I am an addict

It is very difficult to admit that one is an addict. Throughout my life I have been lying to myself and those around me. Fortunately, one day it hit me on my forehead. I was an addict. I needed help. If you know somebody who is addicted, or are addicted yourself, read on…From one addict to another, you may find help.

Throughout my life I have come across many addicts. These are people who were addicted to different things like alcohol, cocaine, dagga (marijuana), heroine, tik (common in RSA) and many others.

In all the cases that I witnessed, the results of the addiction are the same. Firstly, the person’s body starts to deteriorate. I have watched people die a painful death from liver cirrhosis due to alcohol abuse. I have seen people’s bodies shred to pieces in vehicle accidents caused by drugs or alcohol. You might have seen pictures of celebrities who turned into shadows or skeletons of their old self.

Secondly, I have seen how the addict’s relationships are utterly destroyed around them. The addict is alienated from family and friends, from children, parents, brothers and sisters, from bosses at work, from neighbours. The only friends that remain for the addict, if you can call them that, are the drug dealers or the suppliers of the alcohol. Some of the addicts end up completely enslaved to their drug dealers through prostitution, committing crime and other illegal dealings for the benefit of the drug dealer. For example, Thandeka (not her real name) prostituted herself for food and drugs from her pimp until somebody saved her out of that life.

Thirdly, I have noted that the addict’s thinking is also affected. Some start hallucinating, seeing and hearing things that do not exist. They start thinking anybody who denies them the drugs does not love them. A life of drugs becomes the only thing there is for them. They actually start believing that they cannot get out. In fact, they start believing that drugs are good, and should be legalized for everybody to enjoy them.

In all cases where the addict lived to tell their story, I have always found somebody who took pity on the addict and offered them help. In most cases this person will take the addict out of the drug den and straight into the rehabilitation centre. They will pay everything that the rehabilitation centre requires. Those who run rehabilitation centres say that the chances of success are good if the addict accepts that they are addicted and need help. In fact, some try up to 5 rehab centres before they succeed.

I have met and talked to people who run rehabilitation centres. Ironically, some of them are ex addicts. They are the first to admit that even after 10 years free of drugs, each day remains a struggle to stay clean. The struggle continues.

Back to my addiction and my story. My addiction started with my ancestors. Somebody told them to eat of a certain plant because it would make them wise. No, the plant was not Cannabis from which dagga (marijuana) is made, nor was it coca plant from which cocaine is made. But it was similar. Like it is with most addicts, their relationship with their father fell apart. In fact, relationships broke down so much that one of their sons killed his brother. After they ate of that plant, their bodies became addicted. I have inherited the addiction from them. I have heard of alcoholics who inherited their alcoholism from their parents.

Let me tell you how I came to know of my addiction. If it was not for my brother Paul, who was also an addict, I would probably be still oblivious to my addiction. After Paul realized he was an addict, he started writing letters to us, his brothers and sisters, to warn us about the addiction. Those addicted to alcohol are called alcoholics, others are simply called users, or junkies, or crackpots, or dopers. Those with my kind of addiction are called sinners.

In one of his letters, my brother Paul said, “When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned.” (Rom. 5:12). Paul realized he was a sinner. Because of his addiction, his sin, he was busy going around killing his brothers and putting others in jail. In his warped, addicted (sinful) mind he thought he was doing a good thing. Like all addicts do, Paul needed a Savior to show him he needed help. So one day whilst he was on his way to Damascus on one of his murderous trips, Paul met the man Jesus. This man Jesus showed so much love to us. He came to the house of sin to take us out. Like the man who went into the brothel to take Thandeka out of prostitution, he came and lived amongst us the sinners, so that he could help us.

Sadly, even when he was in the house of sin, offering his help, some thought they do not need his help. Jesus himself said, “I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners and need to repent.”(Luke 5:32)
Paul came to his senses. He realized he needed help. He realized that his addiction was so strong that despite telling himself he will stop, he kept doing the very things he detested. In one of his letters he lamented his condition, “I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate.”(Rom. 7:15). Like most addicts who cannot resist another fix, Paul realized he can’t help himself. Even when he was in rehab (some sinners call it church), the addiction remained so powerful he could have given up. But he realized his Savior was serious about helping him escape that life of sin.

“But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? 25 Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.” (Rom. 7:23-25)

Like dagga or cocaine or heroine, this sin drug is as addictive. You become a slave to it. Jesus warned about it. If you have seen an alcoholic or drug addict, you will have realized that they are enslaved to their drug. They have lost control. Unless somebody offers them help, and unless they see they need help, they will perish by their addiction. When Jesus was offering help to some of the sin addicts like me, some thought they are not slaves to anything or anybody.

“Jesus said to the people who believed in him, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” “But we are descendants of Abraham,” they said. “We have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean, ‘You will be set free’?” Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave of sin.” (John 8:31-34)

About 25 years ago, I realized I am an addict to sin. I realized I was a sinner. Like Paul, I realized I needed help. Some recovering addicts told me there was a rehab centre they went to. They told me if I came along, I could be encouraged by those who were also trying to live behind a life of sin. I started attending their meetings on Sundays. It has been tough going. I still sin from time to time, but Jesus told me I must focus on his life. He took my sinful life and made it his own, and he gave me his sinless life.

So the life I live now, I live by trusting in Jesus. This is a secret that seemed to help Paul. He said,

“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” (Gal. 2:20)

I have come to realize that in this addicted body, I have no hope. But Jesus is transforming me. Sin has completely destroyed my body. I need a new one. Jesus has promised it. He came to live in me to help me fight my addiction. In the end, though, he will actually give me a brand new body, which will no longer be enslaved to sin. It is possible. He lived his whole life without sin. I can’t wait for that day. I currently facilitate meetings of a rehab centre for sinners in Johannesburg. It is called Hope Christian Fellowship. It is commonly know as a church. There are many of these around the world. If you think you are an addict, you can join us in our walk. You can be free. No, you can experience freedom.

You see, the truth is that Jesus has already set you free. It is knowing the truth that sets us free. If you can meet Jesus face to face, he will help you too. “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32). You do not have to do anything for Jesus to want to help you. In fact he died for me when I was still a sinner. “God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. 9 Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.” (Eph. 2:8-9)

I know many people look down on addicts, they condemn them. But Jesus doesn’t. He said he came to save sinners, not to condemn them. “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved”( John 3:17)

The Ascension and You

Many South Africans will remember Ascension Day was a holiday in South Africa before 1994. It was always on a Thursday, and it was one of the annual long weekends. After 1994 the government started reviewing holidays, and Christian holidays came under review. Ascension Day was one of them. At that time, when Ascension Day was being abolished, I don’t remember many Christians raising any objection. If it was Christmas or Good Friday, there will probably have been a lot of noise. Looking back, I think it is sad that Christians did not deem Ascension Day important enough to defend. I conducted a simple survey on Facebook to check how many people know when Ascension Day was this year. Sadly, I found that almost half professing Christians did not know.

Ascension was such a central belief of Christians that it was included in most of the Christian Creeds of the early church. I don’t know if you know what the Creeds are. A Creed is a statement of beliefs. In the early days of the church, before the New Testament was canonized, the Creeds helped as a unifying and doctrinal grounding of Christians. Believers would recite the Creed before baptism, and later during church services as some still do today.

For example, we have what is called the Apostles’ Creed. It was not developed by the apostles, but is believed to have summarized what the apostles believed in. Here is what the Apostles Creed says:

“I believe in God the Father Almighty; Maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Spirit; born of the virgin Mary; suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried; the third day he rose from the dead; he ascended into heaven; and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit; the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen.”

In the early church they would recite this when they met. In the Reformed church which I used to attend, we used to recite the creed. At that time I had no clue why we recited that, but today I realize why this is crucial for believers. They have helped the church to preserve doctrinal soundness throughout the history of the church. Some of these creeds were developed after long discussions and debates at Church conferences like the one at the Council of Nicaea in AD 325, and revised in AD 381. Others include Chalcedonian Creed (AD 451), and the Athanasian Creed . Almost all of these creeds have one commonality: they affirm the belief in the birth, death, resurrection, ascension and return of Jesus Christ. For the believers in that age, the belief in the ascension was as important as the belief in the birth, the death and resurrection of Jesus.

For most Christians today it is easier to understand why the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus are important. But why does the ascension matter to us today as something we believe in. The ascension event is recorded in Acts 1:9-11 ^“After saying this, he was taken up into a cloud while they were watching, and they could no longer see him. As they strained to see him rising into heaven, two white-robed men suddenly stood among them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why are you standing here staring into heaven? Jesus has been taken from you into heaven, but someday he will return from heaven in the same way you saw him go!”

During the 40 days after his resurrection, Jesus used to appear and disappear to his followers. But on this particular day, he did not just disappear. He was lifted up into the clouds before their very eyes.

But why was it important that Jesus ascended in this way, and not simply disappeared like he did the previous 40 days. If he did not leave this way, there would be stories today about where he is. Some would be saying we saw him here or there. Jesus himself emphasized this point of knowing where he will be and how he will come back. “So if someone tells you, ‘Look, the Messiah is out in the desert,’ don’t bother to go and look. Or, ‘Look, he is hiding here,’ don’t believe it! ²⁷ For as the lightning flashes in the east and shines to the west, so it will be when the Son of Man comes.”(Matt. 24:26-27).

So, Jesus ascended visibly because he would return visibly. In other words, when Jesus returns, no human on earth will not be aware. All humans will be aware. Even those that are asleep will wake up. In fact, believers who are dead will also wake up and join him in the descent.

The passage in Acts also says he was surrounded by clouds as he ascended. Why was that? In Hebrews the believers who had died in faith are referred to as a “cloud of witnesses” (Heb 12:1). The cloud represented all the believers, because he was ascending with them. Jesus was our representative human. When he was born, we were born in and with him, when he lived, we lived, died, were buried, resurrected and ascended, in and with him. Paul puts it this way, “Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? ⁴ For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives” (Rom. 6:3-4)

Concerning the ascension, Paul tells us, “For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus.” (Eph. 2:6). “For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God.” (Col. 3:3). So if it is true that we have ascended with Jesus, and are now seated with him at the right hand of God, we will descend with him when he returns. Those who have died in the faith, and those that are in the faith and alive, will together be caught up in the clouds to meet Jesus, and the world will see Jesus descend with all the believers with him. By then they will be transformed into the same body he ascended with, and will share in his glory.

But what are the practical implications of the ascension for Christian believers today? I believe it is found in the passage in Acts 1, “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why are you standing here staring into heaven?” You see, believers need to have a posture towards heaven where they are seated with Christ at the right hand of God. John says that if we have this belief that we are seated with Christ at the right hand of God in heaven, and have the expectation that he is coming back in glory, we will purify ourselves. “Christ is pure, and all who have this hope in Christ keep themselves pure like Christ.”(1 Jn. 3:3) On the same thought, Paul puts it this way, “aim at what is in heaven, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. Think only about the things in heaven, not the things on earth.” (Col. 3:1-2) The ascension reminds us of the return because “he will return from heaven in the same way you saw him go” (Acts 1:11). The hope of the resurrection and the return of Christ makes believers to live like kingdom citizens.

It is this belief which spurred the Apostles to forsake everything and pursue the kingdom of God at great cost. It is this belief as captured in the Apostles’ Creed that says I believe in Jesus who “ascended into heaven; and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty”. The same belief made Paul write the following to the Philippians with TEARS in his eyes:

“ Dear brothers and sisters, pattern your lives after mine, and learn from those who follow our example. For I have told you often before, and I say it again with tears in my eyes, that there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ. They are headed for destruction. Their god is their appetite, they brag about shameful things, and they think only about this life here on earth. But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior. He will take our weak mortal bodies and change them into glorious bodies like his own, using the same power with which he will bring everything under his control. (Phil. 3:17-21)

Christians are like the woman who was engaged to be married when war broke out. Her fiancé was sent to war. Before he left he promised her that he will come back, and when he comes back she must be ready to get married to him. After he had left she got the wedding dress done to her size. Since then she started watching her weight to make sure that when her man returns she will be able to fit into her dress. She stopped flirting with other men. Everybody knew she was waiting for her man. Her whole life reflected that. Each month she will go into her bedroom and fit the dress to make sure she has not gained weight. One day as she was busy fitting her dress, there was a knock on the door. She went to check who it was still wearing the dress. As she opened the door, there he was! Her man was back! He could not believe his eyes. Her bride was ready. With tears in his eyes, he said to her, “When I said you must be ready to marry me when I return, I had no idea you will be this ready…”

Like this woman, Christians also await their bridegroom, and as they wait, they live like those who wait, those with hope. The bridegroom says to us: “Look, I am coming soon, bringing my reward with me to repay all people according to their deeds.” (Rev. 22:12). I don’t know whether when the people in the world look at you they can say, “Yes, this man, this woman, is waiting for her LORD”. We live like people with hope for something.

May the Ascension be a perpetual reminder for you that that this Jesus who ascended into heaven “will return from heaven in the same way you saw him go”. And may that knowledge transform you and how you live your life! AMEN.

Ancestor Worship - A Counterfeit of True Worship

If you are African, you probably know somebody who worships, consults, or prays to their ancestors. In fact, chances are, you probably do that yourself. When things are not going well for you, like when you are sick, or have lost your job, or somebody you love has just died, you may may visit a sangoma (inyanga, traditional healer, etc) to advise you what to do. More often than not, the sangoma will tell you that the ancestors are not happy. They want you to perform some ritual like slaughter a goat for them, or have what is called ingoma, where you will dance yourself into a trance until the spirit of the ancestors come upon you.

This is not strange. All humans seek their gods when things are not going well for them. Africans believe their ancestors are their gods. They should have answers to life's problems. They believe that those that brought us into being, our parents, our ancestors, our gods, must be able to help when we have problems. So, many Africans who grow up without knowing their father feel lost. When they are grown up, and things are not going well, they go out looking for their father, and their ancestry. There is even a popular program on TV called Khumbul'ekhaya that helps people connect with their lost families. When life is not making sense, it is a correct human response to seek the ancestors, except the devil hijacks the exercise. In the end, there are no answers.

In seeking answers from their ancestors, humans need to trace their ancestry. Unfortunately, the devil made sure they did a superficial job of it. They sought their ancestry going back three or four generations at most. When one does that, you end up with a stunted genealogy and ancestry. For example, if I were to seek to discover my ancestors, I will establish who my father's father is, and then who my father's father's father is, and I will continue with this process until I cannot go backwards anymore. So when I do that, I discover that my ancestry goes back to Adam, the first man. But I also have to ask, who was Adam's father?

The answer leads me to the Triune God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The interesting fact is that this Father God, actually made Adam in his own image, in the same way that I am in fact the image of my human father, who is an image of his human father, who is also an image of his father before him. So when you do that exploration, you are forced to go back to the original image of the first Father, who is God, who the scriptures tell us created us in his own image, in his likeness.

So, true ancestral worship is the worship of the one True God, from whom we have all descended. In the Book of Daniel he is referred to as the "Ancient of Days". Although our humanity descended from Adam and have inherited his inclination to sin and all the problems that come with that, we need to look further back and recognize that God the Creator is our true Father. If our ancestry ends with Adam, or our great, great grandfather, we assume that our ancestors did not have a beginning, but they did, so we have to go to the One who brought the first human, Adam, into being.

Here is the point I am making with this piece if you have missed it: True Worship is ancestral worship, and true ancestral worship is worship of the One ancestral Father of us all who is in Heaven. Any worship of a human father or grand father is idolatry, because it replaces the one True God with a human father, who is a counterfeit of our origins.

So to all my African brothers who still worship your human ancestors, please realize that the search for your ancestors is false if you stop 3 or 4 generations into your past. If you do, you have a very small history. Your true history and ancestry reaches back to a man called Adam, whose Father was God, who created the heavens and the earth. This God is the Father of us all, and he is our real ancestor worthy of our worship. It is him we must worship, because it is only in him that we live, move and have our being. Who you thought was your ancestor is in fact not your ancestor, they are pretenders to the throne. Even the people of Israel thought Abraham was their true ancestor, and Jesus, who was God, told them that "before Abraham was, I am". My friend, before your ancestors were, God is!

My human ancestors and yours are dead and buried. But our real ancestor is a "Living God". He is called the "Living God" at least 70 times in the bible because he is not dead like our human ancestors. Our ancestors died of their cancer, they died in their poverty, they died by accident, and they remained dead. They can't help you with your cancer, with your poverty, or to escape death, because they could not help themselves. The next time you go to your doctor he may ask you if any of your ancestors suffered from cancer or heart disease. Do you know why? That's because if it killed them, it will probably kill you too. That's what you inherited from them. They could not save themselves from it.

But, when Jesus was killed, he walked out of the grave before his flesh decomposed. He is alive, and he alone has life, and can give you life. He was born a human so that our humanity can be transformed, and you are included in that. He came so that there will be no more death, no more pain, no more sorrow. You too, can share in his live. You can join millions of African believers who have discovered this fact.