Seemingly everyone, one time or another, feels they have been hooked some way or another. Feeling somehow, we have been trapped or snared many times in our life.

Thinking of hooks, our mind usually sees the fish hook. A fish hook is beautifully curved, the lures are attractive, yet with only a very small spike turned the opposite way, in a subtle way, snag the flesh and stubbornly will not let go, holding the victim firmly in its grasp.

For most of us, when remembering being hooked, recall incidences when we had to give up money. After the incident, we feel tricked into buying something or gullible for being talked into some investments that were sour to begin with or turned into drastic loss. Many people have been hooked into purchasing supposedly choice building lots, only with dismal, finding them under a body of water!!!

Sad it is that many people, not realizing it, are severely hooked by extremely high interest rates when using credit cards irresponsibly, recklessly and not in a prudent manner.

Ever since the fall of man, good orator’s have easily and persuasively swayed people by convincingly talking, hooking them into believing in the cause they promote. Too often the “cause” is not conducive to profitable living.

There are many diet programs that are for the good, the truth is advertised and results are pleasing. Nevertheless, history has proven that many glamorous testimonies and charming pictures thoroughly convince people that the program is for them, and in disappointment realize that they have been hooked. Along with this, it has been proven that medications often have hoodwinked people around the world. Almost to every person, good health is desired and much ado made for organic or healthy foods being paramount for an enjoyable healthy body. Too often, there are people hooked into the believing, if it says organic, it is almost holy. I must hasten to say that eating and drinking pure foods and liquids with proper exercise is conducive to feeling good physically and mentally, producing clear thinking and going a long way from being tricked and hooked to unsavory things.

Many times over, job opportunities are so displayed in a lucrative way to entice people into changing jobs or professions, to only experience afterward the feeling of being hooked.

It is really devastating for innocent foster or adoptive children being hooked into believing that their new home is almost heaven, only to sadly discover it is only a temporary situation.

For thousands of years, the most devastating thing in all of man’s life is being hooked into believing a false religion. The utmost thing in a person’s life is the belief and faith in the true God. False teachers abound in abundance, hooking people into joining cults, false hopes, tying the noose tighter and tighter around their minds and living.

Some books are written in such a way that many people take it like they say, “hook, line and sinker.” Too often, many take the writings as almost the written Word. Hard to believe why we are so enthralled by the same. As we know, the writers of the Word, the Bible, were inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Thinking we are enjoying pleasures, yet being hooked on drugs, alcohol, tobacco or a host of other damaging things is devastating indeed.

Sad it is when realizing we are or have been hooked somehow or another, then being ashamed to admit it is the proponent of pride in the least.

Always living and desiring to hear the truth, listening to the advice from proven, tried and honest people will go a long way in escaping the hooks out to get us. We need to prove the facts, explore the matter thoroughly, and digest the beginning to the end.

Prime example— if you read, listen or explore partly, you can be misled.

In the Bible, “I was a stranger and you took me in.”!! Sounds like He was taken and hooked? Read it all:

Matthew 25:35

For I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you took me in.