place everything, right down to your last red cent, or your shoes, or your Big Macs or whatever it is you are addicted to, and all that you own or possess, and put all of that into His hands and then sink ourselves entirely into Jesus.

If we do that, we will find many multitudes MORE satisfaction by committing our entirety into Him that we will EVER find in anything this world has to offer in any capacity, and completely regardless of quantity, or quality. Because all things of this world pale in comparison to Jesus. Even the tiniest hair on the top of His head far outshines the entirety of the universe. So that being true, why, good man and good woman, are you still devoting your time and energy into feeding your addiction, when you can have the true answer to your needs, simply by resting entirely in Jesus? From an eternal perspective, it makes no sense, now does it?

So with that thought, I'll leave you with this challenge. Sit down today, and tomorrow, and for however long it takes, speak with Jesus, and rest in Him, give Him your all, but most importantly those addictions in your life that have become the false substitution for that which only Jesus can provide. If you find your true rest in Him, and not just a partial one like so many of us do, you will finally discover the one and only thing that will fill that void in your life that your addiction is vainly trying to fill. And I'm not saying this just to the unsaved. I'm saying this to Christians as well as we are just as guilty of trying to fill the empty parts of our lives, salve over past hurts, and cover up many a dark corner in our lives that we have not yet surrendered to Christ.

Just because He's in your heart doesn't mean He as yet owns and controls every corner of your life. It's like the idea of water. Just because it's in your house doesn't mean it controls your house. Not until it fills up every square inch of space within your house does it fully control it. So if you're not letting Jesus completely fill you and consume every square inch of who you are, then you have not fully filled yourself with Christ, and until you do, your addictions will continue with nothing to stop them. Only Christ can, and ONLY if you will let him.