by Jeffrey W. Hamilton<\/p>\n
“For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith<\/em>” (Romans 12:3).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
When you left, one of your accusations was that you were smarter than I thought. I pointed out that I never said you were dumb. In fact, I would like you to put on your thinking cap and seriously, soberly look at what the last month of going at it alone has brought you.<\/p>\n
\n
- Are you happier?<\/li>\n
- Are you pleased with what you are doing with your life?<\/li>\n
- Are you looking forward to the future?<\/li>\n
- Are you making the world a better place for yourself and those around you?<\/li>\n
- Are you less controlled by Satan and his sins? Are you using less or more drugs and alcohol?<\/li>\n
- If you died tomorrow, would you go to heaven? Would you be content with the life you lived?<\/li>\n
- Would you want your niece or your future son to live the life you are currently living?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
I guess that if you had stayed, you wouldn’t have used much, if any, drugs because I would have been monitoring you too closely. You would have been away from the drugs long enough that you probably would have passed the drug screening test for the military. Your health and strength would be increasing as you got ready for the physical tests. Problems between you and your family and the church, while not totally resolved would have been in the process of being repaired as people saw you making an effort to improve yourself. By now some of the restrictions would have been lifted because the desire for marijuana would have started decreasing a bit.<\/p>\n
Do you feel smart right now? Did you make the better choice? Were you an adult or a child when you insisted on doing this your way?<\/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":"
Thinking of Yourself by Jeffrey W. Hamilton “For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith” (Romans 12:3). When you left, one…<\/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,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-65683","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":65321,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/bible-studies\/letters-of-advice-to-newlyweds\/im-thinking-about-getting-married\/","url_meta":{"origin":65683,"position":0},"title":"I’m Thinking About Getting Married","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 2, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm Thinking About Getting Married by Jeffrey W. Hamilton The phone call came the other day. It was so good to hear your voice once again, but I soon knew something was up when you hesitated so many times about why you called. I wasn't stunned when you said, \"I'm\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":65718,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/bible-studies\/searching-for-my-friend\/seeking-another\/","url_meta":{"origin":65683,"position":1},"title":"Seeking Another","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 12, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Seeking Another by Jeffrey W. Hamilton Remember during your trial how surprised you were, not only to see Matt on the stand stoned but at how dumbly he answered the questions put to him? I mentioned afterward not to forget that this is how you are when you use marijuana.\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8177,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/bible-studies\/preparation-for-a-lifetime\/cherish\/","url_meta":{"origin":65683,"position":2},"title":"Cherish","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 23, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Cherish Recall that Paul also said that husbands were to cherish their wives in Ephesians 5:29. The word \u201ccherish\u201d means to hold dear, to treat tenderly, to protect or to cling to. In other words, your wife is someone important in your life. Again, consider the treatment of your wife\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":65616,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/bible-studies\/searching-for-my-friend\/sorrow-without-regret\/","url_meta":{"origin":65683,"position":3},"title":"Sorrow Without Regret","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 9, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Sorrow Without Regret Satan has some nasty tricks to keep a person locked up in sin. One of them is through being sorry for what you've done. It is all so close to a step in the right direction, but Satan diverts it. \"The sorrow of the world produces death,\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7179,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/bible-studies\/the-sermon-on-the-mount\/hypocrisy\/","url_meta":{"origin":65683,"position":4},"title":"Hypocrisy","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 8, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Hypocrisy Reading Assignment: Matthew 6:1-18 Did you understand what you read? Why should we do good deeds? List three ways we should\u00a0not\u00a0pray. List four topics our prayers should cover. Why is it important to forgive others? How do hypocrites fast? Why? Discussion: We get our word hypocrite from the Greek\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":65688,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/bible-studies\/searching-for-my-friend\/independence\/","url_meta":{"origin":65683,"position":5},"title":"Independence","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 11, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Independence by Jeffrey W. Hamilton I was thinking about you today. Thinking about the choices you've been making. You've told many people that drugs are not the way to get what you want out of life. In fact, you've stated that they are keeping you from the things you most\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\/65683","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=65683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/65683\/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=65683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}