What the Bible Says About Drinking part 2

500 - Today's Prime Time Devo comes from: 2Sa 11:13 Now when David called him, he ate and drank before him; and he made him drunk. And at evening he went out to lie on his bed with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house.” Let's talk about drinking. But before we begin I want to speak to those who are recovering alcoholics. May God bless your sobriety, may He continue to give you the strength to say no to even one drink, because you know that in your situation, one drink is too many. The Bible does not forbid drinking but more important for the alcoholic....it doesn't command drinking either. You'll do just fine if you never put a drink to your lips. The problem with drinking is excess. Excess leads to drunkenness and drunkenness is lumped in with other obvious sins: Ga 5:19 says, “Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, 21 envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” The word “practice” here means to “perform repeatedly.” And the Holy Spirit speaking through the Apostle Paul has warned the Galatians in the past and is warning them now that they must seek to break free from these habitual sins or they will not inherit the kingdom of God. This is a scary verse, for which one of us does not struggle with at least one of these repeating sins? There can only be one answer here in accordance with Scripture. There can only be one solution to our battle with habitual sinning. The Apostle Paul admitted to his own struggles with habitual sin, in Ro 7:19 he said, “For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.” And he found his solution in Christ: Ro 7:24 O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 I thank God--through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. The key to all this is don't stop struggling. The struggle is a sign that the Spirit is at work in you. Convicting you of all your wrong behavior and helping you to bring those behaviors to the cross to receive the forgiveness of Christ. Ro 8:13 says, “For if you live according to the flesh (with no regard of Christ) you will die; but if by the Spirit (with regard to Christ) you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. Father, forgive us all of our besetting sins, and help us to turn from them in the power of the Holy Spirit.