But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents,ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people. 2nd Timothy 3:1-5
I often wonder, are we the "last days"? You read this and think that yes all of these are true now - today - in our present world! And how horrible they sound, right?
But they I begin to think about each one individually and realize that in the world of addictions, all of these are present, albeit some strongly more than others - but they are there. And the part about have nothing to do with these people - wow!
But I remembered something I heard a pastor say a few years ago about this passage. He wrote that "Christ sends none away empty - only those that are full of themselves". How amazing is it that with all of these horrible traits - as an addict - as a sinner - that as long as we fall on our knees and ask him to be the center of our lives that He will be there with us.
Even as we accept this gift of grace there is a message here to be heeded. We are warned to not have anything to do with these people. It is very true that those with an addiction are often weak to fall back into the old habits. And so we must distance ourselves from those things or people that were part of our past. It might be painful, but it is healthy to do so.
I wrote about this on the main blog as a series about "people, places and things " and "support systems" (and which is why I put them as yellows in the recoveryBox app - I feel so strongly about this, especially when I have scripture to back up my feelings). To read the series, visit this link to the articles there. http://www.recoveryboxapp.blogspot.com/search/label/support%20system
It might be hard to separate from those items/people - but you are not alone. Jesus is there waiting for you. He was waiting for you even before you knew you needed help from your addiction.
