I Need a Vice: Swap Vices for Jesus’ True Healing

Movies, games, sex, booze, drugs—they’re traps that hide your pain, not heal it. I’ve lived it, spiraling with my mom’s overdose in my shadow. Jesus broke my chains. 

In “I Need a Vice,” we dig into the Bible’s wisdom on why we chase these vices and how Christ’s power offers true healing. 

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[02:25] Personal distractions to numb the pain
[07:37] Why Alcohol, Drugs, and Pleasure Fail Us
[09:30] Bible and Psychology
[13:35] What did biblical hero's use to numb the pain?

Transcript

0:02

Let's be real, life is brutal. My dad used to tell me, son, life is AB word and then you marry one. Now listen. Listen. That is very colorful. I know he wasn't trying to paint women as evil, he was just jokingly trying to emphasize that life gets as hard and it gets harder. I'm not saying life isn't good and I'm just being real. I'm not going to sugar coat it. Life can be very brutal. It can be hard. I mean, life absolutely sucks and my back hurts. Rich do you, lights do you, waters do you Scooby Dooby Doo? Mommy died, Daddy died, my goldfish died. Heck, back pain, knee pain. I could go on and on, but what I'm trying to emphasize is that we all know that life ain't easy. Oh, I like to think that God was looking down and was like, you know, yeah, that absolutely sucks. No wonder they struggle and screw up so much. Let me give them a better path. Crazy thought. I know, I know that's kind of crazy, but it's kind of backed up by scripture. I mean Hebrews 4 and 15, said the this high priest who understands our weaknesses, hardships, it makes us unstable or numb. So we chase vices. Anything to fix the painting. Now life only offers 4 real vices, that's alcohol, drugs, whether it's legal or illegal, pleasure, which can be anything from movies, games, sex, any type of distraction that gets your mind and emotions off the problem at hand. And then that's Jesus, That's that's your four real vices. You need advice? I need advice. What's yours? What do you go to now? I've haven't learned all this through the school of Hard Knocks. I used to judge people who turn to any type of substance for help or, or for anything at all. I, I, I used to now my, my family might get a little upset at me, but I, I, it's the truth for anyhow. So I'm going to say it and and I'm going to use I'm going to use my mom's story for good. The the devil's not going to win that battle. It's going to be used for good. But my mom died of an overdose too many pills weekend before she overdosed got her seen about next weekend. She died of an overdose first time she ever overdosed. But I digress. Now before any of y'all judge her, you, you have no idea what demons she battled. Truth be told, I didn't. Throughout my whole life, I've never truly understood my mom's own battles until she died and I sat back through every conversation I've ever had with her, every situation, good or bad, every interaction and thought about. And you have to understand, there was times where throughout my life where I even hated my mom. I, I, I, I'm talking about absolutely hated her. I, I remember one time I, I was with my aunt, I won't get into the details right now, but I, I looked, I looked at my aunt and I said the wrong parent died. The wrong parent died. That's how much I hid her at times. Now, of course, after that conversation, I'm a very forgiving person. I love my Mama. My dad taught me a son. You only get one mom. And I understand that that quote don't fit everybody. Different circumstances, different individuals, different hearts. But for me, I still love my Mama no matter what. But my mom had a vice, She had hardships, pain and she had a vice. My dad, he took pain shots. He would go to the doctor, even he was in high school, he would sign me out so I could drive to the doctor because you had to have someone's signature that was driving you. And he used pain shots to for his vice until he found God in my youth. Good God, I sound like I'm 78 years old. When I was younger, I turned to alcohol and drugs. I didn't have a relationship with God, so that was my vice for when times were hard. Now, after finding God, getting in church and everything, I wish I could say I was the good little Christian and that went straight to God. You find your strength in the Lord. I wish I could say that I truly, truly do. But after getting in church for a little while, my first hardship and tragedy hit and I turned to alcohol for advice. Actually so strong that weekend I flipped a four Wheeler on top of myself. Of course I dusted myself off in that moment and the life in general and quit drinking again and got back on the wagon. Living, trying to live, right? And then another. Another tragedy hit turned alcohol again. Then another one hit a third one. That time I didn't really want to drink, didn't really want to. Time goes on and a fourth tragedy hits and I turn to cigarettes this time. Now I'll call cigarettes. Let me tell you, I could smoke a Fat Dart right now all the way to the bud. Cigarettes is the hardest thing I've ever give up. I love them and you judge me if you want. I'm just being real, just being real with you. I love a fat stogie. I do. I I quit them because one, I want to live a long time and two, it's kind of hard to talk about Jesus when you got a fat sig in your mouth. Just how you just hypocritical. It's real and and you know, and you can sit there and say, well, you're shooting judge, blah, blah. OK, OK, let your pastor hold smoke a cigarette. Tell me you won't judge or think twice. Let's be real now. When that 4th tragedy hit and I turned to cigarettes, I just remember that day I went to church and I did like you're supposed to. I went down to the altar. I put my hands up in the sky and I'm singing a song and I'm got tears rolling down my face and I'm sitting there and I'm like, God, please, please take this pain from me. My emotions are going crazy. My thoughts are strong. I I just felt so heavy. I needed something. I prayed a beautiful prayer, people came up, prayed with me and it all ended and I still felt the same. So as soon as the doors were open, I ran to the store and I got a pack of cigarettes. I smoked that beautiful fat stogie and instantly my nerves were calmed. Instantly their time. I gave it up again, picked it up again after another tragedy. Now I'm smoke free. I give you this, this progression of my story to tell you that each event has slowly changed my vice Slowly. And you know, we all need a vice. This pain of life drives us all to vices, something to relieve this pain that's inside of us. Again, life only has four options. It's either alcohol, drugs, pleasure, or Jesus. The problem is, is that three of them are traps, temporary band aids you could say. One actually fixes and heals the root problem. Three of them only distract the mind, which is a quick fix. One of them is a complete renewal, Romans 12 and two, it says and be conformed not to the world, but you be transformed by the renewing of the mind. Patchwork doesn't fix anything permanently patch a roof a few years, you're gonna have to replace the whole roof. It's just a quick fix. We notice in all areas of life, true healing takes time. It's not a quick fix. Trusting God step by step. The problem is when we choose these vices, it's a Band-Aid. And the problem with the Band-Aid is that, yes, you slap that Band-Aid on a wound, the wound is going to heal underneath it. It is. But you leave that Band-Aid all long enough and it's eventually going to cause more problems than you started with. It's eventually going to get dirty, it's going to lead to infection, and it just goes on and on. Don't believe me? Find out for yourself. Well, I need you to. I need you to follow me. What I'm about to talk about here. I have been wrestling with these thoughts all week long, researching, thinking so much on this. I want you to follow with and follow me and think with me. Our soul. Have you ever thought about the soul? Seriously, have you ever thought about the soul? It's not just some little ghostly figure that's going to fly up in the Sky One day or the other place. It's there's more to it. The soul is made-up of three components. You have your mind, which is your thoughts, your reasoning, your understanding. This is where doubts and fears start. You have your heart. This is your emotions, your desires, your will, where pain and grief weigh the heaviest. And then you have the spirit. That's your if he, if he would follow me for a second. Hang on, buckle up. Your spirit is your attitude. It's your posture toward life. The spirit is your life force. That's why they say are you either a glass half empty or half full type of person. The spirit is distinct. It intertwines with the heart and mind, and when you receive the Holy Ghost, it even communes with God. You become a force to be reckoned with when your attitude changes, when your spirit changes. Magnets teach us that forces can be positive or negative. It's up to you to decide which force you're going to be. Each component of the soul either positively or negatively, affects the others. When one of the components of the soul becomes unbalanced negatively, we begin searching for anything to distract us. Now, now, this is where, this is where my research really blew me away. So I need you to stay with me here. I'm serious. Matthew 22 and 37. You must love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all of your soul, and all of your mind. That sounds a lot like heart, mind, and spirit, don't it? According to Strong's Concordance, if I'm pronouncing that right, the soul, that word soul in that scripture comes from the Greek word Suki, which can translate to vital force, core life force, which as I mentioned to you earlier, the life force is your spirit. Now this work gets even more interesting. The Greek word, this Greek word Suki is where we get our English word psyche from. This is where we also get psychologist from. No coincidence why people see a psychologist when their mind and heart are out of balance. The spirit is screaming. This book from 2000 years ago literally just solved anxiety and depression. Hands down one scripture done right there. Your soul's out of wack. Simple as that. Get your spirit right, get your heart right, your mind. What's more interesting is the very next verse. This is even more interesting. Matthew 22 and 38, Jesus says this is the first and greatest commandment. When the when the mind, heart, and spirit are all aligned with God, you're whole, you're not broken. The reason this is the greatest commandment, it wasn't just for God's benefit, it was also for yours. I don't know about y'all that blew me away. That literally knocked me on my feet. If if you don't see it, you need to go rewatch this podcast about 6 more times. If you cannot see that the the just the the force behind that thought process. Then I got the thing in some biblical stories on how your vices affect your different components of the souls. The story of Noah, the one that I've never never really seen before, is this perspective is we don't really chew on it. Noah literally witnessed the most catastrophic event ever ever the the original apocalypse. A flood that literally wiped out humanity. This trauma was immense. Every single person, city and life drowned except what was on his boat, what was on the ark. On top of that, this man had the entire weight of the world on his shoulders. Literally he was tasked with repopulating the earth, starting over from scratch. How Noah handling, that's a lot of pressure, that's a lot of trauma, that's a lot of hardship. Genesis 920 through 21, it says, let me read it to you. And Noah began to be an husbandman and he planted a vineyard and he drank of the wine and was drunken and he was uncovered within his tent. That word husbandman, it means farmer. And the first thing he did, the first thing was he planted a vineyard. You know what a vineyard's for? It's for grapes, which make wine. He didn't plant tomatoes, he didn't plant carrots. But grapes for wine. A This was a natural extension of his skills, but a deliberate choice. His mind's reeling with survivor's guilt. His heart's heavy with loss, his spirits crushing under the pressure. In fact, if he paid attention, he got so drunk he didn't even realize he was naked. I've been in that state four times in my lifetime, and let me tell you, that takes dedication and a lot of grapes. A lot. This ancient hero, he, God seen him righteous enough to save humanity, yet he still needed advice. He still needed something to numb the pain. Alcohol was his Band-Aid, numbing the pain but not healing it. Yet God didn't abandoned Noah, No no no, his covenant in the rainbow, It promised hope. Noah's family was blessed. Showing Jesus offers a better path than wine. Blew my mind. Blew it. Not saying that. Then I was reading about the prodigal son. Hear me out this perspective. Let me paint a picture. The prodigal son literally had everything. He he, he was living in Welt. He had God fearing good hearted parents. He had everything he wanted. He probably had to. If it was modern days he would have that new lifted truck, convertible Xbox. If he was a female he would have had a closet full of dresses. I mean list goes on and on. Yeah he he wanted out. He was restless. And in Luke 15 and 12, the scripture says, and they're younger. And them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of the goods that falleth to me, which is his inheritance. And he divided unto him his living. Not long after that, the younger son packed up everything he owned and left for a foreign country where he wasted all of his money on wild living. His mind was racing with with discontent. His his heart was desperate for more and his spirit was full of ungratefulness. That's how I see it. I mean seriously had everything, but he still was restless. He needed out and it said he wasted all his money on wild living. That include that has to include parties, excessive drinking, entertainment driven debauchery, prostitutes. Hear me out. While the Bible doesn't explicitly say that, it gives context clues to that kind of lifestyle. Even later in Luke 15 and 30, his brother accuses him of wasting all the money on prostitutes. Go read it. It's in your Bible, not just mine. Literally, he was so restless. He had to go seek pleasure and and alcohol and everything else to get his mind and the heart off whatever was bothering him. He he literally had everything, but he threw it away from pleasure. A Band-Aid vice that still left him empty because according to Luke 15 and 16, he ended up in in a through eating with pigs. But the the beautiful parts, his father ran to him and restored him with love. That's Jesus renewing your soul, renewing your mind, not just numbing the pain or distracting you from it. So I don't know about y'all, but that that all of that just blew my mind this week as I was chewing on it and researching it. I just got to say from from personal experience to to my fellow God fearing Christians, when you see someone turn to something besides God, turn to alcohol, cigarettes, pleasure of any sort, don't condemn them, don't judge them, love on them, gently guide them. Be a friend, be a be an ear, because the difference may be is that they had may have not learned how to pick Jesus as their vice yet they're still leaning on the old habits. When when struggles hit, they they run to what they always known. It takes time. It takes. I think they say it takes two weeks for a new habit to form. Well, it takes much longer than that for a new vice to be chosen. Getting hardship. Trust me. Don't believe me, ask me and to everyone else, I mean it it don't hold on if you're if you're choosing a bad vice right now and don't hold on to that Band-Aid. RIP it off. Seek true healing through Christ Jesus moot so you can move forward to this Walt, count this ball. I'm telling you, the sooner the better. If alcohol or drugs or pleasure is your vice, you got to seek the true healing. Don't pick the Band-Aid. Get the true medic medication. Read Romans 12 and two renew your mind, pray for renewal. Find a church community. If you ain't got one, reach out to me. I I you can sit right beside me and I'll take a real vice with you. I'm just telling you what I've learned in my young 28 years. Vices numbs, but Jesus heals. Don't don't don't pick on the one that's not doing and not acting right. The picking the wrong things for hope. They just might not know how to pick the right ones yet. Thanks for listening what I had on my heart and stay real.