The cigarette is an interesting thing. It is a drug unlike most drugs. Most drugs change your personality when you take them but the cigarette is the one major drug that changes your personality if you don’t take it. It is almost unique in this respect. I have talked to many that are hooked on this drug and the answer is usually the same when they seek to justify it. They tell me that it doesn’t change their personality, hence it is not a drug. I just tell them to try to do without it and then tell me that it doesn’t change your mind, your focus, etc. Their dependency is entirely on it. It consumes the individual with its addicting power. The power is not only in its addicting strength which is both mental and physical but another major link in keeping so many people under its spell is the legalization of cigarettes. When we legalize something we tend to make it more appealing to the masses. Because of man’s sin nature, he tends to want, desire, or experience things that are wrong or forbidden but the consequences of sin keeps him from doing many of the things that he would like to do. In other words, if it is against the law then that keeps many from trying out things that are wrong. One good illustration would be marijuana. If marijuana were legalized the increase would be dramatic. There are many who do not nor would smoke marijuana because it is illegal. But turn the tables around, legalize it and make it socially acceptable, it would be on par with the cigarette in a very short time.

Mankind needs to depend on something, someone since they have this nature of dependency because they were created with the innate desire to need someone. That someone is God but since man fell into sin that innate desire has been warped and Satan is taking mankind on a roller coaster ride with ever so many choices to seek to fulfill that desire with anything but the only one who can fill it. So the emptiness remains or even gets worse and the focus to get fulfillment is widened. In this particular case, the cigarette gets more control over the individual and the person is never satisfied but keeps on with the show since it seems to meet his need to some sort of degree.

I have known people who would kick, cuss, hit and even threaten to leave a person if they do not get their needed cigarette. I have had friends in the ministry who smoke and they tell me that they are into deliverance. I can’t understand how they can be used to see someone else delivered when they aren’t delivered from an addiction themselves.I have been talking about power and addictions all through this pamphlet. Now I would like to talk about a power, an addiction that is good. That power comes from God. The bible says, “But ye shall receive power after the Holy Ghost is come upon you and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in Judea, and in Samaria, and to the uttermost part of the earth.” He gives us power to be his witnesses and that power is for healing, deliverance, just total wholeness. The world should look on us and see that we are different, that we have something that they need. We should not be satisfied walking in defeat, addiction, confusion or whatever else is of the evil one. God is our strength and his strength is all sufficient for every area, every situation in life.

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