A breath of fresh air? Not just for quitters!

This afternoon, a commercial for Nicorette caught my attention while I was at work. I basically just saw the ending of a commercial where this guy was talking about how Nicorette gum helped him quit smoking. It wasn't the marketing approach or any glitzy graphics that caught my attention, but the phrase the man says at the end of the commercial. The man says, "I still want to smoke, I just don't have to." Now that was an interesting phrase to me.

The thought that entered my mind was, "man, that's a lot like sin." A long time ago, the apostle Paul wrote to the early church in Rome, who apparently were struggling with sin. He said in Romans 6:13-14,

"Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace."

In vv. 16-18:

"Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one one whom you obey--whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness."

Our message is that Jesus is like Nicorette. Jesus saves that which enslaves us. Now as for smokers, one might agree or deny that smoking is a type of enslavement, but it is an addiction. Sin, like smoking, causes us harm and will bring us to death. So Jesus is the Nicorette of salvation. Jesus frees us from sin.

However, as a Christ-follower, time and time again I rediscover that sin has not left my life. I indeed am a sinner. However, like a Nicoretter user free of the cigarette, I very often "want to [sin] but I don't have to" because Jesus has broken my chains of freedom and offers me righteousness, which brings healing and life. This is not because of what I've done, but because what He has done for me.

How great to see a message of freedom likened to the freedom through Christ on a simple commercial! Great.