pass me another...

...addiction that is.

What's the purpose in giving something up?  It's to be free of it, to be released from it's grasp, correct?

I've realized a few things over the last few weeks as I've struggled to keep afloat in certain areas of my life.  And by 'stay afloat' I really mean fail horribly, yet, through grace and forgiveness I'm going to pick myself up and keep going.

What have I learned?  Well, there's a few important things, and a few grousome things to be sure.  And as I begin to type, my hope is simply that I see hope beyond where I was, where I am, and where I hope to be.

1 - Addiction is gripping, and it costs you more than you see on the outside.  Over the last 4 weeks I believe I lost a part of my brain and picked up a cigarette.  Why did I do this?  Well, I gave myself an excuse 6 weeks ago while on vacation that I could go ahead and enjoy a cigarette with a beer.  Are either wrong?  Beer = no.  Cigarettes = Yes, a big fat YES.  Why are cigarettes wrong?  Not because I think cigarettes are fundamentally wrong, or even a sin, but for me, you see, after hearing directly from God that He did not want me to smoke, that He had protected me for the many years I had been smoking, and put it before me like this, "If obedience brings such blessing, how much terror do you think disobedience brings?"
Quite frankly this woke me up.  It didn't scare the shit out of me, it didn't give me crazy fears of "oh man, what might happen if i kept smoking..." I simply new that I was not supposed to smoke anymore.  I didn't want to, I took the cigarette currently in my hand and threw it overboard (on a cruise boat) and I bent the crap out of the pack of smokes in my pocket and threw them into a garbage can.
I was free, I had never been so free of cigarettes.  Cravings?  nope, oh sure occassionally i thought it might be nice to have a smoke.  But instantly i felt free, I didn't feel the need, physically or escapingly to have a smoke (excapingly is a word we will come back to, real or not real, it's going to be used in this post).
So, why 6 weeks ago did I give myself permission to have a cigarette?  Well, I decided, after 5 months of not having any cigarette or cigar of any kind that it was ok to allow myself to enjoy a cigar.  Why?  well, I convince myself that I like cigars, when I don't like cigars nearly as much as i like having a cigarette.  Well, sitting there having a cigar, while a friend of mine was sitting beside me having a cigarette, made me want one thing... NOT the cigar in my hand, but the cigarette in his.  So I said the following, "hey, can i have a smoke?"
"No..."  (good job friend, i asked you to say no and you did...)
but of course as a good friend often does when persistent buggers like myself continue on, eventually give into the request.
so, i rationalized, "Just one, I just want to have one..."
ya know the weird thing?  It didn't even taste good, i didn't really enjoy it.  But instead of just having that 'one' i said i 'wanted' i persisted and had another, well gaw-lee that one tasted just a little bit better.
wanna know something else? the third one tasted great.  And for 4 days I gave myself permission to smoke, and said "when i get back no more..."
sure enough, I stuck to my word, until about 7 days later when we were out for a beer and I thought "it'd be nice to have a smoke with this beer."  well, now i had a easy convince for it in my head "i had smokes for 4 days and haven't craved one since, and i don't 'need' one, i just want one."  so, again i gave in to what i thought for sure i wanted.
don't get me wrong, I dont' think i was out-right turning my back on God doing this, I didn't think for one moment "God i don't need you i want cigarettes instead".  this never even occured to me.  What occured to me was, "i like smoking".  but that's not the point my friends, smoking isn't the point.  It's the fact that there are many things in life that are 'enjoyable for a season, and bring death in the end' - and smoking is one of the more obvious ones.
So i continue to give little excuses, 4 days after my little beer + smoke incident, i find myself again sitting with a beer.  What do i do this time?  well, it's now become an instant tradition that I can enjoy a cigarette while i enjoy a beer and i'll be fine, i don't need to have one tomorrow.
A few days after that i'm sitting have a coca-cola classic, nothing like a beer, yet, i have a cigarette in my hand.

what am i getting at?  This isn't just an enjoyable story, because quite frankly no one in the world wants to hear about how i've been smoking for the last month, it's a boring story.  but suddenly about 3 weeks ago i find myself with a pack of smokes in my pocket, yet the entire time when someone asks me if i'm 'smoking again' i simply state, "no, i'm just having a smoke".  Well, I don't know waht the definition of 'smoking' is, but im' pretty sure whatever it is, i've been doing it for the last month.

And i find myself to today, the day i've promised myself and God that I would once again give up smoking, because quite frankly, smokes and my voice don't go well together, so I don't want to smoke, it tastes bad, it smells bad, it makes me hide and feel insecure and yet it's so enjoyable and i feel like i'm missing something when i'm not smoking.
But, as i said, i've promised myself and God today is the day.
15 minutes ago I had the last cigarette in the pack on my table.  I'm done, that was the last one.  I smoked that thing as much as i could. got ever last drop of whatever toxins are in there into my body.  Ya know what happened when i was done?  I realized i wanted another one RIGHT AWAY.

so, back to the top. the intro... "pass me another... " "...addiction that is."
why do i say that?

Well, quite a long time ago I realized I needed to get rid of my internet.  Enter addiction #2 (we'll call cigarettes addiction #1 for the sake of giving it a number, not because any of these things is more important or worse than the other, the all damage and kill in different yet very similar ways).
Addiction #2, hours and hours spent on the internet doing nothing but getting myself into trouble.  Doing nothing but ending up place i shouldn't, chat rooms I should be in, conversations I should never have had, and tears cried I should never needed to cry.

wanna talk timelines, it's an addiction i've had since i was 13 years old, and quite frankly i've had prayer a million times to break it, i've cursed it to high heaven and left it on the side of the road dead many a time.  Yet it's snuck it's way back into my life time and time again.  It's a thorn dug deep into my side that's become infected and was killing me slowly.

i'll be flat out honest, the addiction to conversation, to pornography, to masturbation, to changing my identity and outright lying about who i was...all of these things were killing me.
I've become increasingly angry with how pornography and especially the stream of what is called 'cyber sex' and the increasing verbal pornography found on the internet.  I'm angry with how it warps the minds of people, how people are given the opportunity to hide who they are and become what they think people want, to flaunt the area's of themselves they are ok with and hide the area's they are ashamed of.
For someone who's been forever ashamed of who they are for as long as i can remember, this was the perfect playground for me to roam in.  I found comfort in the fact that there was always someone to talk to, I found comfort in the fact that almost always there would be someone who would want to talk about anything I wanted to talk about, and of course the fact that they were women was exactly what my heart was looking for.
stuck for years in this thing I've realized that it was like any other addiction, used for the purpose of escape.  I've had my share of addictions: video games, tv, internet, cigarettes, etc... it's all the same thing.  It's the same thing because the purpose of it is simply for you to not turn to God, and to turn to something else.

so, a while ago I know in my heart i'm needing to get rid of the internet in my home, because if it's there, the temptation is to hard to resist.  I think as positive as i can, and think best i can to be free of this, i pray and i intercede, but ontop of all of this, we need to pursue freedom in the most practical of ways sometimes.
"Faith without works is dead"... I had faith, i have for a long time, I knew I could conquer this thing because Jesus died for my sin, for the addiction to be broken, and continually the holy Spirit is interceeding for my freedom, for my release and for me to be closer to the Father.  But the works side wasn't right.  I needed to get rid of what's infront of me that's causing me to sin.
"if your eye causes you to sin..."
well, i wasn't about to pluck my eye out was I? but what was causing me to sin was the internet in my home and it being readily available.
3 weeks ago I axed the internet in my home.
3 weeks ago I realized I had a pack of cigarettes in my pocket.

coincidence?  Some might say, I do not.  I realized very quickly that one addiction had taken the place of another one.  Not because i wanted to smoke so badly, but because it was feeding a place in my heart I didn't feel was being filled.  The place of acceptance.
Whether I'm around smokers, or around people that think it's 'cool' (which has got to be absolutely no one these days, or at least no one my age and older) I've always thought that smoking made me that added kewl, or maybe just badass enough that people would notice me.  or maybe that's it right there....please, someone notice me.

So, that again brings me to today, where since I canned my internet I obviously haven't looked at internet porn, or been in chat rooms, but I also haven't really thought about any of it... I've been free from all that list of things I was rhyming off earlier, and because i don't have internet, I've been reading... which it was taking away from.
but because I've been smoking I knew that i had simply traded one thing for another and needed to be free of the other visible sin.
see, ignorance is bliss, by this i mean, if i don't see the sin, i can't do much about it.  I need to ask the holy Spirit to come and reveal the hidden area's of my heart where sin is dormant, or at work in area's i haven't realized yet.  But what about the sin that is blatently evident in my life.  whether it be open like smoking, or hidden from the world like my tragic addiction to chat rooms and the like.

I'm free.  And i have no problem saying that because I have to say it.  My freedom was paid in full on calvary, when Jesus gave up His life for me, and for you, our sin was loosed from our lives, it was broken, the chains have no right to be on our lives, unless we give them right.

Joyce Meyers writes, "negative thinking produces negativity in our lives"  "positive thinking produces negative outcomes"... Am i Lying to myself in saying that I'm free?  Absolutely NOT, I'm telling myself the truth that Jesus died for my sins, that when I ask for freedom and repent from my sins, come to the foot of the cross and ask my saviour to yet again save me from a life that was killing me, he is faithful and just to forgive those sins, and to wipe away all unrighteousness.

So, I finished that last cigarette, and I know i was wrong for giving a timeline for this, I have no excuse for it, but I finished tha smoke and turned to God and said that very thing, I shouldn't have said "give me till monday"....i shouldn't have given myself excuses, becasue excuses are just the fleshes way of getting what the devil wants in our lives.  So, i gave place to sin for the last 3 weeks, knowing full well i shouldn't.
Today is the day I deal with this sin.  And instead of beating myself up about going this long, I will stand and thank God for setting me free, for bring the realization into my life that He did on the cruise when i stood there and knew what he was asking of me.  Today I stand and realize what the Lord has for me, it's a life of freedom, it's a life of walking out my freedom.

It's an odd thing, and the reason i started writing this post was because of this thought.
I got home from camping this morning, and this afternoon was the first time since i gave up the internet that i've had a craving for the sin i was taking part in before.  interesting that it coincides with the same day I'm giving up the addiction i noticed was taking it's place.

Addiction for the sake of addiction.... the result is the same, it pulls us from God, it brings us into a life of disobedience, it causes us to turn the hearing towards God down, and turn the volume of our selfish desires up.  It pulls us from God, and puts us in the corner where we open doors to our lives that the enemy can walk through and wreck havoc on our lives.
So, today, if you're reading this, and i wonder why anyone would read this far into this post cause it's really just my mind processing what i've seen.
but please, if you see addiction in your life, ask God to set you free, if you know that he's set you free already in the past, then stand on that freedom, don't let the enemy have a foothold on your life.  Stand in who you are, you are the king of king's, you are a son of the Father, the creator of the universe.  He's called you from darkness into Light, He's called you out of the sin that held you down and called you into his purpose and destiny.

I know the plans i have for you says the Lord, plans to prospur you, plans to give you a future and a hope.

Hope is what you need to hold onto.  The Lord God almight, the Hope of Glory.
begin to dream, begin to see yourself as free.

When i sat there having that 'last cigarette', i instantly wanted to masturbate, i wanted to hide and go into a chat room and lye about who i am, and hide behind a computer screen, and i wanted another cigarette already, I JUST FINISHED.....

but that's NOT my hope, My hope is in the one who saved me, the one who set me free.
A year ago i stood on a platform and told 3 thousand people that God set me free from the addiction to Chat rooms, set me free from having a duel identity.  Was i Lying?  NO, i was speaking the truth, and it's time to speak the truth and live in the truth again.

come with me on this journey, come with me as we embark on this journey of truth and life.

the truth will set you free.  I am set free because of the truth...

The ultimate truth:       Jesus died for my sins and his death has set me free.
this brings more truth: Jesus spoke into my identity, the truth of who i am.

and all of things brings more truth.  We need to start standing on the truth that God is giving us, and continues to give us.  His truth is the truth whether you believe it or not.

God's truth is the truth whether you believe it or not.

I am free, I do NOT need cigarettes, the bodily addiction to nicotene will be broken in the next 72 hours, and because I have the Holy Spirit inside of me I need not be addicted to this in my body, because He is the healer, Jesus died to heal me, so I call forth the natural levels of nicotene to level out in my body, that there would be ZERO cravings in my body for the toxins that a cigarette contains.  I speak to my body now and say, "even out levels" and i speak to the toxins inside my body and i say "Be gone, let the power of the holy Spirit cleanse my body and remove any harmful toxins, any harmful bacteria that shouldn't be there, disease and pain i tell you to leave right now in the name of Jesus."
To my heart i speak the truth:
"you are loved, you are designed and created in the image of your heavenly Father"
"you are beautiful, you are lovely, you deserve to have hope and deserve to be blessed, because you are a child of God."
"You are worthy of love, and your heavenly Father, your Saviour and the Holy Spirit are madly in love with you."

I am a beautiful creation, created in the image of God, this is the truth, whether i believe it or not, and I tell the lies, to be silent right now.  No longer will i give into the lies of not beleiving who i am, but i will stand up and cry as hard as i can and as loud and long as i can that I am Robert Moses Augi, created to be a son of God, created to live in perfect harmony with Him and to live out the destiny and purpose He has for my life...

And I am loved, I am called to be a son, I am called to be a lover and a companion of Jesus Christ.  I will live all my days for you my Lord, draw me closer to your heart, draw me closer to who you are and continue to help me look to you.  Holy spirit, silence the lies in my mind, bring confidence and peace through the truth of who i am.  Give me peace and comfort as I step into the truth, and help me believe it.  Help me believe who You have called me to be, help me rely on you, your strength, in your joy I will find my strength.  In my weakness you will be my strength and power.

I thank you for freedom God, I thank you that you continually pull me into freedom, that you are wanting to set your children free more and more as we get closer to you, and Lord I'm asking that you would use this life you've given me to help your children be set free, and for those who do not realize they are your children yet to find you as their father...

To you be all the Glory, all the honour, all the power and all the praise, in this life, and in this earth....you are great....and i love you,