Enjoy Life, Enjoy God

DELIVERED

September 6, 2011

When I hear of stories of alcohol and drug addiction, the stories bear a common theme: the addicted person finds it impossible to get herself or himself out of the pit of addiction. There seems no deliverance.

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. The righteous may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers them all...
                                                      --Psalm 34:18,19 TNIV

Sinners know a similar story to the addict. Sinners not merely because of their sins, but sinners by their nature--that's not some addict, that's you and me. But David knows all about deliverance. David cries that it's the one who knows it is impossible to find deliverance in the self that finds it in the Lord.

Deliverance, rescue, redemption--these come to the one who knows they bring nothing to the solution, but empty hands and a cry: "Come close to me, O Lord, the brokenhearted, the defeated." And God does.

Joyfully,

Dale Patterson