The DragonSlayer Speaks

Before I knew the Lord I was very much into the party scene.  I rode with a motorcycle gang that was involved in drug trafficking.  As a result of my activities I developed an addiction to alcohol and drugs.  The majority of my daily routine was devoted to meeting that addiction.  It was the “passion” of my life.  All my efforts, resources and strength were devoted to getting my fix.  Drugs and alcohol were the main things I lived for.  I use the word “developed” yet alcohol and drugs really exposed the underlying nature of addiction dwelling within me.

Addiction is defined as a habit, compulsion, dependence, need, obsession, craving or infatuation which increases dramatically the number of people who qualify as addicts.

In my life drugs were the problem.  When Jesus baptized me in the Holy Spirit I was delivered from all my addictions literally overnight. Unfortunately, I didn’t understand or appreciate the magnitude of this deliverance as fully as I should.  Some time later I fell back into old habits for a season and deliverance from addiction this time was a very difficult process.  I found myself earnestly crying out to God for freedom from my addiction.

Due to a series of physical issues — heart bypass, diabetes, a mid-foot amputation of my right foot, the amputation of the big toe on my left foot and an ulcer on the left heel that went almost to the bone, I justified and rationalized the continued use of prescribed painkillers.  As a result my old addiction was ignited and I struggled daily with the fear of withdrawing from these narcotics.  I did not have the courage to even confess this to my wife or friends.  Ultimately I repented before God, and began to live transparently in this area of my life, thus the writing of this article.

During this period of time God revealed something to me about the way He created us.  Jesus told me that He could not deliver me from addiction because He had created the human species to be addicts.  It is at the very core of our being and nature.  Your addiction may be different than mine, but you are only fooling yourself if you don’t think you are addicted to something!    It could be many different things and not necessarily physical.  Many have emotional addictions, etc.  What we really need to do is to see our situation from our Creator’s perspective.  Satan has offered us all substitutes to meet our addictive nature’s hunger and they are anything but what God intended.

As my conversation with the Lord went on He revealed to me why He had made us this way.  We were created in His image. Love is the very essence of His being and in a sense God is addicted to showing love and mercy to the repentant.  I know that sounds almost like sacrilege because of the way society defines addiction negatively.  However, Satan’s method is to alter truth just enough to steal the benefit it brings.  Jesus told me that we were created to be addicted to “love”.  God is love and He was always meant to be our “divine addiction”.

Now for just a moment let’s consider the definition of the word “belief” as defined from the original Greek in the New Testament manuscripts. *Belief: (Gk. pistis, noun pisteuo, verb) “adherence to, committal to, faith in, reliance upon, trust in a person or object and involves not only the consent of the mind, but an act of the heart and will of the subject.”  Scripture declares that only a radical reliance upon Jesus is acceptable to enter into His salvation experience; the demons believe also and tremble because their belief is mere mental acknowledgment.  In this case being addicted to Jesus is certainly to our advantage since He freely and abundantly supplies the very thing we need to satisfy our addiction—His life!  The opening paragraph would not sound so bad were we to replace drugs and alcohol with Jesus and the Holy Spirit.  God always intended for the nature of addiction to aide us in our relationship with Him.

My wife and I were talking recently about different aspects of love and relationship.  We came to the conclusion that familiarity can often redefine love in our lives.  It is possible to love someone and not be “in love” with them.  Love is not just the way we feel about someone, but it is also the way we respond to their needs and interact with them daily.  Part of the problem with many of us is that we love God, but are no longer “in love” with Him.  Could it be that was what John was saying in the book of Revelations when we are admonished to return to our “first love”?

What are you addicted too? Drugs, alcohol, pornography, power, wealth, reputation or protecting your reputation, the acceptance and approval of others, the spotlight, sex or food the list is endless.  Or are you one of the fortunate ones who have found their Divine Addiction?

No, God would not deliver me from addiction, but He would, in His mercy, change what I was addicted to.  Through recognition, repentance and my relationship with the Holy Spirit I could once again, be “in love” with God.  It is Jesus who baptizes us with the Holy Spirit and fire.  I have come to believe that this baptism of fire is a baptism that ignites our love for God and one another.  Peter said that above all things we should have a love that is fervent for one another.  That is a love that is literally white hot.  I would say that type of love is not just loving each other but being “in love” with one another.  It can and should be the kind of love we walk in continually.  Yet our love for one another is secondary to the love we should experience with our God and Savior.  I pray that He, who is the source and hope of our lives, becomes our Divine Addiction.

Books Available from Jim at:  http://jimmygolden.org

Well, it is our 33 anniversary and I am more in love today than ever before.  Love , not infatuation, will endure the test of time and never fail.  I am so grateful that we had a good understanding of the difference between the world’s conception of love and God’s covenant love.

Recently as my wife was editing the first chapter in a new devotional book I am writing she challenged me to explain a statement I had made. “Sin is not just something we do, sin is who we are.”  She seemed taken aback by the statement that I had written under the Spirit’s inspiration, but it forced me to really think about it and to explain it from a scriptural perspective.  As I searched the Word and meditated on the statement the Lord spoke emphatically to me, “It is imperative that you understand this for the perfection of my salvation in your life here on earth depends upon this becoming a reality.”

Scriptures states, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21 NASB). The NIV translation declares, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”  (Emphasis mine)

Now listen to what scripture declares about our side of the equation, “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.” (Ephesians 5:8 NIV)  The RSV puts it this way, “for once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light.” (Emphasis mine)

It is pretty clear that the scripture is saying that we did not just commit acts or deeds of darkness but we were darkness.  In the same way scripture seems to be saying very clearly that Jesus wasn’t just made to bear our sinful acts on the cross, but he bore our sinful lives in his own body.  As a result Jesus became sin — He wasn’t afraid to identify with us completely. Paul seemed to have the same revelation, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” (Galatians 5:20a NIV)  This verse is almost the same no matter what translation you read and it really began to make sense in light of the preceding versus.

If we could actually travel back in time to Golgotha and had the ability to look into the future we would see ourselves crucified also, yet not as one of the two thieves who died along side of Him but IN Him!  The Spirit of the Lord put it this way to me, “Jesus became Jim Golden on Calvary ’s cross and you both died that day, but because you were IN Christ you were also raised from the dead when God the Father raised Jesus from the dead and seated Him at His own right hand, far above all rule and authority.”  Has Jesus become you on Calvary ’s Tree?

As the reality of this great work of Christ hit me I was deeply impacted to say the least. To think that Jesus wasn’t ashamed to identify with me a wretched sinner brought tears to my eyes.  Something was changing in me as a result; I could actually feel His life in me like never before.  A new confidence and peace was released in me at that moment.

I have often said that Salvation belongs to the Lord not to us.  We obtain His gift by coming to an end of life on our terms and entering into His life, but somehow I always seem to rationalize this away intellectually, however as we know the Kingdom of God is not in word but in demonstration and this reality must become our reality.  God is not bound by the limitations of linear time and because of this He has made away for this truth to be much more than words in a book but our experienced reality.  Because of His incredible plan of Salvation we have truly become a new creation in Christ. AMEN!