THE ROOT CAUSE

Often we experience straight-up temptation with our addiction. But just as often there are other factors involved. In these cases, we need to find the root cause of what causes a fall. Some of the main suspects are anger, frustration, fear, and many other things. Let's say today's problem is frustration. But sometimes we are not fully aware of the root cause of our frustration. So we spend a lot of time in prayer asking the Holy Spirit to show us the root cause.

In my experience, we either have some obvious sin (not directly related to the addiction) that leads us to frustration, or we have a hidden sin which is the root cause. Most of us have some sin we struggle with. Things like greed, cheating on taxes, slander, coveting, drunkenness, or any other serious sin.

When we struggle with these sins, they trigger frustration or anger, which usually triggers addiction.

I have a problem I am dealing with, and it was causing me to struggle with anger. So I prayed a lot about my anger. After a lot of prayer, I realized that I was struggling with one of the sins on the above list. Then I realized that my behavior was starting to give satan a foothold in my life. And with his foothold, he was being given the right to flick the anger switch on whenever he wanted to.

Once I realized that I went to war in prayer with that root cause sin, got that under control, and things were back to normal. The anger was gone.

When darkness starts to overcome you... panic. Read the Bible, study the top 60 verses for quitting, pray, pray, and pray. Insist on living in the light. Insist on always increasing Jesus' joy in your life. These actions lead you to a condition that gives you the tools to stop for good.

Lastly, Jesus took my anger away. He did not take my problem away. My life is great because I am trying to live right and I am trying to stay in the presence of the Lord. Paul in the Bible trusted Jesus in all types of tribulations. He always had joy.

Notes: My list of sins was taken directly from 1 Corinthians 6.

 

Michael Hardiman says in his book Overcoming Addiction that “Sex addiction is a compulsively driven need to use sex to relieve the addict's sense of inner emptiness or to alleviate feelings of anxiety or distress. As the feelings of emptiness increase, the person tries harder to fill it with what is actually causing the emptiness, leading to the futile cycle that seems to be a central element in all addiction, namely, using something to meet one's needs that can't really meet those needs, and that damages the person in the process.”

A lot of people who read my articles think, boy, this is a lot of change. But we always underestimate the destruction of lust and overestimate the pleasure of it. To me... no one can spend too much time trying to reverse what that last sentence says.

Consider praying: “Father, help me to focus on Your will so that I can have a great year.”

Consider setting a goal of having 200 great days over the next 365 days. This is a very reasonable goal for someone who decides to fight sin. Instead of saying, “this is a lot of change,” focus on the great life that you can have.

The amount of time that you are willing to fight against lust on your worst days determines your odds of having a whole lot of great days.

 

We need to know what emotion plagues us and/or eventually leads to disaster. Today I will give out three prayers, but it is wise to copy and paste the article into a Google doc or Word file so that you can change the prayer to exactly the issue that sinks you.

For anger, consider praying:

“Father, take away this spirit of anger, and fill me with Your love.”

But, your #1 issue may be Hopelessness, Anxiety, Emptiness; Frustration; Inadequacy; Helplessness; Fear; Guilt; Loneliness; Depression; Overwhelmed; Resentment; Failure; Sadness; Jealousy, or something else.

So if anger is not an issue for you, take your #1 issue and delete anger from the list and insert your emotion. The key point is to be able to take an article about loneliness and see if you can change a few prayers, or things to think about so that they can apply to say – guilt.

Second, consider praying:

“Father, take away my spirit of lust, and help me with my feeling of hopelessness.”

This is a powerful prayer because the first half is exactly what God wants, and the second half is our desire. Consider changing the last word of the prayer to the emotion that plagues you.

Third, add power to your prayer. Power is added when we fully repent before we pray and when we fully commit our lives to christ.

Forth, pray your prayer every hour. But with every prayer we must remember to be 100% sincere, and 100% dedicated to change. When I prayed, “Father, help me to turn aggressively from sin,” for the 3000th time, I was just as sincere and dedicated to change as I was the first time I prayed it.

Last, you could easily find 80 prayers in my articles. Feel free to pray them as written, but also feel free change the key emotion to the one that plagues you.

Negative emotions drag us down, down, down. Instead, attack, attack and attack with prayer.

 

We need to know what emotion plagues us and/or eventually leads to disaster. Today I will give out three prayers, but it is wise to copy and paste the article into a Google doc or Word file so that you can change the prayer to exactly the issue that sinks you.

For anger, consider praying:

“Father, take away this spirit of anger, and fill me with Your love.”

But, your #1 issue may be Hopelessness, Anxiety, Emptiness; Frustration; Inadequacy; Helplessness; Fear; Guilt; Loneliness; Depression; Overwhelmed; Resentment; Failure; Sadness; Jealousy, or something else.

So if anger is not an issue for you, take your #1 issue and delete anger from the list and insert your emotion. The key point is to be able to take an article about loneliness and see if you can change a few prayers or things to think about so that they can apply to say – guilt.

Second, consider praying:

“Father, take away my spirit of lust, and help me with my feeling of hopelessness.”

This is a powerful prayer because the first half is exactly what God wants, and the second half is our desire. Consider changing the last word of the prayer to the emotion that plagues you.

Third, add power to your prayer. Power is added when we fully repent before we pray and when we fully commit our lives to Christ.

Forth, pray your prayer every hour. But with every prayer, we must remember to be 100% sincere, and 100% dedicated to change. When I prayed, “Father, help me to turn aggressively from sin,” for the 3000th time, I was just as sincere and dedicated to change as I was the first time I prayed it.

Last, you could easily find 80 prayers in my articles. Feel free to pray them as written, but also feel free to change the key emotion to the one that plagues you.

Negative emotions drag us down, down, down. Instead, attack, attack, and attack with prayer.

 

One thing leads to another. One sin leads to another. Consider what is going on in your life and think about whether it leads back to lust. This article is an answer to someone who said the following things cause them to fall.

Pride: In fighting mad I wrote about staying calm and allowing others to have an opinion. If this or something like that is a problem do a Google search "verses pride" and study them today or maybe print them out. Pride must be pounded out with scripture when it is a stronghold. Second, set an alarm and consider praying every hour:
"Father, take away my spirit of pride, and help me to run from lust."
Second, gluttony. I am praying again today:
"Father, help me to have self-control with what I eat." If it is a stronghold do a Google search "verses gluttony."
Wrath: Meekness is the ability to handle conflicts, insults, and crises without blowing up and without egotism. Meekness keeps us from temptation. Pray: Father, take away this spirit of lust and give me a Spirit of meekness.
Envy: James 3:16 ESV For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice."
I will write an article on this soon.
Greed: This issue is just like lust. We usually need to read verses on greed every day for a month to fight it back. Read verses first then pray about it.
Sadness: Here is an article about learning the habit of praising and giving thanks.
Finally, notice that the main thing we use to for the war is scripture. Search "verses _____" so that you know what God says to do to fight the issue. Then we can study, meditate, memorize, and pray over key scriptures.
Make it a daily habit to fight tooth and nail anything that causes you to slip up.

 

Yesterday I started reading an article about emotional intelligence. I should prob buy a book on that topic. EI is understanding how your emotions lead to bad habits. If I treat others poorly, they treat me poorly, I feel bad, I get depressed, and temptation goes through the roof. Consider praying every hour this week:

“Father, help me to love others.”

EI is letting other people talk, have opinions, and have beliefs. EI is showing them respect. But... what if they are dead wrong? You can “gently” correct them. If they want to argue their misguided belief, change the subject. You will never convince them after the argument starts.

Remember, you are using EI for you. If you often fight and argue, moods get black, and temptation skyrockets.

Today consider writing 3 prayers about emotions that lead you back to darkness. Here are some:

“Father, help me to be the peacemaker.”

“Father, help me to understand, they had a bad day. They are more mad at the world than they are at me.”

“Father, help me to study verses every day about ____________. Fill in the blank with your top negative emotions like anger, fear, hate, and jealousy. Simply search Google “Verses anger” or whatever emotion plagues you.

Second, be aware that how you “feel” affects bad habits. If I am alone and turn on the TV I might feel frustrated. Does the Bible have an answer for that? Of course. I should pray fervently to be content. If I pray fervently, my joy comes from God, so as long as the TV can provide even the tiniest bit of entertainment, life gets good again.

What Bible trait can you dig into to offset your negative emotions? If you know it, pray it 10 times as much. It will help you keep temptation lower. If you don't know what trait will help you, consider asking someone.