Gambling Freedom in 60 Days: Day 21
I will continue the session about how satan lies to us from Genesis.
16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
Then in the next chapter satan says.
4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
14 So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,
“Cursed are you above all livestock
and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.
15 And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring[j] and hers;
he will crush[k] your head,
and you will strike his heel.”
16 To the woman he said,
“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.”
17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’
“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”
Life is the same today for you and me as it was for Adam and Eve. If we obey God and live the way He wants us to live we start to live under a new blessing. When we do things He does not want us to do bad things happen then more bad things happen. A curse is bad things happening and then multiplied bad things happening.
Tomorro, we will talk about self control which helps us have a blessing instead of a curse.
Continue to read the Purpose Driven Life
Pray “Father keep me from temptation”.
For the last few days we have talked about getting the sin out of our lives. For many of us this is hard. Many have failed. Is God OK with us failing? NO. But he does understand. He knows how confused we are. He knows how hard we are trying (or not trying). When we do everything we can to get the sin out and fail we always have Gods grace.
The point is that if we keep doing everything we can to get the sin out we will start to make progress. When we start to progress we will start to be under Gods blessing.
Relationships: many of us have allowed relationships to drive us back to addiction. Relational discord happens when you allow others, to occupy the place that was reserved for Jesus Christ. What happens when another person becomes the center of your universe? You end up putting all kinds of pressure on the person who you want to complete you. They will never be able to do it and they will let you down.
Common situations. We allow another persons pain to be the center of our universe. Or another persons wrong doing. Even another persons affection cannot occupy the center of our universe. We will never be great at living or loving until we experience great love. When you believe and recieve Jesus Christ, what you get in response is unfailing love. When we move Jesus back into the center of our lives we can begin to find peace, joy and sobriety.
Never give up
Pray: “Father give me the wisdom to write a prayer that will help me to start overcoming my addiction.” For example – you feel like your gambling has hurt your ability to be a great parent. You might pray “Father help me to care more about my kid’s future than I care about gambling.” Once you have that prayer that really speaks to what will motivate you – start praying it in earnest. You can pray it as many times each day as you want as long as you are sincere in increasing your desire to change with each prayer. God is not counting how many times I pray my prayer. He is looking at how my heart changes as I sincerely pray it each time and how I allow him to lead me to better choices because now (because of prayer and extra effort) I am starting to see reality clearer.
What if we were given a brand new start to life? Put into paradise in the Garden of Eden. Everything brand new except that we still have our same old thoughts and ways of thinking. What advice would we tell our-self?
I would say: “Dear Self, you are getting some of the destruction out of your life by reading several chapters of the Bible which has increased your faith. You are spending time in prayer every day which has helped you learn why and how to overcome sin and addiction. You are focusing on treating others with love and praying about being filled with love. This has caused you to realize that people are more important than any addiction. You are focused on finding and fulfilling your purpose which is filling you with joy.
But remember, satan will come into the garden. He will bring new updated tricks and temptations. But they will be the same old tricks and temptations disguised as something new and great. So today and every day focus on the fact that _____ steals your joy. Focus on the fact that sin steals your joy. Focus on the fact that being a slug and not fighting to fulfill your purpose steals your joy. Instead choose Christ who fills you with joy.”
Some of you have not experienced this great joy. But you have experienced great darkness and depression. You only continue to read because you know what you don’t want. But please understand – you can’t be doing everything we talk about without finding joy. Some of you are doing 25%, others 50%, others 75%. Sell out and give 100%. Sell out and do everything. You will never regret it if you do.
If you know that addiction steals your joy than you can use that information as a weapon. You can say during your high temptation times: _____ steals my joy.
Read John 18, 2nd Corinthians 2 and Provervbs 16
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Thank you for reading day 21 of this program to gain info on how to quit gambling easily.
Index
Day one: Quitting addiction exercises
Day two: It is important to admit you are powerless
Day 3: Learn the right way to live
Day 4: Getting rid of negative emotions
Day 5: Remember – money lost is not yours. Don’t try to get it back or you will lose more.
Day 6: can you increase your pleasure by gambling?
Day 7: Staying clean in all ways helps you quit the addiction
Day 8: Decide what pain and pleasure you want
Day 9: Analyze what leads you back to your addiction
Day 10: Change your emotions and your mindsets. Stop believing that your big score will come in.
Day 11: Where the Spirit of the Lord is – there is liberty
Day 12: Learn how to worship God. Also try to develop positive addictions.
Day 13: Write out a letter saying why you want to quit
Day 14: Overcoming cravings and negative emotions
Day 15: You have some self control
Day 16: Have a list of coping statements. Have a list of substitute activities.
Day 17: How to find living water that will always satisfy you
Day 18: Do not have faulty beliefs abourt gambling odds
Day 19: Interview with a professional poker player
Day 20: What we can learn from Adam and Eve’s mistakes