A Thought on Sin, Bad Habits, and Addictions

Here’s a quote from the book “Authentic Faith” by Gary Thomas. “I must learn to accept some suffering as an inevitable part of living in a fallen world. These changes hurt. They are not easy. Suffering and change go hand in hand. If I refuse to suffer and refuse to suffer the discomfort of change, I will experience even more severe consequences as the idol increases it’s hold on my heart. I will be forever a stranger to experiential holiness.”

Idols are anything we give more of ourselves to than God. All sin is akin to addiction, and addictions enslave us. Some people have developed habits of sin over years. Breaking addictions is often a long and painful process, and I can tell you that even after you break the habit you still have to deal with what made you become an addict in the first place.

In this world we’re so used to immediate results, that when something doesn’t happen instantly we assume we’ve failed. There’s nothing worse than feeling like you’re doing all you can and you’re getting nowhere. We must remember habits are built over time, sometimes years, breaking them may take as long.

There is an initial period of suffering that has to take place as one breaks an addiction, but then the further you get beyond it the more freedom you experience. Having patience with yourself and others as you struggle to break free of those sins or addictions can make this process easier.

God sees us in the midst of our struggles, and He measures our successes as we should…minute by minute, day by day. We break sin and addiction by breaking it over and over again, until eventually it’s broken for good.

We can be holy, but “holiness may make your life more miserable in the short run, though far more joyful in the long run. If you insist on avoiding suffering at all costs, you will never be free of your addictions. If someone is truly serious about spiritual growth or overcoming a long-term bad habit, he or she had better be prepared to go to war.”

I’ve been through this, and for anyone who is facing these challenges I want to tell you that you can be free of them. God doesn’t stop loving you and He doesn’t give up on you, and with our amazing God all things are possible. There’s nothing no sin, no habit, no addiction that is bigger than God’s ability to take care of it.

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From “The Word For You Today” by Bruce Christian, You Can Defeat Satan

     We all need to know this.

YOU CAN DEFEAT SATAN!

     Satan is a force that you’ll contend with every day.  And he’s a master at reinventing himself.  The Bible says he can morph “into an angel of light” (2Co 11:14 NKJV).  And while his approach may be appealing, his intent is always to “steal and kill and destroy” (Jn 10:10 NIV).  Destroy what?  Your peace of mind, your destiny, your relationships, ect.  How can you defeat him?  In two ways: (1) Don’t fear him.  “The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil” (Ps 121:7).  Thirty-one times in the New Testament we read that as believers we are “in Christ.”  So to get at you, Satan must first go through Christ!  (2)  Don’t give him access.  “Nor give place to the devil.”  Satan has no place in your life unless you open the door and give him one.  And when Christ is enthroned in your heart, there’s no room for the Devil.  But it’s not enough to have a clean heart, you must have a spirit-filled heart.  Jesus said: “When an evil spirit leaves a person, it goes into the desert, seeking rest but finding none.  Then it says, ‘I will return to the person I came from.’  So it returns and finds its former home empty, swept, and in order.  Then the spirit finds seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they all enter the person and live there.  And so that person is worse off than before” (Mt 12:43-45 NLT).  The best way to break bad habits is to replace them with good ones.  The best way to defeat Satan is to make Jesus Lord of your life.