Quitting Smoking: Day 29

A wise man once said that if you have a person on fire for Christ you could put anything on them and they would shake it off and still accomplish their God given purpose. So he is saying you could put on them a habit of Drugs, drinking, food, gambling, sex, porn or anything else and they would shake it off.

Why could this be true? First of all they would know for sure that they must find and accomplish their purpose. Most of us are content with doing a little bit for God here or there.

2^nd they spend a lot of time in prayer. They find joy and purpose and direction from prayer. It is a priority for them.

They think that Bible reading is as important as eating. They know it changes them rapidly when they rapidly repent. They always strive to do what it says.

They find a good preacher on the TV or internet who can fill them with wisdom and they listen regularly. Robert Morris has a million sermons out there and they are very good. James McDonald is very good as well.

However one huge reason they would shake off addiction is because they have the Holy Spirit all over them and that makes them unstoppable.

If we continue to look at borderline sinful things, think about borderline sinful thoughts, take part in borderline sinful actions. If we do that we will only have a tiny bit of the Holy Spirit and we will struggle with addictions.

Spirit filled people know what they have and what they want. Most don’t know what they have and are currently very mixed up about what they want.

I want what Adam and Eve had before they were kicked out of the Garden of Eden. But I will only get it if I change what I do every day. I will only get it if I live how God wants me to live.

Today I watched a show called Kingdom Connection. On my TV system it is on at 9:00 AM on sunday morning. He had a guest Christine Caine on the show who runs a ministry to try to stop human trafficing. In 2013 there are an estimated 27 million people who are slaves. Many of these slaves are sold as sex slaves.

His guest told a dramatic story about how she rescued Three woman who were sex slaves in Turkey. The woman had been in slavery for over a year. When they were dramatially rescued one of the woman asked Christine “why are you here” Christine answered saying “There is a God in heaven who loves you and He has redeemed my life and He wants to help you”. She then told her about the love of Jesus and how He had changed her life.

The girl was crying, but then she asked Christine “if what you tell me about your God is true, why didn’t you come sooner”. This question had a dramatic impact on Christine. If the story of Jesus is true: how that He loves us, died for us, saves us, has mercy on us. If it is true, why are we not going sooner to help people in need.

This is why in a quitting smoking program we read the Bible every day. This is why  we read the purpose driven life and pray aggressively about finding our purpuse. We need to start very soon – helping people in need.

When Christine was asked what can we do. The first thing she said was that we can pray for their ministry. You can pray every day for her ministry, or 3 times a day, or 5 times a day. You can do the same for my ministry.

You can watch the full interview with Christine Caine at www.jentenzenfranklin.org

Cravings for an addiction can at times seem impossible to overcome. But when we understand how cravings work we have a fighting chance to overcome them. The first point is that no craving can last forever. www.feedtherightwolf.org noted that “cravings are shaped like a bell curve.

At first cravings start out slow but grow exponentially until they get really intense. Somewhere along this path most people would end up giving in. As the result they get used to an idea that they could never get past their cravings and that their cravings will eventually get so strong, that they will have no choice but to give in.

In actuality human beings cannot sustain any emotion or feelings indefinitely, and eventually any feeling or craving will decrease.