Messages from Above devotional 2012

Week 11 - Addiction

Week 11 - Addiction

Day 1- Trapped

Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?

Melanie was a beautiful young lady, with all the things money could buy. She had a lot of friends who she could talk to at school and her family were always there. From an early age Melanie had been taught to stand up for what she knew to be right but when she was in secondary school she was finding it a little hard to still stand up for what she believed. She decided that the easiest way to avoid peer pressure was to stay at home in her room studying. Whilst studying Melanie used to get very bored and started to snack on sweets and chocolates to give her brain 'sugar'. As time progressed Melanie found that food was not only helping to fill the hours of study but that it could be used at any time to fill the void in her life. As the years progressed Melanie would sneak food up to her room to eat and when she was all alone upstairs she munch continuously. As with the build up of food came the build up of weight and not long after Melanie began to put on a unhealthy amount of weight. It became apparent that she was now well addicted to food.  

All the time Melanie refused to bring her issues to God. Although studying may have been a way to keep out peer pressure the fact is she relied on her own strength as opposed to that of God and in so doing developed a deadly addiction causing her to gain a lot of weight and put her health at risk. , even with the best of intentions, sin can inch it's way into your life.  One must learn to rely on God, taking everything to him so he can take control of our lives. There is no need to try and do it on your own.

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Day 2

The secret sins

In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.Romans 2:16

John had a problem. Not to big a problem but a problem non-the less. You see he had this credit card which was registered under the name Richard Hayers, which he would use to fund his problem. John loved to gamble, every free, private moment he could get he would be on the computer playing poker and blackjack. At first it was a bit of harmless fun, just taking out small bets less than a pound, no biggie really. That all changed last month though when John made a massive win worth over £200,000, he felt on top of the moon, infact he was flying the happy flag so high he took all of his money and bet it this week on a horse who he had been watching for months, unfortunately this horse got injured during the race and now John is £600,000 in the red not too sure where he is going to get the money to pay for this gambling problem, but at the moment he's not worried after all his name is John not Richard. Right ! You see what John doesn't know is that Richard has reported his card stolen months ago, he's moved on with his life and new credit card and has left the fraud in the hands of some investigators. What John also doesn't know is that now the investigators have found him, after all it wasn't that hard, make a few phone calls and find out the computer IP number and BOB's your uncle, Mission accomplished. John is also unaware that in the next 24 hours he is going to be under arrest for theft and continued use of Mr Richard Hayers credit card. Much of a secret? I think not.

As people we always feel that if no-one is looking then we have the world's best secret. This idea is false, like John we will be found out. It may not warrant our arrest, but it may cost us eternal life if we keep indulging in our so called secret sins. Most importanly with every action remember God is watching and he knows all about it.

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Day 3