Addiction
I once struggled with nicotine addiction and gambling addiction. The need for cigarettes controlled me, demanding constant smoking, while the grip of gambling forced me into daily betting, with no days off throughout the year, even when I was sick with a cold or flu. However, I didn’t feel the suffering then; I found joy in it.
The most terrifying addiction I faced was the drug addiction I developed in 1989 due to heroin use. I started with smoking drugs, but quickly fell into intravenous drug use. Initially, I needed only one shot of heroin per day, but at the height of my addiction, I required twelve to thirteen injections daily. Without heroin every two hours, I would start to experience withdrawal symptoms, with goosebumps all over my body, running nose and saliva, trembling, and feeling as if rats were gnawing in my veins. The agony of withdrawal is indescribable; I wished for death to escape the pain. The scars from multiple suicide attempts still mark my wrists.
Thank God, in 2001, while I was nearly dying from illness in prison, I heard the Gospel. At first, in prison, I learned to pray to Lord Jesus every day. I am thankful to God for quickly learning to replace my daily complaints and bitterness towards my family with prayer. After leaving prison, when I got a Bible, I began to study it daily, resolving not to eat breakfast until I read the Bible in the morning, and not to sleep until I read at least ten chapters in the evening. Hallelujah! I am grateful to God for quickly replacing my nicotine addiction (despite praying in prison, I still smoked two to three packs of cigarettes a day) with a “Bible addiction.” I am thankful to God for becoming addicted to reading the Bible, leading me to read up to forty chapters a day, finishing the Bible once a month, reading it thirty-six times in just three years. I even managed to read the Bible in three days and, during a fifteen-day detention for preaching the Gospel, read it four times. Because of my addiction to reading the Bible, even though I have read it over a hundred times, I still insist on reading it every day.
I am most grateful to Jesus for showing me the importance of preaching the Gospel. I began to learn how to share the Gospel with others. Although I was initially afraid, stuttered, and sweated, thanks to God, I did not give up. The more I preached, the more fluent and joyful I became, and the more addicted I got to it. I would preach to anyone I met, feeling restless if I didn’t share the Gospel in a day. Hallelujah! I am truly grateful to God for now being addicted to preaching the Gospel. My past desire to make a fortune (I made money in business before believing in Jesus) surprisingly vanished in preaching God’s Gospel (I can’t believe that for these twenty-two years, I haven’t earned a penny in the world, yet I live so joyfully and contentedly, all glory to God). I unknowingly overcame my many years of “gaming addiction” (I loved playing video games since my teens, and even played all night after becoming a Christian), “internet addiction,” “greed for play and food,” “power-grabbing in church,” and so on.
I am grateful to God that now I preach the Gospel to everyone I meet, whether they are district leaders, city leaders, provincial leaders, or even central leaders. Whether I am invited to a community, street, district committee, or city government, I preach the Gospel. I am grateful to God for giving me opportunities to preach the Gospel in taxis, buses, trains, high-speed rails, airplanes, and ships, and for people accepting Jesus and praying with me on all these modes of transport. I am even more grateful to God for preaching the Gospel when I am taken to police stations, public security bureaus, detention centers, or even drug rehabilitation centers.
I am grateful to God for experiencing that only in preaching the Gospel can one find strength, victory, and salvation. In preaching the Gospel, I no longer fear, complain, or harbor hatred, but am filled with gratitude and praise to the Lord.
The most valuable thing God has given me in this life is being saved by the Gospel and becoming addicted to preaching it. Hallelujah, Amen!
Christians should be spiritually addicted! If not, they will be addicted to worldly things!
If you’re not addicted to preaching the Gospel, you will be addicted to loving yourself!
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