Smoking

Way back years ago when they would turn you out

of the church for the use of tobacco, a lady kept telling the pastor that the church clerk was secretly smoking.

She said, "Pastor, you need to catch him."

She kept on and on until finally one day the pastor said, "Sister, I really don't want to catch him. He's my best church worker."

So, the age-old question: is smoking a sin? It can be because of the damage you are doing to your body, let alone as the old-timers used to say, "That money going to waste could be used for something good." I guess you could say that about those belly-washers (Cokes) as my dad used to call them.

Some say that smoking is not the worst thing you can do, but it's not the best either. Put it like this, "The Bible says, 'Lay aside every weight and the sin." A weight is not necessarily a sin, but it can easily become one and cigarette smoking or tobacco use can be a weight that hangs over your conscience.

It can be a hindrance to your testimony; a vice that keeps you in its grip and won't let you be totally free; and a weight that bears hard on your Christian walk.

How do I know? Because I've been there. So I can say amen!