The human heart is made to love and this love settles on almost anything in or around us and when it does we face addiction. Self-image, stimulants, power, money, other people, all compete for our affection and that affection can enslave. I’ve tried, like many, to be free from addiction by will-power and a sense of duty. It doesn’t work. The enslaved heart needs a substitute as Thomas Boston writes:
“I saw it was vain to empty the heart of what was its carnal choice, unless it was filled with something better than was taken from it.”
In ministry, then, we need to preach Christ in such a way that hearts are weaned off love for the things of the world and set on him.
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