Fresh

soteria soteriamag.co.uk

Lifestyle Worth Living

Jan / Feb 2010 FREE to a good home!

Soteria is an independent Christian Youth Lifestyle magazine with two aims.

It’s been a long time since our last issue, did you think we’d given up? It’s a new year, a new decade and we’ve got a fresh issue for you.

If you are a Christian we want to help you understand the Bible by offering practical everyday Bible guided advice.

So what’s fresh got to do with anything? Well there is a fresh look at the 3 R’s (and these ones actually start with R!) Then we have a quick look at the idea of purity as well as living a lifestyle of ‘no compromise’ on the middle pages. We will also look and see how the experiences of the Israelites in the desert can help us to avoid becoming ‘Stagnant and Stale’ and keep our faith fresh. We also have an interview with Barry Woodward from Proclaim Trust. He talked to us about his early years of drug abuse and how his life has changed completely after he experienced God’s power.

If you haven’t made a decision about Jesus, we want you to see what being a Christian is all about!

Of course we have other stuff too. Including a puzzle, provided for us by Disney to celebrate the release of UP on DVD. We also have copies of “Beautiful Life” and “Made To Be Me”, a CD and autobiography from Shell Perris which are up for grabs in our competition and more...

Rob

SUBSCRIPTIONS Soteria is freely available to anyone. If you would like to subscribe to the magazine for yourself, or for a church or youth group then you can now do so writing to the address below, or on our website.

CONTACT Write to: Soteria Magazine 27 Trevenson Road Pool Redruth Cornwall TR15 3PN or e-mail us: editorial@soteriamag.co.uk

DONATIONS If you would like to support us in our work, Soteria welcomes donations. You can give in cash (if you know members of the team), by cheque made payable to “Soteria Magazine” or by setting up a standing order with your bank.

If you would like banking details for Soteria please contact us at the above address.

With the arrival of the New Year, people of whatever persuasion choose to make “New Year’s Resolutions” in an attempt to make themselves better in the coming year. However as this issue of Soteria is about being biblically “Fresh”, ‘resolutions’ is not one of my three “Rs”. Making yourself better is a great attitude to adopt. However, real growth in holiness comes only by the discipline of God. So the three Rs that we want to look at are some of Christianity’s cliché phrases...

TheR3Rr’s

R R R

ESTORATION - to return something to its former state.

ENEWAL - means to return something to its first, ‘as new’ state.

EVIVAL - means to bring back life into what was dead or dying.

Many people have used these words to describe an event in history where many individuals, by direct intervention from God, became believers.

At one time or another “renewal” was a Christian buzzword. People have used it as something to label a time spent with God. Often it is not the people involved in the move of God that gives the name. History and other Christians give it a title. Rather than treating the time as unique and precious these movements of God outside of their normal experience are objectified. Getting branded as times of revival, renewal or restoration of the church.

Previously we have had people calling themselves ‘revivalists’ who got others to do nothing but pray for revival to come. Their idea of what revival was also seemed very dubious.

They seemed to think that God causing whole towns full of people becoming Christians all at once was called ‘a revival’.

While the local churches may see this as a revival of their fellowships, in truth here we have new births not revival! A time like this is more of a spiritual baby boom!

Jesus said, in the Book of John ch3, that people are “born of water and the Spirit”; the water meaning a physical birth of human parents and then a spiritual birth from the Holy Spirit. Believers now would hardly describe

their first coming to Jesus as a revival! So why use that word when God causes many to come to Him by miraculous intervention? For an example Saul’s meeting with Jesus on the Damascus road (Acts 9) was hardly a revival, but it was a time when God directly intervened to bring a man to Himself. This was conversion not revival.

Restoration is a word that is used less to do with our spiritual life and much more to do with the buildings that we meet in. Many lovely church buildings no longer have enough parishoners to pay for the upkeep of ornate buildings. So money is applied for from various charities to restore the churches to their former glory. However the people who meet in these buildings also need to experience restoration personally.

In fact all three ‘R’ words are actually a much more personal matter, instigated by God and experienced by the believer.

TheR3Rr’s

R

ESTORATION

In the Christian life it is all too easy to wander off and be distracted by all that the world can offer; indeed the Israelites found this, even in the desert! Sometimes it took some major events for them to realise that their ways had led them away from God and their relationship with Him needed to be restored.

God instructed them to perform a ritual for their restoration. A lamb was sacrificed and the priest asked God to forgive the people.

Jesus came and made restoration to God possible for both the Israelites and everyone else. He provided the opportunity for us to be restored by being the sacrifice that we could never be. So we could have a right relationship with God.

R

ENEWAL

If we look towards the end of the Book of Revelation God does a magnificent example of renewal. He makes a “new heaven and a new earth.” A whole new fresh start made once again in perfection.

For the believer, to “be renewed” should surely mean either our relationship to God or ourselves being renewed. This is a time we spend seeking God, praying to Him and asking Him to wash us clean of all remaining sin in daily life.

R

EVIVAL

Surely you can only revive something that was once alive? After all you can perform CPR on the resus doll in First Aid class, but you’re never going to bring it to life! The Bible tells us that before we believe we are spiritually dead in our sins. A dead thing needs to be given life in the first place. However when something that is alive suffers and becomes close to death then it may need to be revived.

A true revival in a Spiritual sense, would be for God to take a believer, or a group, who have become inactive and disheartened (James 2:14-16) and breath new life and vigour into them. Through this time of revival they become passionate about God, vibrant and full of the eagerness to learn and do His will. This will show through his people and spill out of the church and into the community.

For us to truly live as Christians, God may well ask us to go through a phase like the ones described here. Jesus is our vine and we are branches (John 15:5).

Therefore if we wander away He will restore us. If we become lifeless He will revive us. If we become grubby and stained by sin He can forgive, cleanse and renew us.

These three processes are rarely easy and may involve giving up things you like or want. However it is so rewarding when we are led back to true fellowship with Jesus.

Win Shell Perris Goodies!

Shell Perris has recently released her latest album “Beautiful Life” and because we love it we thought we’d give you a chance to get your hands on it too and have a listen.

So thanks to Authentic Media, 3 readers of Soteria will win a copy of Shell’s new album “Beautiful Life”. Each winner will also receive a copy of her autobiography called “Made To Be Me”.

In this fantastic book you can read about the difficulties that Shell faced as she was growing up which she told us about in the last issue of the magazine. If you look back into the last issue, or even go online to www.soteriamag.co.uk you will also find the answer to the qualifying question.

What eating disorder did Shell Perris suffer from?

Entry is via our website at www.soteriamag.co.uk and the competition closes 23:59 March 15th 2010.

Support Soteria?

We all need friends, and Soteria is no different. We need your help to continue producing the magazine and website.

1. We need money - This is quite important, it pays the bills like the printing costs. You may have noticed we don't have adverts...we rely on generous readers and people who believe in what we're doing to donate to us. A few quid a month from some readers would make all the difference.

No-one who works for Soteria is paid, everything goes back into the organisation.

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If you can’t help you could always do something else important - pray for us!

Purity

Which of these taps would you rather drink from?

Water’s purity matters. In fact purity matters when it comes to many things that we use and do everyday. It’s got to mean something in our lives too. In our actions, inactions, our spiritual, material and thought life we are meant to strive for purity.

Purity is a word that is often only associated with one area of a Christian’s life...

Sex. Talks have been given, books written and ministries have focussed on sexual purity. We have elevated sexual purity to the position of a Holy Grail for young Christians.

The Holy Grail doesn’t exist and a false emphasis has been placed on sexual purity. Certainly sex is a big drive inside us, but what about purity in our anger, purity in our work, purity in responsibility before other people and God? In fact striving for purity in every area of our lives is important.

Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be.

Can both fresh water and saltwater flow from the same spring? My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water. James 3v10-12 There is another important word in this short passage. To strive means to press towards a goal with all your might. We will never be truly pure until God completes His work in us through Jesus. We must still strive towards that goal. We are not guilty of not being pure, we can’t be guilty for something we cannot help however we are guilty of not striving for purity in our lives. We need to filter out the rubbish to be a living sacrifice to God and to be pure water to those around us.

Title: Rainbows In My Eyes Author: JK Rowbory Price: £6.99 Publisher: Longman Release Date: 30th Nov 2009 Type: Poetry The author Jenny Rowbory has severe M.E. This means that she is almost completely bed bound.

She finds even the simplest activities like reading, watching TV or even talking absolutely exhausting.

There is a treatment available that could help her regain a measure of her health but the NHS cannot fund it. The cost of receiving the 12 week course of treatment she desperately needs is £35,000. Therefore Jenny decided to publish a collection of her poems (written via dictation) in order to help raise the money.

As a sufferer of M.E. myself, Jenny’s poems bear a great deal of personal meaning. I have never suffered as severely as her for more than a few days at a time, but I know enough to understand what it is like. It is very evident that this collection of poems comes, like all of the best poetry, straight from the heart.

The style of writing in these poems ranges widely. From the straight forward and plain speaking, to the surreal and metaphorical, from a couple of lines to a few pages. All however are beautiful and truthful, an excellent combination in my opinion for any work of poetry.

Some of the poems emphatically depict the emotions that are experienced by those who live with a long term debilitating illness. The poems that tackle the issue of faith through adversity are particularly poignant and can be applied to many situations faced by society today.

I hope that people go out and buy this book, not only to help Jenny get the treatment she needs but to enlighten people about this much misunderstood illness and those who suffer from it.

Jenny with her dog Harry

You can find out more about Jenny, her book and her progress towards the £35,000 goal at her website www.jkrowbory.co.uk or follow her on twitter.com/stroopwaffle.

“Rainbows in my Eyes” can be purchased from her website or from Amazon.

“But you’re meant to be a Christian!”

To your friends and family, YOU are the fifth Gospel. Forget Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. You are what the people are reading.

So what’s the deal with the bad jokes and choice language? Are you really imitating Christ when you join in with all this stuff? OK… so maybe you’re just a bystander. Living your life on the periphery deliberately making a point of not disagreeing with the stand that your mates are making.

Christian.

In school, college and work, we are often forced to put aside religious conviction and get on with the job in hand. This is 2010 and the people around us are often intolerant of Christ and subsequently of the Christian too.

But if we as Christians are the salt and we lose our saltiness, how will we ever impact those around “If we as C us? Even if we need to be selective about are the sal how we express our our saltin faith, we should never lose the values that are will we ev learned as a Christian those aro

As a Christian you are called to be pure, but its just not that easy! You CAN choose who you hang around with. Even the Bible encourages us to not socialise with those who live their lives in a way that is openly not compatible with that of a Christian.

(or even what has been taught to us as children).

When you buy batteries for a remote, you never mix a new battery with a duff battery. The duff battery can only pull the new one down. In the same way, especially where you may have weakness, it really won’t be too long before you get pulled down as a

As a Christian, it really is not about winning every debate in class or browbeating our peers into becoming believers. It is important to remember who we are serving. This will make the real difference, and it will be noted.

Actions must precede the words. If we

If we know its wrong to fiddle a time sheet or wrongly sign a chart to say that work has been completed, who are we trying to fool?

do all things as if we are doing them for Jesus, even the most tedious jobs will not seem as bad! Flipping burgers, tagging clothes…

are called to be salt and light, putting off things like sexual immorality, greed, bad talk and dirty language. Really putting into practice what we learn!

The Christian is called to be light.

There is a giant flame that never goes out, and we are the smaller tea lights in a darkened world. The tea lights are an important representation of the source, and it doesn’t Christians matter what holder we lt and lose are placed in, it is our responsibility to stay ness, how alight. Sounds a bit ver impact twee? Read on….

The Christian is not called to live in an ivory tower, but to live life to the full. There is far greater freedom living within the boundaries that God sets us, than there is living life as a slave to sin.

ound us?”

Firstly, if we dare to call ourselves Christians, we need to know what that means… essentially someone who is trusting in Jesus for the forgiveness of their sin through the death of Jesus on the cross.

Secondly, we need to be growing. Not in stature, but in our faith. We need to take time in prayer, Bible study and thinking over what we have learnt.

(Ephesians 5, first 21 verses is a good place to start!)

Thirdly, we need to remember that we

Oh yeah… we all mess stuff up and at times wish the ground could swallow us whole! Even if those around us may be slow to forgive, God isn’t. He’s waiting for us to humbly admit our shortcomings and ask for forgiveness

and help in overcoming the problem.

Life as a practising Christian is not about living the Christian life as a graduate after several years of learning and gaining a certificate. You live the Christian life from day one as a Christian… and all Christians are still learning regardless of their physical age or length of service.

You’re meant to be a Christian… by God’s grace LIVE IT!

Due to technical difficulties we have had to remove this page from the digital version of the magazine. We are very sorry for any inconvenience!

You could subscribe to the printed version for free at http://www.soteriamag.co.uk

Well that was fun wasn’t it? A winter that actually felt like winter. Schools closed, churches cancelled services and events, supermarkets saw people panic buying milk and bread. It even snowed one night before Christmas when we were out carol singing!

Living in Cornwall normally means that we miss the worst of the weather when it’s cold like that. It means that I can count up the number of times that I have experienced heavy snow in my 30 years on my fingers! Even as I write this BBC News 24 are bleating on about “blizzard conditions”. I wonder what all the news channels will find to talk about once all the snow has melted away?

Within days the snow will be gone. Is this like our good intentions when we start a new year? We can promise that this year we’re going to live differently.

We have asked for forgiveness and we are like the garden covered by a blanket of snow.

However when you apply a little heat, or the rain starts to fall in our lives our true self starts to be uncovered.

blog.soteriamag.co.uk I love the snow, but it actually shows me just how fickle I can be about things!

Watching the BBC news reports and even the local news and seeing them talking about the snowfall I find myself wanting snow here. Snow’s great for building snowmen and, of course, having snowball fights. However once I have done all that I want it to go away again, thankyou very much.

Snow brings disruption to my life. For a start, my son gets days off school, and the snow kept him amused for a couple of hours, but after that he was ‘bored’. He wants to be entertained which kept me from putting this very magazine together, it had to be put on hold.

Of course we can’t go out anywhere because the buses are unreliable, walking is too cold and he gets bored. The postman doesn’t deliver, so items that I am expecting don’t arrive...It really gets in the way

In our lives we don’t A very promising snowman is washed away as shine shines and the rain falls. It’s now just a need resolutions, we the discarded scarf and a defrosted carrot! Is this a need to apply the picture of our good intentions?

3R’s (pages 3&4) to Of course the main thing is the temperature ourselves personally. Maybe we even drops and you have to pay to heat up the need a couple more R’s of Revolution house much more than normal, increasing and Repentence. Good intentions are, the fuel bills, meaning less money to do well...good, but God intentions should start deeper down and be rooted firmly other stuff with. Have I mentioned? I hate the snow! in a desire to be more like Jesus.

Stagnant and Stale You are worn out, hungry and thirsty. In what some would say seems utter madness, you and your people have just left a land that provided grain, figs, pomegranates, grapes and a plentiful water supply. In sheer desperation you have left behind oppression and slavery.

Surely its only natural, that you would feel let down, abandoned even. This new freedom you have suddenly found brings with it depravation and starvation. Then the grumbling starts.

The complaints, the whingeing and the blame game. That’s right, its God’s fault isn’t it? You might have been a slave in a foreign land, but at least its better than what you are facing right now! (Ref: Numbers 20) OK, so you are a Christian who has left behind a whole way of life that you once enjoyed. There is a great gulf between your former self and the person you have become, but you are

not satisfied. There was a sense of satisfaction gained from the temporal pleasures you once enjoyed. Doubts have crept in where deep conviction once stood. You wonder whether God really can change how you are feeling right now?

This is how the Israelites would have felt after leaving Egypt. They would have seen first hand and experienced the amazing deliverance when the Red Sea parted allowing them to escape. How quickly the doubts and fears set in and how quickly the people seemed to forget their God! Not only were they in need physically, but even in their ignorance they needed God more than ever. Their faith had become stagnant and stale, with no easy way out. What should have been the most amazing experience has become a living nightmare.

The people seemed to be wandering aimlessly in a wilderness lacking sense and purpose.

Time was no healer either; 37 years seemed

like a lifetime. The people had not lost their identity, even though God and the Israelites seemed poles apart.

At times, this can be the experience of us as Christians. We may not have lost our identity as a Christian, and on the outside God may even appear to be walking with us hand in hand.

The reality however, may be very different.

An endless stroll in the desert resulting in dissatisfaction and an overwhelming spiritual drought is nearer the mark.

We may not be wandering in a literal wilderness, but you may be trapped not just by a lack of faith, but by materialism, too much beer and TV or anything else that is simply blocking God out. If you are in this position you cannot serve God to your full potential, if at all. Remember God chose you, and is calling you even now, not just to merely exist but to live life to the full and ultimately for His glory.

The Israelites had more or less lost their faith in God and were not

even looking to God for the answers they so needed. Surely faith as small as a mustard seed would be enough.

Just that glimmer of hope might see the people through. But their problems could be attributed to a denial of their God. A faith that is going nowhere is often the result of turning your eyes away from Christ and looking for answers in all the wrong places.

The answer that the people were looking for was to be found in a rock. A limestone rock that could provide the water they so longed for. The community were to gather together and focus their attention on the rock prior to the immense outpouring. Does this sound familiar?

We can easily spend a lifetime wandering around in a desert, failing to look to the Rock for blessing and provision. What seems so obvious is the very thing that is overlooked.

We need to turn their attention to the Rock, that is Jesus, and accept the water that is freely given.

This water is not lying still or stagnant.

It is not bitter or contaminated in any way. The source is a natural source that fulfils the desire and the thirst of those who need it. This description is so reminiscent of the woman at the well whom Jesus met. She too had a physical need for water and a spiritual need that only He could fulfil.

God knows you inside and out, and doesn’t mince his words! God is serious when talking about the Church in Laodicea, and the same principles should be applied on a more personal level today.

“I know you inside and out, and find little to my liking.

You’re not cold, you’re not hot — far better to be either cold or hot!

You’re stale. You’re stagnant. You make me want to vomit.”

Jesus Christ, Revelation 3.15-16 “The Message” However, God does not want to leave you stale and stagnant, and ineffective. You are worth so much more to Him than that. Its time to refocus and time to start looking back to Jesus to fulfil

our needs. This begins with repentance and a desire to want to change for the better.

Making a real effort to pray and learn more of the God you claim to follow. Realising that God is worthy of your praise, and to have an expectation for Him to work in your life. God is sometimes referred to as the perfect gentleman as He will not force his way into your life, but the willingness to follow has to come from you.

Maybe you are reading this, and you can identify with what is written. You know the score and you know that it is time to put things into perspective and ask God to fill you with the Holy Spirit. If you are reading this, and recognise some of what is written in someone else, take the challenge to pray for that person. Consider talking to that person and offer them your support as you feel led

by God. A faith that really is stale and stagnant needs to be made fresh, and only Christ can do this!

Under Restoration

Can you tell me a little about your background?

Well I was brought up in a good home, in a place called Salford in Greater Manchester. I came from a normal working class family. My parents worked quite hard. I went to school, didn’t like it, didn’t even try at all at school, and I left school with no qualifications.

Soon after leaving school I got involved with a group of guys who were taking recreational drugs and I started to hang around with them. I started to take the same drugs as they were taking, but then eventually we started using harder drugs.

I ended up moving away from where I was living with my parents to an area called Moss Side which is central Manchester. While I was living there I started to deal drugs and that’s how I used to earn a living.

Were there any consequences, were you ever caught?

Yeah I got away with it for a while, but then you always do, but then your luck runs out and you end up getting arrested, arrested again, and arrested again. Eventually I got refused bail and then I got remanded in custody. As a young person I remember going into Strangeways for the very first time on the Young Person’s Wing.

That didn’t deter me from taking drugs, all I wanted to do was get out and start taking drugs again, and I did. That became a cycle. The more drugs that I took, the deeper I got into the lifestyle of the underworld of drug addicted crime, different kinds of crime.

I would do anything to make

money, obviously I needed to make a living, I needed to make money to keep my addiction going.

When you get older and you’re out of it and you look back in retrospect you can see some of your errors. When you’re in it you can’t see it, hindsight is a wonderful thing!

Obviously something has happened because I can’t see the church inviting a drug addict to speak if you were still in that lifestyle…So what changed your life?

Well I had a ‘religious experience’ in a church about 14 years ago, some people would call it an epiphany, but for me it was an encounter with God. Chapter 13 of my book “Once An Addict” is called God Encounter and in there I describe something that happened at an independent church. I got invited to this church and I ended up attending. There’s a sequence of events that got me into the church, but I ended up going into this church.

The guy who was speaking said “If you’ve got any issues…” and when he said that I thought Does he want someone with issues? I’ll give him issues! He said “our God is able to help you with your problems, we can pray with you...” So I went to the front and this guy came and stood with me and prayed with me and it was like a switch was flicked and I started to see the light, the reality of God became so evident in my life and I just wanted to change the way that I had been living.

I remember walking back to my flat and I suffered from an illness called amphetamine psychosis, up until that day I used to hear voices. On that day all the voices that I used to hear just vanished.

I walked into my flat hearing no voices, and I went into the bedroom, took my jacket off and I looked up to the sky and I shouted to God and said “God, what have I been doing with my life for the last 14 years?”

I did swear, I’m going to be honest, I’ve stopped swearing and I’ve not sworn much since, but I did swear at that time. I don’t think God’s worried about that because He heard my heart’s cry. “All I want to do is get this (blankety- blank) out of my system! All I want to do is to start to live my life for you! I just want to get clean!” I really meant it as I said it.

Within four weeks of me yelling those words out to God I was off the drugs, off the Heroin.

I had no desire to even want touch them, I didn’t even want to smoke, not even a cigarette.

It was a God encounter and that was the big turning point in my life.

What have you been doing since then?

I’m a full time travelling speaker, I travel up and down the country. I used to travel around the world but 5 years ago I really felt challenged

by God to major on the UK. Sometimes for an evangelist it can be an easy option to go to Africa and get crowds of 1000 or 2000 and get great responses, I want to make a difference in the United Kingdom because the UK needs God too. It’s working

alongside the local church.

I went to a college called Cliff College which is a Methodist college, and while I was in my last year I set up a charity that was going to act as an administration base for the work that God had called me to do which was that of an evangelist. On the day of my graduation I became the director-evangelist of Proclaim Trust. We had £10 in the bank, we had no offices, 1 chair, 1desk and some shelves that weren’t straight, that was the start of Proclaim Trust. Over the years obviously that’s changed, we’ve built it up and we’ve got staff now, and our own office suite.

I speak in a maximum of 25 prisons a year. I don’t do any more than that because I believe in prison ministry, certainly for me, but I don’t want it all to be about prisons.

I’m doing lots and lots of different events up and down the country working with different denominations, including the Restored Tour with Shell Perris.

I think working with different denominations is important, even though I belong to a denomination, I’m recognised as a minister. I work right across the board with all the different denominations, not looking at what we can disagree on, but keeping the main thing, what we do agree on which is Christ and having a relationship with God. With your background do you find that you end up dealing with a lot of people with drug addiction?

It’s general adult ministry and young people as well because my books have gone mad.

We sent 27,000 copies of my book out to prisons in the last 2 years and some of them went to Young Offenders institutes and we get lots of letters. They say that they can actually see themselves in my story. They

are in the same cycle, early stages of it, the beginning of the crime and the drugs. Drugs are so massive now, they were big in my day, but they’re even bigger now. So even though I am older, my story can relate a lot to a younger generation.

So I would say young people, young adults, older people, I do tend to draw quite a lot of rehabs to my meetings, people who have got problems with drugs, but I also draw the Professors and the Doctors.

In fact a solicitor became a Christian a few months ago in a meeting I was doing in Halifax.

I always try and present my story in a way so that everybody can get something from it, Do you ever get anybody who comes to try and disprove that this has happened to you?

I do lots of interviews with the BBC, with Sky and lots of Newspaper stuff, it’s a powerful story and people have read my book.

Sceptics of the Christian faith have interviewed me. The thing is this, people can argue with your theology, but they can’t argue with something that has happened to you as powerful as it has happened to me. We’re all different and God works in us all in different ways, your experience will be different from my experience.

We’re all on a journey, for me I think I needed a big shebang because I was into big experiences and God met me where I was at. God woke me up to His existence. Noone can take that away from me, I might not understand everything about how God works, I might not have all the answers about suffering and why God doesn’t always heal etc. At the end of the day something happened to me fourteen years ago is a fact and

no-one can argue with that.

One thing that does help my story is that my former psychiatrist had a part to play in me becoming a Christian.

He’s a very good friend of mine now and he supports our ministry, Dr Samuel Yangye, he didn’t know that I was going to become a Christian.

So in my new DVD that we’ve just brought out we actually interview my psychiatrist and he gives his professional opinion on the state that I was in and he also validates my ‘Religious Experience’.

Having been in the situation how would you help a friend who had an addiction?

If someone has a friend who is addicted, or they know somebody who is taking drugs, I would say be supportive, be there for them but don’t be their doormat. Drug addicts and users will take you for granted, even now I can think of a couple of people who I know, they’ve seen that I’ve changed and they know that I am a Christian and they try and take advantage of that. I won’t be anybody’s doormat, but I will support and I will get alongside them.

My Dad for example when he found out I was on drugs he couldn’t bear it, he disowned me. I think because he came from that generation that was his way of dealing with it. My son’s a drug addict, I don’t want to know him. I don’t blame him for doing that, I think what he did was right for him and it might have been right for me, because it meant that I could get on with my selfish lifestyle.

But if I had a child who was on drugs I wouldn’t do that, I would support them, but I wouldn’t be their doormat.

Do you want inner peace and spiritual security?

Do you want to have forgiveness for the things you have done and make yourself right with God? Sorry, there’s no app for that!

With over 90,000 apps in the app store there are apps for just about anything. “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?� - Jesus.