Last weekend I spoke at South Congregational Church in Peabody, MA.  After one of the services I meet a group of young men who were a real encouragement to me.  These men had recently come through a dark period in their lives.  As we all know sometimes life deals us some heavy blows.  It is during these times that the devil is the strongest.  He tries to convince us to do whatever we can to eliminate the pain from our lives.  Unfortunately, some of us cave during these times of temptation and this leads to addictions that can destroy our lives. 

These group of young men have survived some heavy battles.  But they have not yet won the war.  They are however committed to the discipline of taking one day at a time.  And with the Lords help they will one day win the war.  After hearing me preach they asked for the notes to my sermon.  I did not have them available, so I told those men I would put them on my blog page.  I was going to just simply type them out and leave it at that, but then I got two calls this week from two different families that had recently suffered tragedy due to an addiction.  I then decided that I would do more than just make the notes available, I would actually blog about overcoming addictions.

The only way to overcome addictions is to continue to fight.  If I could rewrite Ephesians 6:10-11 into modern day language, I would simply put continue to fight, becasue God is on your side and the devil is a liar.  Why do we need to continue to fight?  Because our number one goal in life should be to finish strong.  After all, its not how you start, its how you finish that counts.  So if we are going to finish strong we need to avoid three mistakes.

1. Don’t underestimate our enemies. We have 3 common enemies.  1. Devil (1 Peter 5:8)  2. World (1 John 2:15-17)    3. Flesh(Galatians 5:16-17)

2. Don’t loose our fundamentals.  We have 3 main fundamentals.  1. Stance (Matthew 7:24-27)  What are you standing on?  2. Alignment (Proverbs 13:20) Who are you hanging around?  3. Assignment (1 Corinthians 10:31) Do you know your main assignment?    

3. Don’t loose focus. (1 Corinthians 9:24-27)  

Life can be difficult, but if you and I will continue to discipline ourselves as Paul says, and keep our eyes on the prize, we will finish this life strong.  Let me just make sure to say also, if you do not have a relationship with Jesus Christ, there is no possible way to finish life strong.  I don’t care how much good you do, you cannot get into heaven without a relationship with the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  (Matthew 7:21, John 14:6)

Well it has been a long time since my last blog entry.  I apologize to my faithful blog watchers.  I have had some trouble with my webpage.  I am happy to inform you, we are now back on track. 

Let me start out by asking you a question.  Is there someone in your life right now that is moving dangerously close to crossing the boundary lines of friendship?  If so you might want to pay attention to this blog.

 September 18th was a sad day for former Detriot Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.  That was the day his term in office came to an abrupt end after 7 years.  He has since been sentenced to four months in jail, lost his licence to practice law and he also has to pay 1 million dollars restitution.  All because he had a relationship with a coworker that crossed the boundary lines of friendship.

Now the world usually says, so what they are two consenting adults, why such harsh punishment?  It seems Kilpatrick lied about the affair with his office chief of staff while testifing in a civil lawsuit in 2007.  So he is doing time for perjury.  Why is it we think we can do wrong and not get caught?

Jesus tells us in Luke 12:2 For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known.  My momma used to tell me, “boy what’s done in the dark will always come to light.”  Those were good words then and are still good words today.