11-11-2016

 Good Morning All,

            Jeremiah 17:14; “Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved, for you are my praise.”

    A few weeks ago, I was listening to a radio program where the host was interviewing a recovering addict.  That is how he referred to himself as “recovering”; he said,” The beast is never far away.”  As I listened, in my cynical judgmental fashion, I thought he really has a way with words.  Yet I kept listening and his story got more intriguing.  He had tried to defeat his addiction many times and many times he failed.  He was addicted to cocaine for over 26 years and with his family’s encouragement and demands; he went through 8 different rehab stints.  None of them lasted longer than 9 months before he was back using cocaine.

    The interviewer asked him how he finally won.  The man’s answer was refreshing.  He told her that he didn’t win but that Jesus won for him.  He told her that until he accepted Jesus as his personal savior (not exactly a Lutheran phrase but it was his phrase) his battle with the beast was always won by the beast but Jesus is stronger than the beast.  He ended the interview with an observation that intrigued me.  He said,” we are all addicts; we all have destructive beasts within us which we can never defeat on our own.  As long as we battle them by our power we will lose, we need something else to win; for me it is Jesus Christ.”

     We are all addicts; Paul said we are all sinners.  Yet I like how he phrased the idea that we are all “addicts”.  We all have those sins which just seem so hard to shake.  We maybe aren’t addicted to drugs or even to many other sins but there is always one or two which seem to really pull us down.  The early Church used to speak of the seven deadly sins, wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy and gluttony, as the fallen human tendency toward sin.  If we look at this list; it pretty much gets to all our issues.  We may have some subsets that have appeared given our technology and current style of living but for the most part we can find our self in this list. 

     There are a lot of things that can be said about this list but one thing I hope we all take away from this is that we are ALL in this list.  You might be a one sin and I might be at another but we are all sinners and thus we should not judge others for where we think they sit in the list.  I may think that one person is greedy or another is lustful yet if I am envious of my neighbor; I am no different than they are. 

    So, what do we do?  First we see life as Jeremiah does, “Heal me, O lord, and I shall be healed, save me and I will be saved.”  Jesus is our only true salvation and our only way to defeat our addictions, our sins.  So, we struggle on as recovering addicts, fighting the beast within, our sinful nature.  With Christ, we are all in this together, offering each other comfort, hope and consolation because of Christ’s free gift to us.  We are all recovering addicts and we need each other’s prayers and support.

Gracious Lord, defend me from the beasts that seek to devour me.  Keep me close to you that I may remain in you.  In Jesus name, we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret