10 Years Ago Today...Part Two

Deuteronomy 30:16 “For I am commanding you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commands, statutes, and ordinances, so that you may live and multiply, and the Lord your God may bless you in the land you are entering to possess.” ~CSB

We have been blessed by healing! Now what? Now comes the hard part, walking in righteousness! The devil is a tricky one because if it was up to him, he would not allow it. September 21st 2013, I was healed and the chains were broken from my alcohol addiction. God laid His hand on me by removing the craving  from my body! It’s like I’ve never had a drink before in my life. Understand, God took it, but He did not give it to me. 

You see, the devil knows what kind of blessing we will be in this world. He knows that God created us to do His work, with His power in this world. The devil doesn’t want that. So the devil gives people, (like myself), vices that they cannot get out of, in order to keep them from being proper servants to the Lord. When the devil got me hooked on that addiction of alcohol, that was his mission of stopping me from being what God intended for me to be. So when I confessed to the Lord and cried out for help, God healed me. Now I’m back on the job of making disciples for the kingdom. 

What did the devil do after that? He tried to sneak another addiction on me. For some, the devil’s second try may be lust, anger, or selfish ambitions. But for me, it was Cookies! Now I know the consumption of cookies is not as bad as alcohol abuse, but it can be an addiction just as well. I realized that I was conducting the same routine and developing the same habit with cookies as I was when I was drinking alcohol. The same pattern existed. When God healed me, I made a promise that I would not let anything take control of me again. Thinking about those cookies, I came to the conclusion that I did not walk away from the bondage of alcohol just to walk into the destruction of diabetes. 

I thank God for loving me so much to give me a third chance at this life. The first was Him creating me. The second was the sacrifice of His Son for my sins. And His forgiveness, healing and restoring me as the man I am today, that is the third. I will not throw this blessing away. “No devil, you cannot have my life!” Let’s tell the devil that we are no longer on His mission. 

Tell him we are loyal to God and will wake every morning determined to walk in God’s ways! Tell him that God will deliver us from any temptation he is trying to offer! And that we will keep the commands, ordinances and statues of His Holy Word. 

Say this with me: “Thank you Lord for allowing us to live and multiply! Allow us to tell others what you have done in our lives! And thank you God for blessing us on the path that you have created for us! This path that leads to the kingdom you have prepared for us! For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever…Amen!

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