SIN

Sin kills our joy. An example is an alcoholic (Dan) who drinks 16 drinks per day. After a week of partying, he quits and asks God's forgiveness. The Holy Spirit partially returns and he gets a bit of joy. But the next day life gets hard and he is drinking again.

Part of the reason he could not resist was because his joy level was low. Drinking now seemed like the only way to stop his depression.

If you put yourself in this position like he did, you just need to dry out from sin and take the pain for a while until life starts getting good again.

But if we stay clean for 3,6, or 9 days, and start to do things God's way we start to realize that God's joy is beginning to increase in us. Every day that we go to war with sin gives us more power and joy.

Now we need to fight to keep that increased joy level. Fight to get more of the Holy Spirit back in us.

Remind yourself that when you stay clean, life's simple pleasures bring you joy.

Let's check back in with Dan the drinker. After he fell again he couldn't even enjoy TV or a walk in the park. His only fun was to drink more and more.

There was a famous anti-suicide song out 10 years ago called choose life. It helped a lot of people.

This week: Choose joy. Let that joy build in you. Be highly aware of that joy. Value it. Even more importantly, value the Holy Spirit filling your more and more as you progress.

Be determined not to lose the great things that you have found. Choose the Long-term joy that makes everything else better. Reject the sin that is short term fun, that kills our ability to enjoy the simple things in life, that causes destruction.

Choose Jesus, choose joy.

 

There are 4 beliefs about sin. The first is that sin is sort of bad and we can't stop anyways. The second is that some sin is bad and that we should stop those sins. The third is that we believe that sin is bad and we are trying to stop. The fourth is that we know that all sin is bad, and we know that life will be better if we stop.

God knows that sin is bad. God knows the destruction it causes. God knows that life will be better if we stop. He does not tell us how to live based on some arbitrary system that He came up with. He knows how it will end. He knows the destruction.

Satan knows that his only chance to run over us is to appeal to our poor math skills. Will we trade in a great month, serving God in fullness of joy for one day of sinful pleasure? Will we trade in 30 days of blessing, for one day of sinful pleasure which leads to a ruined month?

Some people skip over my articles about having a passion for God, for being on fire for Jesus. But the problem with that is, in that condition your math skills will be bad. That passion and fire give us the strength to fight. Gives us the clarity to remember that when we are on fire, doing things God's way, we will have a lot of great days in the month. And when we do have a challenging day, we continue to fight, believing and knowing that life will be better for the month if we overcome.

Today, analyze whether all sin is bad. Analyze whether it is smart to trust what God says about sin. Analyze whether to believe everything He says about its destruction. Analyze whether He is always right.

Pray: “Father, I believe that You know best how I should live. Please lead me in a better way.”

If you are not firmly in the camp of the fourth belief about sin, consider printing this out and studying it every day this week. Sin was worse than Adam and Eve thought, worse than what David, Samson, and Cain thought.

When we start to know, what God knows about sin, we will start to make progress.

 

Drug addicts get to a state of total burnout. In that condition, they don't want drugs anymore. But... when they stop drugs, virtually all other activities are no fun for them. So they go back to drugs, which are now a lot less fun. But, in their desperate condition, a tiny bit of fun is all they can now get.

Realize that if you have been overdosing on porn you are likely in a similar state. Now you want to quit, but normal activities are not very fun. So you decide to turn to God. But many try that with mixed results. Why? The Bible says:

Revelations 3:21 "So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of My mouth."

God insists on a total commitment. Many cry out to God for help, but only a few cry out in total repentance and a commitment to do God's will.

When we commit, the love of Jesus flows into us like never before. An overflowing river of power, love, and grace.

Commit to a war on sin. Commit to being in God's will. Commit to a great life. For more information on a greater commitment https://forum.nofap.com/index.php?threads/if-you-cant-quit.321446/

 

To fight sin strike first. We read that Joseph fled from the sinful woman, but that is only a small part of the story. Young Joseph was not like young David. No great feats from him. But Joseph knew what the Bible said about lust. To quit, study what the Bible says about it more often. Second, Joseph was preparing with prayer "before" the temptation happened. He knew, just like we know, that certain situations are often filled with temptation. He knew that he had to have a habit of "running from lust," because if he didn't, sin would get him.
To run from lust, change what you think is beautiful. Today, 500 days clean, I think that a woman on TV who stays modest is the most beautiful woman. Today, I know, that the woman who blatantly leads others into sin is not attractive to me. Consider praying:
"Father, help me to know who is beautiful."
Second, anticipate sinful scenes, and be ready to pray to "Turn aggressively from sin" before they start. Then run when they start.
Know your sin traps. Know when you are walking up to a trap. Have a plan on exactly what you will do when you stumble in front of a sin trap.
Third, satan loves working on a dedicated Christian who just has a few choice fantasies that they love to replay in their mind from time to time. Instead, pray that Jesus will take them out of your mind and heart. When we give satan an inch, he always tries to take a mile.
2 Timothy 2:22 Run away from youthful lusts—pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace with those [believers] who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

 

We all have a sliding scale for our sins. If we have decided that lust is ruining us we go to war with it, but at the same time, we think another sin is not that big of a deal.

Is God right about everything? Is all sin bad? Are we going to miss out on something? Yep. Once again, I would make a horrible TV preacher.

Eve ate the apple. She did not miss out on the power trip that satan took her on after she ate it.

Notice, the sin that you and I think is not so bad is way worse than what she did. She ate an apple! That action caused a disaster!

God says “Don't do that sin” because he loves us and He knows how it will end.

Second, after some thought and prayer, we start to understand that all sin is bad. So we decide to pray about the sin that leads to lust. Then we go right back to that sin which then causes temptation to be at the maximum at all times for our main addiction.

What went wrong in that attempt? We are supposed to pray about that sin which leads back to lust. But we still don't have the habit of fighting temptation with the Bible when it starts to overcome us.

If excessive gambling (fill in the blank with your sin ________) is gripping us, we should be constantly praying about turning from it. But... we need to focus every day on making it a habit to “Study Bible verses on _____” when the temptation to gamble or _______ starts to overwhelm us.

Third, satan hates it when we praise the Lord. Consider praising the Lord every time you are tempted over the next three days (This is what I always do). Keep track of how often you are tempted over this period. For almost everyone, the temptation will go way down.

 

Romans 12:9 ESV Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.”
How many times can you pray sincerely:

“Father, help me to abhor evil, and fill me with Your love?”

But what if you pray this a dozen times and still love your sin? In that case, read several scriptures about the results of lust, and then pray the prayer about 100 times more. Second, consider praying:

“Father, take away this spirit of lust. I believe what the Bible says about its destruction.”

Bibletools.org noted:

“Human nature sees sin as an alluring and appealing possibility. We must come to see it as a pernicious, persistent, and destructive enemy that desires to leave us without hope and to inflict us with as much pain as possible along life's path. To hate it, we need to see why we must come to respect its power, so we can be motivated to fight it with every fiber of our being.

The Bible views sin as a malignant power absolutely possessing mankind. So basic and pervasive is its grip that it is not merely an external power, but it resides in our every fiber and deceives a person into thinking he is in control when, in reality, sin is! Talk about being brainwashed!” Consider praying:

“Father, show me the full destruction of lust and sin.”

Third, think often about, and believe what the Bible says about lust. It will fill you with wisdom in that area. Fourth, study key scriptures like the one above as many times as possible.

Today, start making it a habit to pray about fighting sin and lust tooth and nail. It is a key to starting to find light and joy.

 

In the South, wild hogs eat and wreck everything. So, farmers and landowners are always trying to trap them, just like satan is always trying to trap us. The farmers set giant metal cages on their property. Then they put food inside them so that someday they will slam the door shut and get about 18 of them.

The traps are set up and the young hogs run right into the trap because inside of the trap is something they (think they) want. There is food everywhere on the farm, but the food they want is inside the trap.

Satan sets his trap for us. We have a dozen clean pleasures available, but he puts exactly what we want inside the cage. We are not sure it is a trap. It is very beautiful and exciting looking. All we have to do is look, click, or even just think “his way” for a while.

Often the older hogs hesitate to go into the cage. They are one of the smartest animals. But... some of them stare at the easy food inside. They walk up to it to see if it is really what they want. When you watch them you can tell that they know it might be a trap. It might be someone trying to kill them.

A few of the hogs just never go in the cage. They don't stare at it, or walk up to it. They turn from it and find other food.

After about 10 days of free food, the farmer starts watching the trap. They wait until 14-18 pigs are in the trap. Then they hit the remote and the door slams shut. They are trapped... it's all over.

Only a few hogs knew the consequences of eating in that cage. Only a few avoided going into the trap. Only a few had a great life.

Today, consider getting busy loving God and increasing in love for people. Consider praying:

“Father, show me the consequences of this lust.”

“Father, show me Your will, and help me to do Your will.”

Remember, it's a trap. Don't go near it.

 

God wants us to have a lifestyle of repentance. Repentance involves Godly sorrow for our sins. But, some don't “feel” God in their life despite repenting. Sometimes the problem is, that we just don't realize why God wants things in a certain way. Many repent because of Porn, less repent when a movie shows way too much, less repent when a TV star shows a bit too much, and even less repent after an hour of staring at the wrong things or thinking about the wrong things.

If Biblical Joseph sat around staring at the wrong things all the time, we never would have heard of him, because he would have struggled mightily with lust.

Second, Zachariah 1:3-4 says, “Return to me so that I can return to you.” Malichi 3:7 says, “Return to me so that I can return to you.” If Joseph had faced his temptation while away from God, the story likely ends badly.

I truly believe that when Joseph was a young man he strained to gain habits of repenting over “every” level of lustful thought. Then... when the temptation came, he was ready.

Third, a lifestyle of repentance starts with Godly sorrow for even the smallest of slipups. Life is like us sealed in a house. If we crack the door, satan attacks, if we unlock the window, he is there with a pry bar, if we look at borderline sin through a crack in the wall, he takes out his power chisel and goes to work making that crack bigger and bigger.

Instead, employ a lifestyle of repentance by repenting for that little look. When we develop that habit, God no longer needs to say, “Return to me so that I can return to you.”