Cocaine addict for church membership!!??

John 8:11, The Lord Jesus told the woman caught in adultery to "go and SIN no more". There is no way I would let this guy get within a 100 miles of membership! I don't know this fellow from Adams house cat but I can tell you how it turned out. IT DIDN'T! There is only one thing that will change this man, that is SALVATION.

 

Acts 2:47 (ESV)
praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

 

Here is how you handle this. You accept them for membership, but provide them with the support they need.

You do NOT leave them in a situation where they can go wrong. If it is a child molester, you assign an adult to be with them the entire time they are in church or at church functions. If they are truly repentant, they will have no problem with this. If they have a problem with this stipulation then I would question their motives.

The same with drug addicts.

 

Our church's biggest outreach is Celebrate Recovery. In fact, on any given Sunday probably 2/3 of our congregation is either recovering addict or part of their family. One of the things we have learned is that even though accepting Christ is far and away the most important step in their recovery, accepting Christ is not the end of their recovery.

Just yesterday I had lunch with a gentleman who is 79 years old and is a recovering cocaine (crack) addict. He used to be a deacon and even did some lay preaching before becoming a drug addict. Last Saturday he found himself in the wrong place with the wrong people and relapsed. The pull that drugs have on these guys is unbelievable. About a year ago I sat in the living room with a young man that I led to the Lord and baptized. He was coming down from a weekend long high, basically the same story, wrong place at the wrong time and he wasn't able to say no. His probation officer kept asking him why he relapsed, and all he could say was, "I don't know. I just couldn't help it"

When you say that addiction is not a disease, it's a sin, you are missing it big time. It is absolutely true that drug abuse is a sin. But once the abuser becomes an addict, the addiction is a physical condition that's just as real as cancer, heart attacks, or any other disease we recognize. It's true that the addiction is the result of sinful behavior. Just like it's true that the heart attack I'll probably have one day is the result of my sin of gluttony. (I love a good cheeseburger).

One of the things I hear over and over in dealing with addicts is that they don't want to go to church because they feel that the people there look down on them. Especially when they still struggle with their addiction after they are saved. We tend to pretend that we've got it all together and that we never struggle with anything, when the reality is that we all struggle with our personal pet sins, it's just that most of ours are not as obvious as their's is.

Next to a relationship with Christ, the best thing an addict can have is the love and support of a church family. Statements like "it's not a disease, it's a sin" build walls that keep people who need our help the most from opening up their lives to us.

 

If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away, behold all things are become new.

If these people are constantly relapsing, I would have to question what they are being fed. My Bible teaches me if an evil spirit is cast out of a man that spirit walks about in dry places... it virtually becomes homeless. If that spirit returns to it's former home and finds it swept and garnished, vacant of any occupant, it will return with 7 more worse than him.

When one is fed enough food at a table, or the right food, that one's appetite is satisfied.

 

We are a new creature, problem lies in the fact that the new creature is still housed in the old body.

If you never struggled with your old sin nature, congradulations. For most of us, that's not the way it works.

 

To teach someone that they may or will have relapses, is not teaching the full counsel of God. The Bible teaches that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day. We also know that when we come to Him, He takes that which is contrary to us and nails it to the cross. Are we giving the people spiritual hammers to remove the nails and take up the sins once again?

The problem is, easy believism. Make a statement of faith and that is all you have to do. But there is more to it than that. Faith without works is dead. We are to surrender the things we are in bondage to to the Lord.

If I regard iniquity in mine heart, the Lord will not hear me. Psalm 66:18.

 

So you're telling me that you have not ever sinned since you became a Christian?? You are truly amazing!!

 

guitar, I have sinned. we all have. but I have not fell back in the same sin I was committing before my profession of faith. I can honestly tell you that.

 

I would recommend your friend with the cocaine sin problem to attend Eagle Ranch Ministries. The website is, "http://www.eagleranchministries.org/" They are located in PA, near Pittsburgh. Many men have come off addictions (sin problems) because of God's grace shown through this ministry.