Today was intense. Not the most comfortable message that I have had to preach, but I know that God spoke to people in a powerful way about their struggles. This was the first of a 4 week message series dealing with issues that we typically don't deal with in the church, because let's face it.... Christians don't deal with things like adultery, pornography, gossip, overspending, excessive gaming, drugs, alcohol or anything like that... Or maybe it's just that we're all to ashamed to admit our struggles because of how we know other Christians will look at us. Today we talked about addictions in general. Here are five practical steps to take to deal with addictions. If You want all the details, you'll have to listen to the podcast.
#1. get your addiction out of your territory.
If you deal with porn, cut off your internet. If you are a shopaholic, get rid of the sales paper. If you are addicted to gaming, get rid of your gaming system. If you are an alcoholic, get rid of the alcohol... even the wine.
#2. Make sure that your addiction doesn't have a team.
If you struggle with lust, don't hang out with perverts. If you are a recovering alcoholic, don't hang out with people who drink. If you love to gossip, don't hang out with people who gossip.
#3. Make sure that you don't deal with it alone.
God has put us on earth together to do life together. Find someone that you can confide in and let them help you and pray for you.
#4. Have an easy thought for when you are tempted.
Make sure that you memorize some key negative results of what will happen if you give in to your addiction.
such as, broken marriage, fatherless children, cancer, heart disease.
#5. Don't take that first bite.
Do what ever it takes to avoid the first bite. As long as you don't take the first bite the ball is in your court, because the first bite is always so good.
Sorry Sally, didn't mean to make you want to molten chocolate lava cake. I'll work on that message about cokes.
If you are dealing with any form of addiction, this is a website that has a few resources. http://theelephantinthepew.com/?page_id=21
Also, for those dealing specifically with an addiction to porn, here is a great site. www.xxxchurch.com this is also a good site for anyone who just would like to make sure that they protect themselves and their family from ever dealing with the affects of pornography. They have some great accountability software that will email every page that you visit each day to anyone that you specify.
Take hold of your addiction today!
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