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Can Christians Gamble in Good Conscience?
Obviously, addictive gambling is a major problem—and one not to be taken lightly. But what about the person who buys a lottery ticket now and then? Are they sinning?
http://gospel.com/blog/index.php/2009/10/21/can-christians-gamble-in-good-conscience/
Topics:
Addiction, Gambling, Gamble, Luck
All Topics
My personal opian on gambling, is that everyone gambles, whether robbing peter to pay Paul, or going without paying peter back, due to your own personal gain. So many churches gamble everyday, they gamble with numbers, such as how many members they can attract to their church, to how many of their members they can get obligated to paying large tiding. So my case and point, they whole world is at risk of gambling’s and falsifying the word.
When you are proclaiming to be called by god to preach, that in a fact gambling with what’s the truth and what’s not. It really funny to think that go will call someone to preach when he himself was an advocate, who was against preaching. God was more involved than what ministers are today are. God to me was that of a ghandi, who walked who gave away all his material passions, these people today are just puppets, looking for a part-time job in the ministry.
I can understand what you are expressing, however, because we know that gambling can lead to an addiction, and as believers putting any other god before THE one and only GOd is a sin, and one that can be easily corrected before it becomes an addiction. So we ask what is an addiction? Humanly speaking it would be a controlled craving that we have that later becomes a craving that we loose conscience control over and it then begins to control us. I say craving because we as people can crave many things that in turn can lead to addiction and theirs many addictions that aren’t necessarily tied to drugs and alcohol. It’s anything that we feel like we must do on the outside of doing those things necessary for survival on our part or perhaps helping another to (this is tied to kingdom living) Gambling can lead to addiction because it’s one of many things that we feel like we have to do perhaps everday or weekly and since we don’t want to ever have small gods before THE only God, the test would be, “can I stop”. The best way to check would be to see if you can stop. In essense, You’d be surprised how so many things that we do, those things that we feel we must have have nothing to do with kingdom living and has actully become a small God, or perhaps Our god. Another way of looking at it would be is to look at it in a different angle. If I have what I have, I’m working with x amount of dollars, am I not satisfied where God has me. Am I saying, “God what you’re providing me with, what your blessing me with is not enough…” Sure it’s always nice to have extra, but where God has us means that if we don’t have enough is there something that I have that isn’t a need that maybe I can do without, and if I am doing abundantly well, we are as believers are blessed to be a blessing. We, as believers spend thousands and thousands of dollars obviously monthly, seeing what the pot can grow to on the lottery, gambling, scratch offs and anything lottery related. Just think what that same money that we put into those type of things would do, if we put that kind of money int a pot for depressed areas and neighborhoods, or organizations that deal with those things that are important to God like widows, orphans, elderly…I suppose I just wanted you to look at some things in a different light. Be blessed!
Amen,rs,you said it all brother!
I look at gambling as another form of entertainment. You can spend your money going to dinner and a movie you may or may not like, or you can spend it playing a game. What is the difference? Anything can be done in excess, but not all things become addictions. I think it depends on the person and their weaknesses. If you really like video games and spend so much money every month renting them that you don’t have enough left for needs then that should be addressed as a problem. If you really like playing cards or pushing buttons on machines and spend all your money on that each month then again: a problem that needs to be addressed. I still say if you set a spending limit and don’t exceed your limits then what difference does it make how you entertain yourself. Some would argue that you’re supporting a company who isn’t moral and ethical when you support a casino, and I say that may be true, but you do the same thing when you buy groceries from stores who support gay and lesbian agenda, when you pay your taxes you’re supporting abortion because any girl can go down to their state-funded health department and they’ll help her find a doctor and pay for it… with your tax money. These things too are not morally and ethically correct…but it is done and you don’t get to decide how they spend your dollars.
The Bible advocates hard work and trust in God, as instrumental to success in life.
I don’t believe gambling is a sin, but we must be careful that it doesn’t develop into an addiction. Thousands of lives have been ruined each year because of gambling.
How are we managing the resources God has made available for us today?