Ever notice how streaks end? Christ is the end of all streaks or “an uninterrupted series”. A streak supposedly is based on luck. God is about purpose, Eph. 1:9,11.
Gal. 2:18 says, “If I rebuild what I destroyed, I prove that I am a lawbreaker.” The other day a friend smoked a cigarette in the lab at work. The building I work at is a non-smoking facility. How did he get away with it? Well, it is a new type of “electronic cigarette.” No joke. It uses a battery, water vapor for smoke and liquid nicotine.
After seeing this person, I was reminded of a few years back of one of several times I quit smoking. Back then, I told electric cigarette man, “I quit smoking.” He thought I was like him and would start smoking again. This person did not support my desire to quit. Instead, week after week he would ask me if I smoked over the weekend? He would ask me if I wanted to go out and smoke. Until finally, I believe it was around the 6th or 8th week he invited me for a smoke and to his surprise I accepted. We went outside. He gave me a cigarette and I smoked it. I did not willingly smoke it, but smoked it to “end the streak.” Guess what? Afterwords, he stopped asking me. I also did not continue to smoke after. God gave me grace to continue not smoke, but I truly did not want to smoke.
Romans 5:20-21 says, “Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Smoking among other things was an area I was missing the mark in. The mark is love, grace and liberty in Christ. The mark is only through grace by His faith according to hearing the Word. When I smoked the cigarette on the 6th or 8th week I threw off the self-imposed law that this particular person was trying to put on me and grace abounded. I will say even the Lord enabled me to smoke the cigarette? What? Chapter and verse please. Sure. Phil. 2:13, Rom. 1:17, Gal. 3:11, to name a few. Also, I didn’t have to smoke the cigarette. I was not trying to prove anything. I did perceive faith and power in me to do what I did so I acted on it.
1 Cor. 6:12 says, “Everything is permissible for me-but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible for me-but I will not be mastered by anything.”
If I am truly set free then if I were to smoke a cigarette it should not have the same affect on me if I really know I’m free. Otherwise, it is my master. Why? Self-imposed law.
Leave a Reply