Gambling Freedom in 60 Days: Day 38
Emotions often lead back to gambling. Anger often leads straight back into addiction for many people. One reason for this is because anger is often followed by depression. Depression for some people leads straight to gambling. So it is important to develop a better understanding of anger. www.angermentor.com says “When angry consider yourself drunk. Make no decisions and take no action while angry. No exceptions! You will either regret it or it will have negative consequence for your life – 100% of the time. It never fails. Your mind is really that clouded. Your judgement is that impaired”.
If you would like to start living in God’s blessing pray: “Father – I plan to start doing things your way, obeying your commands, studying the Word. Please bless me when you are ready to do so. I am planning to do my part and I will patiently wait for you to bless me when the time is right.”
This article is all about overcoming anger. If anger is not a problem for you, skip to the white section at the bottom of the page.
To stop gambling have a list of alternate activities and refer to that list when emotions upset you.
Joyce Meyer in her article Dealing with Anger…God’s Way, said:
“Get to the Root of the Problem. Anger is caused by injustice, strife, impatience, jealousy, unmet needs, abuse and many other things.
Anger is the fruit of rotten roots. One of the primary roots of anger stems from the family. Angry people come from angry families because they learn from their role models and carry on the same behavior in their own lives, eventually passing it on to their children.
Other Roots of Anger Include… Abuse of any kind—sexual, physical, verbal, emotional or mental abuse almost always leads to anger. They’re all injustices, which eventually leave the abused feeling helpless and angry. Abuse of any kind can’t be ignored. We must deal with it and process it before we can get free of it.
Unmet needs—can also produce anger. We all have needs that can and should be met by those closest to us; however, they don’t know and understand our needs unless we communicate with them. But even then they may sometimes fail to meet our needs. Therefore, the answer is to go to God with our needs and not to other people.
Face the Truth… And Choose Your Pain If you want the great and mighty things God has for you, you must get to the root of anger and deal with it. Get rid of the masks and face the things that happened in your life that made you the way you are today. Admit that you can’t change by yourself. Until the root is removed, it’ll continue to produce one bad fruit after another. Too often we spend our lives dealing with the bad fruit of our behavior, but we never dig deep enough to get to the root of the problem. Actually, when we’re faced with anger, we must choose our pain.
Digging deep to take care of the bad root is painful, but it’s the only lasting way to take care of the problem. We can either suffer positively, doing what’s right or we can go with the devil’s
plan. You must decide if you want the pain that will take you into a new realm of glory or to keep your same old pain and try to hide it while it’s rotting inside you.
Peter tells us to be well-balanced and temperate, withstanding the devil at his onset (see 1 Peter 5:8-9). When you begin to feel anger, it’s the perfect time to exercise the fruit of self-control. You may have a good reason to be angry, but don’t use it as an excuse to stay that way. Instead of denying or justifying it, ask God to help you deal with it in a positive way.
Is all anger sin? No, but some of it is. Even God Himself has righteous anger against sin, injustice, rebellion and pettiness. Anger sometimes serves a useful purpose, so it isn’t necessarily always a sin. Ephesians 4:26-27 tells us, When angry, do not sin; do not ever let your wrath (your exasperation, your fury or indignation) last until the sun goes down. Leave no [such] room or foothold for the devil [give no opportunity to him]. Refuse to give the devil any opportunity to get a foothold in your life through anger.
All anger, regardless of its cause, has the same effect on our lives. It upsets us, causing us to feel pressure. Keeping anger locked inside and pretending it doesn’t exist can even be dangerous to our health. Most of the time we’re only hurting ourselves, and the person who angered us isn’t even aware of it. So we must take responsibility for our anger and learn to deal with it. Process it and bring closure to it, and that will relieve the pressure. I have been through some rough times in my life, and for many years those experiences caused me to feel miserable. I was so mad about the abuse in my childhood that it was making me bitter and hateful. I was angry with everybody, but one day God confronted me and said, “Joyce, are you going to let that make you bitter or better?” That got my attention, and I eventually had to find a positive way to process my anger. That was a place of new beginnings for me. When you face your anger and decide to deal with it God’s way, you can overcome it. The Holy Spirit gives us the power to be stable and walk in the fruit of the Spirit. We have the power to forgive those who do injustices in our lives and to love the unlovely.
When Satan makes you angry, remember that he’s trying to keep you from accomplishing the will of God in your life.
Overcome evil and anger by praying for those who hurt and abuse you. Forgive them and be a blessing to them. It may not be easy at first, but when you make the decision and stick with it, God will take care of the rest”.
Will Rogers said, “Whenever you fly into a rage, you seldom make a safe landing.” And he is right.
Proverbs 19:19 says, “A hot-tempered man must pay the penalty.” We’re being told that almost every day. Doctors tell us that losing our temper consistently brings about high blood pressure, dryness of mouth, & a fast-beating heart. It could even bring pre-mature death.
A hot temper could also mean loss of family & friends. The penalties of anger are many.
So we need to recognize that we have a problem with anger. As long as we deny it, as long as we blame it on heritage or short-fuse or whatever we choose to blame it on, we’ll never improve.
Then we must confess our problem to God & ask for His help. “Lord, I’m beginning to lose my temper, & I’ve done it many times before. Please help me see what is causing it to happen, & then help me to overcome it.”
The Bible teaches that when the Holy Spirit guides our life, that one fruit of the spirit is selfcontrol. And if you have anger, you need to control it.
When we lack self control and lose our temper the first result is “bitterness.” You begin to think about all the bad things people do & say to you, all the insults, all of the inconsiderate things that go on.
Then Paul says, “After bitterness comes rage & anger.” “Rage” is bitterness boiling & bubbling inside of you. And “anger” is rage being expressed. It is no longer just inside you. Now you begin to kick the cat, & hit the wall. Now you begin to say all kinds of things, until finally it becomes “brawling,” which means “shouting loudly,” & “slander” or “insults.”
And the end result of it all, Paul says, is “malice.” And “malice” means that you really desire to harm. That’s why we’re always reading about someone shooting his wife & turning the gun on himself. Because the ultimate end of stubborn anger is malice.
Paul said, “Here is the way to get rid of stubborn anger. Don’t let the sun go down on your wrath.” Vs. 32 says, “Be kind & compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”
The Bible says …we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places (Ephesians 6:12 KJV). There is Holy anger and there is sinful anger. If you have fiddled around with sin, anger is often something that attaches itself to you. Sure someone may cause it to erupt, but it is in you and you need to get it out of you.
Key Point #1 Pray every morning and evening: Jesus please take this anger out of me. If you have a serious problem pray it ten times or thirty times a day. Life is way better without anger and the baggage anger brings with it.
Read Matthew 5
Continue to read the Purpose Driven Life.
If you are struggling complete the exercises from day 3
An addiction is your choice of your will to obey the flesh and ignore the Holy Spirit and His commands. Mark Shaw in his workbook “relapse” says “sin only happens when we trust our-self more than God and it is never an accident.”
- When you trust God you will please Him, God loves people who trust Him. In the small and big things trust the living God (Heb11:6)
- As you trust God you will experience His presence; He will not leave nor forget you (Jer23:39).
- Trusting God helps us to progress, accomplish much for God. He guides our steps and gives us the power to achieve. (Neh6:15)
- Trusting God help us to prevail against the temptation and lies of the devil. We resist and triumph in a hard moment (1Pet5:8-9)
Proverbs 3:5-6 says: ”Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; 6. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths”.
Jeremiah 17:7-11 “7 “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD And whose trust is the LORD. 8 “For he will be like a tree planted by the water, That extends its roots by a stream And will not fear when the heat comes; But its leaves will be green, And it will not be anxious in a year of drought Nor cease to yield fruit.
Often the sin of someone close to us causes separation with them. We must trust God and forgive them. Forgiveness will change your life if you start the process now. Joyce Meyers forgave her Father for years of sexual abuse. She became one of the 5 most known preachers in the United States for decades after that.
Pray: Father, help me to forgive ______. Pray this prayer 3-10 times every day.
Read Matthew 10, and 1st John 2-3
Matthew 5 is about how we can change so that we will start to be blessed by God. www.relijournal.com noted the following
The First Beatitude verse 3
God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for Him,
for the kingdom of heaven is given to them.
The word poor here means those who are poor IN SPIRIT. Jesus wasn’t talking about people being financially poor. To be poor in spirit means to recognize that we fall short of what God wants us to be. It means that we know we are unworthy to receive God’s grace. The poor in spirit see that without God we cannot be forgiven and made new.
We see an example of being poor in spirit in Luke 18:9-14. It is the story of a Pharisee who believed he was completely righteous and looked down on everybody else. The Pharisee stood up in the temple and thanked God that he was not a thief, a liar or a cheat like the tax collector who was also at the temple. He boasted to God that he fasts twice a week and always gives a tenth of his earnings to God. The tax collector stood at a distance, feeling unworthy to look up to heaven. The tax collector said, “God, please have mercy on me, for I am nothing but a sinner.” The Pharisee did not recognize his faults but the tax collector recognized his need for God and for forgiveness, and that is being poor in spirit.
Jesus says that only the poor in spirit will enter into the kingdom of God because they confess and turn to Jesus.
It is easy to agree that we need to walk in repentance but it can be hard to do. Pride can get in the way of us realizing our need for God. James 4:7-10 tells us exactly how to develop the right attitude so that we can live by this first characteristic Jesus mentions. It tells us that we must humble ourselves to be able to recognize our need for God.
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Thank you for reading day 7 of this program to stop gambling and leave this habit completely.
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
Day 21: more great stuff from Adam and Eve’s mistakes
Day 22: Self control
Day 23: What to think about to develop self control
Day 24: What are your values?
Day 25: How to pray to fight addiction
Day 26: Which prayers are answered quickly – which prayers time more time and persistence
Day 27: How to fill the vacuum that addiction caused
28: Finding a good church
29: Knowing why you can’t quit can help you plan how to quit
30: How to eliminate the vacuum created by quitting
31: Tripping your addiction trap. Overcoming sloth
32: You need clean people around you if you are going to stay clean
33: Use real math not gambling math
Day 34: Don’t condemn yourself
Day 35: Don’t test yourself to see if it is safe to gamble a little bit
Day 36: Knowing why you can’t quit can help you quit
Day 37: Do not chase pipe dreams