[Thankful Jane]

Originally Posted by Peter Debelak

Jane:

Thanks for the thoughts and the story. I will pick up a copy of Neil A's book. On one hand, I think there is something particular going on with the stereotypical "addict" - on the other hand, I think it can do us a disservice by bracketing the "addict" behavior only to those cases where there is an obvious object of the addiction (like alcohol or whatever). Because, whether it is love for the bottle or love of self, sin operates in all of us the same way. It can be easy to say that since we don't do any of the really ugly outward behavior that we're okay. We're not.

Recently I have been fellowshipping with someone going through alcoholics anonymous. Upon reading some of their literature, I had the thought: geez, everyone should go through aa. Because our root problems are the same - even if we don't run to the bottle. We are liars. We want to hide when God calls us. We don't want to face the way we treat others and ourselves. We hide behind the things we're good at or the things we're comfortable in so that we don't have to face our lack. So we dive into the "meeting life" or we avoid certain people, or we stop praying, etc... As I have written before, I see sin as simply being the LIE - which came from the Father of Liars, the one who asserted there was something other than God. And there is nothing WE can do about our condition to "cure" ourselves. We need God - we need Christ, the one who condemned sin on the Cross. All of us and every day. Not just the ones who are caught in certain "classes" of sin. All of us and every day.

Whether the master (Satan) is within us or outside of us, the point is that his tool of bondage - Sin, the Lie - operates in our members.

Wretched folks that we are, who can deliver us? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

In Love,

Peter

Dear Peter,
I agree on all points you made. The LIE (made up of many lies) actually works in our minds. You'll find that Anderson shows that the battle with the evil one is fought with truth. Let me know what you think of what Anderson has to say. I don't think I did justice to what his message and insights in my posting.

Thankful Jane