Join us as we navigate the complex emotions tied to addiction and religion, where guilt often acts as the primary motivator. Uncover the power of gratitude as a transformative force that can shift one’s focus from self-imposed rituals and condemnation to a more fulfilling and uplifting life. Through this exploration, we discuss the joy and strength found in thankfulness, and how simple everyday blessings can be a source of immense gratitude, driving transformation in personal lives and beyond.
So you remember yesterday’s broadcast where we quoted that verse in Romans 6.15, What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? What a fascinating question when you explore it. We did a little bit yesterday, but let’s look at it from a psychological point of view now. Paul is asking, shall we go on sinning or living in the sin kingdom of Adam if we are not under law? Under law is the experience of an endless drone of guilt, a feeling of heaviness and shame and fear of God’s judgment. Now, if we’re not under that fear of judgment, if we’re not under an endless oppression of guilt, how do we then behave? What is it like to live innocently? Now, if you’ve been struggling with addiction for most of your life, that means that you’ve been struggling with an escape from pain. What was that pain? Well, it came from childhood, of course, to some great degree. You might have been abused, or you might have been neglected, or you felt abandoned if a parent died, or a divorce took place when you were very, very young and your parents left you. one of them maybe, then you would feel either a shame or a guilt or both and fear along with it. And so that guilt and the shame and the fear are extremely uncomfortable emotions. And the result is that in your later life, your mid-teens and your young adulthood, when you have a chance to escape from that pain, you go into addictive behaviors to just bury the feelings that you are not comfortable with. So you’re living a life escaping from pain, escaping from guilt and shame and fear. But what now, when the gospel comes, how do you live in that you have no guilt and shame and fear to escape from? That is, if you truly take seriously the gospel and believe that you are forgiven, that Jesus has taken the judgment for your sins, that God has reconciled you to his heart, that there is no condemnation of the law anymore, if all that is taken seriously, then you find a peace and a grace and a calmness. And it kind of throws you, doesn’t it? because you wonder what to do with all this accumulation of peace. You wonder what to do when you have a calm heart. The temptation is to slip back possibly, isn’t it? To be able to do the things that you liked doing in your addiction, but without any guilt attached to it. What then motivates you? What motivates a Christian? We know what motivates the world. What motivates the world is that escape from pain. They may not be aware of it, it may not be an overt addiction like drugs or alcohol or food or pornography, but it’s an escape from an isolation in the soul, a sense that that is the world’s escape, a sense of not having connection, of endlessly having to go to parties and endlessly having to go into recreational activities because on our own, when we’re alone, we feel disconnected. But now, you see, you feel connected, don’t you? Now you’re a Christian. Now you know the love of God. Now you know His forgiveness and mercy. Now you know how He brings peace to you and takes away all the judgment. So what then motivates you to do things creatively, to do things in the world for the world’s blessing, to help and uplift the poor, to comfort the brokenhearted? What keeps you going then now? You know, it’s a very difficult question for many of us to answer. Some Christians can’t answer it at all, and what they do is to go back into a sort of more religious form of guilt and shame and fear. Before they had the guilt of their sins, But now they want to impose upon themselves certain religious rituals and rules that make them feel guilty if they break them, because guilt has been their only motivator. If they can’t have guilt from sin, well, let’s have guilt from religion, shall we? Because that should keep us going, surely, in this world. But it really brings us down again. There’s as much addiction in religion as there is in the secular world. So what’s the answer to this then? Well, I hinted at it yesterday. In fact, I alluded to it. But let’s dwell on it a little bit more now. You see, if, according to this verse… Let’s read it again. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? If we are under grace, if we are no longer under a law that declares us guilty and makes us feel guilty and afraid and ashamed, and if we are now brought into a state of peace with God, then the motivator is, are you ready for it? Gratitude, isn’t it? thankfulness. But that is a motivator that seems so weak and pathetic to somebody who’s been in addiction all his life. Because, you see, if you’re in an addiction, as I said earlier, you’re in an escape from pain. And if you’re in an escape from pain, well, what was that pain? Well, abuse of some kind and neglect and abandonment in childhood for which you have no reason to be thankful. There was no thanks in your early childhood life if you have been escaping from pain in addiction in your adult life. Thankfulness is as far from your heart as anything could be. So the development now of gratitude and thankfulness as a motivator is like skating on thin ice. There’s nothing there. And therefore, we are called upon to practice and train our gratitude. Boy, what a tall order that is. I mean, it’s so easy to grumble, isn’t it? It’s so easy to be miserable. It’s so easy to be resentful. It’s so easy to not have anyone to thank God. Let’s see, how can I say that? To not have God to thank. In addiction, we’ve been escaping from God. So now we are faced with the challenge of gratitude. Now look, don’t think of this as trivial. It’s monumental. To be able to develop a heart of thankfulness is a miracle of grace. Thankfulness comes from God. In Nehemiah 8.10 it says, The joy of the Lord is your strength. Now, that can mean two things. It can mean joy in the Lord or joy from the Lord. Well, let’s take it as both, shall we? Joy from the Lord, that is, joy coming from God, is what will keep you going in this world. It will be your strength. That’s joy from the Lord. But joy in the Lord, that is you rejoicing in the Lord, is what will bring you a new state of mind and heart, and that too will be your strength. But you say, look, I’ve been an addict all my life. I don’t have anything to be thankful for. Oh, yes, you do. You have missed most of the stimuli for thanks. And what are they? the simple things that you’ve been missing all along. Where are you right now? Maybe you’re sitting at home. Maybe you’re driving your car. But look, you have a car to drive. Have you given thanks to God for that? You’re sitting at home. There’s a window. Have you looked out and seen the blue sky and the green grass lately and thanked God for that? There’s a door. And it’s unlocked. You can go in and out. You’re not a jailbird. You’re not a prisoner who hasn’t known the privilege of walking out of a door by his own choice for years. These are simple things that you can thank God for. Maybe you have food in the refrigerator. You can be thankful for that. You have a job. You have a little bit of money. Maybe you don’t. But in the poverty that you’re experiencing, there are things to be thankful for and to train your heart over. You see, when you are freed from the law, which is judgment and condemnation and the infliction of guilt, and you have only innocence, then you must do something with that innocence. And by doing something, I’m not simply talking about, oh, I’d better go out and help my neighbor so I can feel innocent. No. Innocence leads to gratitude, and it is that gratitude that will lead you to go out and help your neighbor. But don’t try to use innocence as a stimulus to works. before you allow innocence to lift your heart up to God in gratitude. This is really remarkable. Think of this verse again. Shall we go on sinning or living in the sin kingdom of Adam since we are not under law, since we are not under judgment and condemnation? How about then training an attitude of gratitude? Read Psalm 50, and God brings the whole world to judgment, and he calls the nations to his throne. And why? The nations probably think, oh boy, we’ve blown it, what have we done now? But what God says in that psalm is, look, I’m not asking you for your sacrifices, I’m sick of them, I’m tired of your religion. What I want is your gratitude. That’s Psalm 50 for you. Take a good look at it. It’s amazing. Can you imagine how a parent would be who has doted on his son or daughter all his life, and that son or daughter never responded with thanks? Can you imagine how a father would be, or a mother, You’re giving, giving, giving all your time, all the time throughout your life, and you never hear a word of thanks from your kid. That is how God feels, because he has never had thanks from the world. And yet God is full of joy. He doesn’t let it get him down. He simply trains us into the practice of praise and the practice of thanks. Now you say, well, I’ve had so many troubles that I just don’t have any thanks for God, for anything. Well, have you thought about thanking God for your troubles? Isn’t it true that many of your troubles brought you to your knees in prayer, that many of your troubles led you to trust in God because there was no one else to trust in? You see, there’s thanks all over if you start looking for it. Well, my thanks to you, my listener, to listening to this broadcast. You’re listening to Colin Cook’s broadcast, How It Happens. If you’d like to make a donation to the broadcast because it’s listener-supported radio, 27 years now broadcasting on this station, then please send your donation to FaithQuest, P.O. Box 366, Littleton, Colorado, 80160. or you can make your donation online at faithquestradio.com. And don’t be afraid that I’ll be sending loads of literature out to you for your donation. I don’t do that. You can make a one-time donation or a monthly donation of any amount, $39 per program, $200 for a week’s program, or just $10, whatever it is. Thank you so very much. And I thank you for all your support over the years and over the months. I’ll see you next time then. Cheerio and God bless.
