Saturday, 12th April, 2025
Bible Reading: 1 Corinthians 9:25-27; Hebrew 12:4
Memory Verse: I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others I myself might be disqualified. 1 Corinthians 9:27 (NLT)
More than 40 million people in the United States — 16 percent of all Americans over age 12 — suffer from nicotine, alcohol or drug addiction. Only about 10 percent of those people receive treatment, according to a recent report by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASA Columbia). Also, the number of people who used drugs (284 million) in 2020 was 26 per cent higher than in 2010, partly because of world population growth. The number of people who use drugs is predicted to significantly increase by 2030, with a 40% rise expected in Africa.
Now, what is the way out of negative addiction?
1. Bring Jesus to the centre of your life: Make up your mind to live for Jesus. Let Jesus indeed be lord over your life. Choices determines destiny.
2. The Word of God and prayers: This is your surest way out. Rather than being filled with wine, saturate yourself by meditating on the Word of God. Read it aloud. It purges. It refines. It will purify, sanctify, and heal your sick soul (Psalm 107:20). And, don’t forget to pray consistently.
3. Starve the addiction: Desist from those things you hear, see, and touch that feed/trigger such addiction. For every addiction, there are neurotransmitters in your brain that have been trained to create hormones to power it. This is where fasting comes in. Fast out gluttony, uncontrolled sexual appetite, addiction to the Internet, etc. A child of God must be temperate in all things. When dealing with addiction, you must be hard on yourself. You must be highly disciplined.
4. Renew your mind: Work against your addiction. Hear, say, and watch ONLY edifying content. Replace erotic music with gospel music. Watch Christian and scientific movies instead of pornography, etc. Your world is in your mind. If your consciousness is wrong, then your world will be wrong.
5. Change your cycle of friends: Imagine a sheep that doesn’t want to eat faeces befriending a dog. You are who you walk with (1 Cor. 15:33). Friendship largely imparts behavioural habits. Burn the bridge of wrong friendship/company!
6. Seek Professional counselling: Cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) can help addicted patients overcome substance abuse by teaching them to recognize and avoid destructive thoughts and behaviours. A cognitive-behavioural therapist can, for example, teach a patient to recognize the triggers that cause his or her craving for drugs, alcohol or nicotine, then avoid or manage those triggers.
7. Deliverance: The anointing breaks the yoke. Yes! However, if you don’t starve the addiction and renew your mind, your brain, which has been wired wrongly for long, will slide back again even without the spirit interference.
8. Create new addiction: Be productively busy. Discover and use your gift. Learn a new skill, a new trade, a musical instrument, take a certification, etc. Don’t laze around. An idle hand is the devil’s workshop.
9. Engage the prophetic: Sometimes you need a man of stature in the spirit to cut you off from the evil flow of negative addiction oozing from your root.
10. The mercy of God: Paul could plant, Apollo could water, but only God brings the increase (1 Cor. 3:6).
Prayer Focus
1. The Lord over my life, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, I worship You.
2. Sin shall no more have dominion over me, in Jesus name.
3. I receive grace to be disciplined with my ears, eyes, mouth, and body, in Jesus name.
4. Holy Spirit, please renew my mind and reset the neurotransmitters in my brain, in Jesus name.
5. Blood of Jesus, purge my spirit, soul, and body today, in Jesus name.
BIBLE IN ONE YEAR: 1 Samuel 15-17
