He was a womanizer, a drunk, an abuser of legal drugs, mean to his wife, quick-tempered, a smoker and a Christian. Somehow people have come to believe that Christians view themselves as self-righteous, church-going people who tend to be good for the most part and otherwise hypocritical. He wanted to change his life. He was miserable. Attending church didn't help and neither did singing in a gospel band. He was high on Zanax when he fell down an elevator shaft and was injured so badly he could never work again.
Not being able to work changed nothing and no matter how hard he tried to live a good "Christian" life he could not. The harder he tried to be good the more miserable he became because he realized he could not. Then one day he walked into a little Baptist church somewhere south of Thomasville. The preacher mentioned assurance of ones salvation. The concept was foreign to him. He grew up as a Free-Will Baptist. It is the doctrine of Free Will Baptists that if one sins (commits as act displeasing to God or fails to complete an act that is pleasing to God) that ones salvation is lost and one has to repent again. It just doesn't seem right that a person can go to church and confess their sins, ask forgiveness, and then live their life as always and still go to heaven. Well, as it turns out, they can't.
The man and the preacher had a long talk, about nineteen hours long. The man began to understand that if one truly gives themselves over to God's leadership that they have to give up nothing. They don't have to change anything at all. God will take away the desire for things that are not good for them. If one does not change then he must not have given himself to God. Oh yes, he might have been sorrowful over his past actions and desired to change yet still not desired to allow God to have control of his life. If that is the case there has been no conversion, no true repentance.
Becoming a real Christian does not mean one becomes perfect and will never sin again. Some mistakenly believe that a Christian cannot sin but there is no such teaching in the bible. Christianity is not a lifestyle but a relationship, not really different from the relationship one would have with ones parent. The child will not always understand the parent nor will the child always please the parent but the child and the parent will always have an unbreakable relationship.
A rebellious child may not always receive the favors a parent can bestow and may not receive an inheritance but he will always be the child. That relationship cannot be broken.
Once the man fully understood the relationship between God and man he fell to his knees and asked God to take his life so that he may live. He never drank again, never went to another bar, never sang another country song, never cheated on his wife again, and never abused drugs again. But he just could not quit smoking. He tried. He tried all the methods and he tried for ten years. For ten years he failed. God had taken his desire but he wasn't willing to let go of his habit.
He was sitting at his kitchen table one day, his wife doing the dishes, and he smoking his cigarettes. He even had a mouthful of chewing tobacco and a nicotine patch on his shoulder. Too often we have a pet sin we are unwilling to let go of. Oh. now some will claim that smoking is not a sin because it is legal to do so. The thing is, sinning is not something we do against men but against God. I am a recovering smoker myself and I know that smokers stink. Oh yes we do. I know we can be ill when we "need" a cigarette. I know it is a smelly, expensive, unhealthy, disgusting, offensive habit that smokers do their best to justify. Quitting can be and probably will be, the most difficult thing a person will ever attempt in their lives.
Well, the mans wife said to him just after he lit another cigarette "If you knew how much that hurt my heart.." I don't know if she ever finished that sentence but it bothered him that he was still hurting his wife. His habit, he realized, was affecting his family and not just himself. He also knew he would never be able to quit.
He bowed his head and prayed silently " Lord, if you will take this habit from me I will do what you have been wanting me to do."
He spat out his tobacco wad into the trash can, snuffed out the cigarette he was smoking, pulled off his patch, threw the butts in the ashtray into the trash, threw the patch into the trash, threw his plug of tobacco into the trash, took his pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and threw that into the trash, and then threw the ashtray into the trash.
It's been twenty years since that day and he is still drug free. Yes, cigarettes are a drug. He is still a smoker. From my own personal struggles with tobacco, I know that a smoker is just like an alcoholic. No matter how long it has been since the last drink all it takes is one to be back in the condition one struggled so hard to escape from. To me there is no such thing as an ex-smoker just recovering smokers.
Did he ever honor his promise to God. Of course he did. But not that day. Not for a long time. Actually, it took him fourteen years to finally give up running but he did honor his promise.
Now I know that there will be many that don't believe in God and will deny the deity of Jesus Christ and that is their right. No one is going to punish them for that and that includes God. In spite of what many believe the bible teaches, God does not send any to hell.
I was a parent and I had a son and when he was in high school he had lots of friends and they spent an abundance of time at my house playing their favorite board games (personal computers were in there infancy then). I liked some of his friends and some I didn't care for and one I actually loathe, but I didn't let that bother me for I knew that at the end of the day all of them would be going to their own homes. The only sleep over would be the one that belonged to me and that was my son. I never fed any of those kids or bought them clothes or took them to the doctor because they were not mine. Some of the kids I really liked but that didn't make any difference. It mattered not how good they were or how good looking they were or how wealthy they were. The only thing that mattered at days end was whether they were my child or not.
Some believe that good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell. That only seems right. I have come to realize that there is no one that is so good that the devil doesn't want them or anyone so bad that God can't forgive them.
There is so much more to tell. Ask me and I will tell you. If you want, I'll even introduce you to the man in the story. It is all so very true.
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