by Jeffrey W. Hamilton<\/p>\n
I don’t know why you have chosen to ruin yourself with drugs over the life you used to happily lead. Without a conversation with you, you leave me guessing. I have met people in your situation who decide that there is no going back. Such is just another lie from Satan. Usually, this passage is dangled in front of the deceived:<\/p>\n
“For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame<\/em>” (Hebrews 6:4-6).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Satan whispers in your ear, “See, God has rejected you. He doesn’t want you back.” But it is a twisting of what this verse says.<\/p>\n
Who is this verse written about?<\/strong>\u00a0It is talking about people, like yourself, who once had salvation but decided to throw it away for cheap, temporary, worldly thrills.<\/p>\n
Who is this verse written to?<\/strong>\u00a0Is it written to the person who fell away or to those who try to bring them back? Read it carefully. It is written to people, like myself, who long for your return. God is telling me that I can’t\u00a0make<\/em>\u00a0you come back. I have little to offer you that you don’t already know. I can remind you of the truth you already know, but I can’t tell you something new that will suddenly make you realize to the depth of your soul that you need to return. It is impossible for me to bring you renewal.<\/p>\n
“There is nothing final about a mistake, except its being taken as final.” (Phyllis Bottome, 1884-1963).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The hard truth that I have to face is that there is little I can do until\u00a0you\u00a0<\/strong>want to come back. All I can do is wait, knowing that each passing day sees you increasingly damaging yourself and digging a bigger hole to climb out of. I want you back. I’m committed to waiting and reaching for you as long as the good Lord allows me. I fear at times I have years of tears in front of me. But if that is my lot, know that I think you are worth it. I won’t<\/strong>\u00a0give up on you.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPrior Lesson\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSearching for My Friend\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNext Lesson\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mission Impossible? by Jeffrey W. Hamilton I don’t know why you have chosen to ruin yourself with drugs over the life you used to happily lead. Without a conversation with you, you leave me guessing. I have met people in your situation who decide that there is no going back. Such is just another lie…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":25976,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-65678","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10341,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/bible-studies\/genesis-a-study-of-the-beginning\/the-fall-of-man\/who-is-satan\/","url_meta":{"origin":65678,"position":0},"title":"Who Is Satan?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 22, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Who Is Satan? In Genesis 3, we are introduced to the serpent, who we identified as Satan. From the previous lessons, we showed that mankind is not naturally sinful, though we are naturally weak. Satan preys upon our weakness, encouraging us to sin in various ways. Why is Satan so\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":700,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/bible-studies\/letter-to-the-hebrews\/christ-is-better-than-the-angels-because-of-his-humanity\/","url_meta":{"origin":65678,"position":1},"title":"Christ is Better than the Angels Because of His Humanity","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 12, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Christ is Better than the Angels Because of His Humanity Text: Hebrews 2:5-18 All Things Are Subjected to Christ (Hebrews 2:5-8) The world to come was not subjected to angels, but to Christ. As supporting evidence, the writer quotes Psalms 8:4-6. In the psalm, David expresses his wonder that God\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":64657,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/bible-studies\/pauls-letter-to-the-romans\/according-to-gods-righteousness\/","url_meta":{"origin":65678,"position":2},"title":"According to God\u2019s Righteousness","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 15, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"According to God's Righteousness All forms of righteousness are not the same (Romans 10:1-7) Paul again makes it clear that he is not against Israel as a people. He strongly desires that they be saved. Everything isn't all bad about Israel. They do have a strong zeal for God, but\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":40487,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/bible-studies\/pauls-letter-to-the-romans\/the-gentiles-still-can-be-lost\/","url_meta":{"origin":65678,"position":3},"title":"The Gentiles Still Can Be Lost","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 2, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The Gentiles Still Can Be Lost If a part is holy, the whole is holy\u00a0(Romans 11:16) In Haggai 2:11-14, God makes the point that holiness cannot be transferred to something else by association. For something to be holy, it must be intrinsically holy. However, this is not true for something\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3477,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/bible-studies\/the-revelation-given-to-john\/the-destruction-of-satan-and-his-followers\/","url_meta":{"origin":65678,"position":4},"title":"The Destruction of Satan and His Followers","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 16, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"The Destruction of Satan and His Followers Revelation 20:7-15 When we last talked about Satan, we left him bound in the abyss he originally came from. His servants, the beast (the Roman Empire), and the false prophet (the false religion of emperor worship) had been destroyed. The binding was like\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":160,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/portfolio\/","url_meta":{"origin":65678,"position":5},"title":"Portfolio","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 25, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Product \/ Service Categories Project Name Talk about this portfolio piece--who you did it for and why, plus what the results were (potential customers love to hear about real-world results). Discuss any unique facets of the project--was it accomplished under an impossible deadline?--and show how your business went above and\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/65678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/65678\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}