Smoking freedom in 20 days: Day 13
www.helpguide.org noted the following
“Keep a craving journal
A craving journal can help you zero in on your patterns and triggers. Keep track of your smoking. Note the moments in each day when you crave a cigarette:
- What time was it?
- How intense was the craving (on a scale of 1-10)?
- What were you doing?
- Who were you with?
- How were you feeling?
- How did you feel after smoking? “
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.
Read Proverbs 5
Isaiah 54:10
Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the LORD, who has compassion on you.
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 God’s blessing.
Never give up
Pray at least 3 times per day “Lord, help me to always be moderate in all things”
Proverbs 14 says that a wise man looks ahead. Negative emotions will hit you today. What wrong thinking leads to your negative emotions? Are you working on the habit of thinking about good things and being positive? Choosing the habit of sustained happiness.
Reward positive new behavior. I played the piano today which put my temptation down a bit. I gave a fist pump and complimented myself for my good decision.
Lastly, form the habit of looking ahead to a good day tomorrow.
Matthew 5 is about how we can change so that we will start to be blessed by God. www.relijournal.com noted the following
Jesus then goes on to tell his disciples that his people are the salt of the earth. However, if we lose our saltiness we become useless. If a seasoning has no flavor it has no purpose. It would no longer be a seasoning. If we make no effort to affect the world around us, we have little value to God. Salt is a natural cleanser. We are God’s holy and clean people. If we let the world take over us we lose our cleanliness. We should not blend in with everybody else. Instead, we should affect others positively, just as seasoning brings out the best flavor in food.
You may say to me – man I am a messed up person, I can’t shine any light. But if you are sincerely trying to be a Christian you can tell other people how Jesus is helping you (even if you keep dropping the ball). The messed up person you help now may be the person who helps you later.
- Checklist for avoiding relapse: Write down what attitudes and beliefs led you into addiction. For me the love of pleasure was a priority. That attitude brought about a lot of pain and destruction. I am currently focusing on being very aware of how great things are when I worship God vigorously and pursue the correct passions and purpose. If I improve my awareness of how great things are when I am vibrantly living life God’s way, the next time I fall into heavy temptation I will have more bullets in my gun to fight back.
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Thank you for reading day 13 of this Free Quitting Smoking Program.
Index
Day 1 Overcoming cravings
Day 2 Why can’t you quit
Day 3 Start a Journal
Day 4 Overcoming negative emotions
Day 5 You can’t increase your pleasure for the month by smoking
Day 6 Control your emotions and plan your day
Day 7 Learning how to worship God is a key to overcoming addiction
Day 8 Develop positive addictions
Day 9 How to get help from the Holy Spirit
Day 10 Have a list of coping statements
Day 11 Living water and how to live in God’s blessing
Day 12 Genesis can teach us about addiction