FREE INDEED: A Devotional for Saints Who Still Struggle with Sin

By Dr. Gary Webb

Break Free from the Strongholds that Rob You 
Many Christians secretly battle powerful, deadly spiritual forces -- often without realizing the source or the solution to the misery they have endured all too long. Are you one of those? Free Indeed is a devotional workbook for those believers who are struggling with destructive, "besetting" sins. Each daily reading calls attention to a specific principle that leads a disciple of the Lord into the freedom that only the Son can give. 
The daily format includes a brief Scripture passage, reflections, and a sample prayer to express the heart of the liberating truth focus for the day. 
The author himself has experienced how these truths of God's Word brought salvation and deliverance during the time when he was addicted to drugs, fascinated with the occult, and obsessed with suicidal thoughts. 
You too can be transformed by the truth of Scripture and receive the joyous freedom of the Lord. In a sense, every sinner is an addict who needs to be made free. 

In Free Indeed: A Devotional for Saints Who Still Struggle with Sin you will learn:

• An intimate approach to spending time with God to receive the freedom Christ alone can provide.
• Key Scriptures that establish a believers position in Christ.
• More understanding of the strategies of Satan to keep people in bondage to sinful patterns of attitude and action.
• A listing of Scriptures that relate to the Twelve Steps (re-worded for Christians).

Apply Liberating Truth to Your Own Life on a Daily Basis

These studies are all clearly written and can be quickly absorbed each day of the 40-day journey.
Begin today. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dr. Gary Webb
• Release date: Feb 24, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386738893

Book preview

Why You Need This Book

Why You Need This Book

There is no form of sinfulness to which you are addicted which Christ cannot remove.

—C.H. Spurgeon

You are an addict.  I don't expect you to admit it now.  Addicts have a hard time admitting their addiction.  Like most other addicts, you have a deep and unconscious determination to deny the awful truth about your addictions.  I made that plural because you are likely to have several or many, addictions that drive you along through life.  As an addict, you are blind by nature to how those addictions have robbed you of the fullness of what God offers in this life and beyond it. 

The Bible says, All have sinned.  When most of us hear those words, we shrug them away by thinking, Yeah, none of us is perfect.  Since we see sin as a common matter, we comfort ourselves by accepting our imperfections, while also reassuring ourselves that many others are even worse.  In a world of imperfect people, our own sin doesn't seem so bad, much less threatening!  We reason that if all of us are infected with this same condition, then it can't be that serious.  Or can it?  As with an addiction, the natural response to being told about our sin is a denial rather than a confession.

Addiction is a modern term for obsessive, habitual, destructive behaviors.  Every addiction is also what the Bible calls sin. We can become addicted to many kinds of attitudes and actions that give us an immediate sense of pleasure. Because addiction is often viewed as a medical condition, many people use it as an excuse for why they are continuing in their favorite sin.  They may say, It's a disease!  I can't help it!  Some even defend themselves by claiming God made them that way!

Our addictions do not remove our responsibility for our confused decisions and actions.  In fact, knowing the problem places a greater burden on us to make needed changes.  If your doctor told you you have entered the late stages of pancreatic cancer, you might panic. It won't help you to know millions around the world are in the same condition as you.  

If you had this aggressive form of cancer you would search for every option, regardless of expense or difficulty.  You wouldn't say, Oh, well, no big deal!  Lots of people have the same thing.  That thought wouldn't be comforting, would it?  The more you understood about pancreatic cancer the more frightened you might become.  Your disease would mean months or years of terrible suffering.  It would be sure to rob you of energy, of money, of opportunities to pursue exciting goals.  Life would collapse into what might appear to be an unfair shortage of time.  Even though millions are facing the same prospects that knowledge offers little relief to your fears. 

Like a patient with cancer, your condition is terminal.  Whether you call it sin or call it an addiction; it's still destructive and usually fatal.  You are responsible to turn your life with new choices; but when you try, you discover you want to change, but lack the ability to make it happen. 

The Bible often associates sin with disease, sometimes exposing sin as the cause of particular illnesses.  At other times, diseases are seen as pictures of the devastating, obnoxious nature of sin.  Leprosy is such a symbol.  With leprosy, body parts go numb with loss of feeling.  Then, the skin withers and decays with an offensive odor.  In time, members fall off and internal organs fail.  Death is much too slow, and often cruel.

Many diseases, left untreated, are pain sirens announcing approaching death.  With early diagnosis and proper treatment they may be curable.  Sin is not just physically disastrous; it is eternally terminal.  Without the proper treatment, it destroys everyone it touches.

Because of the terrible influences of sin, God has provided healing salvation through His Son, Jesus Christ.  Without Him, we have no hope and no remedy.  With Him, you can be delivered from the penalty of sin (hell), from the power of sin (continuing evil in our attitudes and actions), and even from the presence of sin (living forever with Him in heaven).

So, what is it?  What is your favorite sin?  Until you see sin for what it is, you will continue to protect it, pamper it, feed it, and watch it grow stronger every day.  The following pages begin a lifelong journey with Christ, the Liberator and Great Physician.  He alone has all the answers, but we can share the insights He has taught us in His Word, the Bible.  Following Him is the only pathway to your personal freedom.

MGW

June 2012

Chapter Three

How to Use This Book

How to Use This Book

If you don't believe you need a life-changing experience from God, I encourage you to find someone who does.  You can give them this little book.  FREE INDEED isn't intended for those who don't need change in their lives.  If all you plan to do is to read and study it for amusement, you might fill your head with ideas, but you won't get what you need.  You will not become different. You need more than information.  You need re-creation – being born again as a new person in Christ. 

As you begin each day, set apart some time to meet with God.  If you are only going to read, study, and think, then you shouldn't expect much change. That's an individual, intellectual game. You may have done that for years – without having a life-changing encounter with the real God and Savior.  You need a relationship change that produces the inner spiritual transformation. 

Each day is a fresh start.  It doesn't really matter what happened yesterday—except for the lessons you learned.  If it was an exciting day of victory, you should be thankful to the Lord, but you must also avoid becoming overly confident in your own strength.  If it was a day of defeat, you should be thankful that you have been spared to live another day.  The failures of your past do not determine your future.  Yesterday's defeat does not need to continue today.  For a Christian, no failure is final.

As you approach the Lord this morning and every morning to come, I'm asking that you bow to Him.  That's right. . .  If it is physically possible, get down on your knees in His honor.  Speak aloud to Him, even if it must be softly to avoid disturbing others.  Ask Him to open your eyes to see wonderful things out of His law (Psalm 119:18).  Ask Him to use His Word to change your heart and mind in any way it needs to be changed. 

The Bible is God's unchanging Word, but it is designed to change us.  It is His chosen means to communicate with His people while we are still in this world.  God did not simply choose the men who wrote the Scriptures; He guided them and superintended their efforts in recording His message for you.  That isn't dictation, but it did insure that every word is just what He intended to say.  Since it was written, God has preserved His Word in a remarkable way so that it reveals Him and His purposes to those with ears to hear it.

As you begin to read through the passages from God's Word in this book, read them slowly and thoughtfully.  It may also help if you read them aloud and really reflect on what you are hearing.  Constantly depend on God's Spirit to give you understanding.  I even ask Him directly to do just that.

As you read each verse from the Bible, pause frequently (even if in mid-sentence) to ask the Lord, "What do You mean?"  You may have only read one sentence, but without divine help, you won't get what you need.  He has promised that if we keep on asking, we will