Smoking

God’s Love

Part 1 Breaking Habits | Part 2 Tapping into the Unknown | Part 3 Breaking Habits and Sin | Part 4 God’s Love | Part 5 Scary Secrets | Part 6 Are You Ready?

Knowing God’s Love Need Not Be Difficult
I can easily believe that the atom-holding, earth-spinning, galaxy-sustaining, life-giving Source of everything wonderful can do whatever He likes. Even the devil believes God’s power. My difficulty is believing that God’s special love for me makes Him long to use that power on my behalf. Who am I that I should deserve this kind of treatment, especially after doing the “raunchy” things that I do.

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Breaking Habits

Part 1 Breaking Habits | Part 2 Tapping into the Unknown | Part 3 Breaking Habits and Sin | Part 4 God’s Love | Part 5 Scary Secrets | Part 6 Are You Ready?

You would be surprised at the number of people who have broken the chain of crippling habits by turning their life over to God.

There is only one higher power and that is God. One person relates:
"When I got up from my knees, I was a different person. He delivered me from alcohol, nail-biting, bad language, fear, and probably things I don’t even know about. It wasn’t as if I said to myself, ‘Well, I have had this talk with God, so now I have to clean up my act’. I could not have done that on my own. All of it was just GONE. I thought, oh, there really is a God, and I’m probably the only person this has ever happened to. (I am still amazed at thinking those thoughts.)”

This is just the beginning. Unfortunately some of us suffer multiple addictions that leave us scarred for life. It reminds me of the story I once heard about an individual that was asked to hammer a nail into a piece of lumber each time he sinned, for one year. Needless to say that peace of lumber was full of hard driven nails. He was then asked to pull each one of those nails out of that board. When he finished those the board was scared and pitted. The sadness of it was that it left vivid reminders of the destruction left by those nails/sins.

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Relapse Warning Signs and a Prevention Plan

Jeremiah 6:10
To whom shall I speak, and give warning, that they may hear? behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken: behold, the word of the LORD is unto them a reproach; they have no delight in it.

Relapse is a very scary word for men and woman in recovery. Relapse is not a condition that only addicts and alcoholics have to deal with. Some people relapse to overeating, gambling, unnecessary spending, inappropriate social behavior and other conditions that can be life threatening.

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Sneaking Pleasure

Proverbs 21:6 NRSV
The getting of treasures by a lying tongue
is a fleeting vapor and a snare of death.

Most of us don’t see ourselves as getting treasures through lies. Likely we work at not lying and are very convicted when we choose to lie. However, because we are sinners, we sin. And I would propose that there are times that we hide what we do in an effort to get comfort from the suffering we experience. In other words, there are things we would prefer to do in the darkness, alone, without others watching that we might not do so readily in the presence of others (particularly other brothers and sisters in Christ).

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Step 7 and Humility

Step 7: Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

Jesus said:
Matthew 18:3-4 KJV
“Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

Without true, honest, heartfelt humility we can not recover; We can not enter the kingdom of heaven.

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