Demonizing substances, people and actions: the gospel and weight management

When we demonize substances, they end up becoming gods to us. The key is to be free from our focus on the substances, and look at the heart condition that drives the abuse.  Only the non-condemnation and resulting acceptance that comes through dependence on the death of Jesus begins to fill the hole in our inner being, and to free us from the craving for our non-gods.

The old covenant focuses mainly on external instances of negative behavior, "Don't steal" for example.  Here's how bad our fallenness is: it takes these commands that represent GOOD moral values, and uses them to fool us into thinking that the behavior is more desireable than it actually is.

my experience as a grandfather...

How does being a grandfather relate to living the new covenant and experiencing the gospel in a fresh way?

This question came from the son Nate. Great question, Nate. First of all, being a grandfather is special, it shows me that God does not want grandchildren, He only wants children. What I mean by this is...

enjoying life with jesus

the issue with enjoying jesus is that we ENJOY Him,
the new covenant is amazing in that...
the problem with living under the old covenant lies in the word "condemnation" Romans 8:1 says we don't have condemnation in Christ!!

What does it mean to "accept the terms"?

A story: The representatives of mankind had a meeting with the high god to negotiate a basis for their relating to him.  The high god started by referencing an old arrangement, in which he had promised to make it rain on their gardens and generally take good care of them IF they kept some good rules he gave them (10 big ones and hundreds of smaller ones).  In the end this plan actually prevented the high god from being able to love on his people, because they couldn't keep the rules.  (The high god knew this would be the result of the old arrangement; in fact, his purpose in giving it was to demonstrate the people's inability to keep the rules.  It worked well to this end.)
 So, the high god decided to make another arrangement for relating.  This new arrangement had only three points.  The three points were, this time, not conditions but promises.  The first promise was that he would change them down deep in their inner being, to give them the ability to keep the main rules of the old arrangement (which were good for the people anyway).  This promise included a most remarkable provision: that the high god would actually come and live inside each person, instead of symbolically inside a building, which had happened under the old arrangement.

 The second promise was that instead of an elite class of people (who constantly sacrificed many animals to picture how serious their rule violations were and how costly a new arrangement would be) standing between the high god and the people, under the new arrangement EVERY person would have immediate access to him, if you can imagine.
 The third promise made the first two possible: it was a most amazing blanket removal of guilt for all their past, present and future violations of his good rules.  This is the only way they could relate to him and he could live inside them. 
What the high god did not mention, but of course knew at that very time, is what it would cost him (and his son) to fulfil these promises.
The representatives of mankind left the negotiating table and filed out into the hallway, where their friends were waiting.  They relayed the three points of the arrangement.  When asked at last what they had to do to experience such awsome promises, the reps replied: JUST ACCEPT THE TERMS.

Below is a good example of new covenant preaching by my friend Sebastian Dorsch:

http://calvarystp.org/living-word-media/teaching/index.cfm?tape_id=NT3490