Page 123 - Overcoming Addiction

who have been born to them"). They were given a common heart to put away the
unclean thing and become dedicated to the things of the Lord only.
Grace and Peace,

Michael Shevlane

A Parable (Joseph Herrin)

The Lord opened my eyes to the spiritual similitude found in two
conversations I had today with men from the rescue mission. One man was
speaking to me about the issue of smoking. He mentioned that about eight years
ago he knew he had to quit smoking for it was killing him. He has had a number of
heart surgeries and has a defibrillator implanted in his chest. He said that when he
quit smoking that he simply took his pack of cigarettes and threw it away and
made up his mind to never smoke again. He has been faithful to this commitment.
This man’s wife is a smoker. She too knows it is detrimental to her health,
and she has sought to wean herself off of cigarettes. She has sought to cut back
gradually, and now smokes a pack about every three days, where she used to
smoke a pack every day. He declared that he does not believe that she will ever be
able to quit.
As I listened the Spirit brought application to the matter of the television and
movies and other media that His children consume. Many of God’s children are
trying to wean themselves away from that which is impure and crippling their
spirit man by cutting back. However, they have not put that which is deadly
completely away. Because they have not made a complete separation they remain
enslaved, and their spirit man is being steadily poisoned. It would be much easier
if they made a complete break from feeding upon these things.
Later the same day I was speaking with another man at the Mission, and he
abruptly changed the topic to his diet. He knew nothing of that which the Spirit
had been speaking to me, so my attention was alerted by the change of topic. He
said that he was struggling with eating too much food. He said that he would cook
a large amount of food at a time, probably enough for five people, but that by the
time he got through eating it had ended up being a single meal. The result was an
increase in weight, and all he would want to do after eating was sleep.

The parallels to our spiritual man are clearly seen in this. As we feed on the
food of the world we become more fleshly, and even when we want to show
restraint we end up consuming far more than we had intended. The immediate
result is a spirit of slumber comes over our inner man. This is a very dangerous
condition for any Christian to find himself in during this late hour when spiritual
alertness is necessary. In the parable of the ten virgins we find the Lord speaking
the following words: