God wants us to have a renewed mind. All habits begin in the mind. We allow ourselves to think of wrong things like gray area fantasies, that are only sort of evil. That only sort of leads back to addiction. They don’t always lead back to addiction now, but they do lead back, sooner or later.
Satan is the king of using small little evil things to keep his foothold on you for life. But we can fight back by giving thanks for all things, by praising God all the time, and by worshiping Him all of the time. We are at war and we need to be fighting sin at all times.
iblp.org had the following great article:
“How to Conquer Sinful Habits
seven steps to victory
Is it actually possible to conquer destructive habits? Yes, because “with God, nothing shall be impossible” (Luke 1:37). Through the provision of God’s grace, you can take positive steps of action to experience victory over sinful habits.
1. Engraft Romans 6 and 8 into your soul.
To “engraft Scripture” means to make it a living extension of your life so that it can produce spiritual fruit. Just as branches can be grafted into a fruit tree, so Scripture can be grafted into your mind, will, and emotions. For example, as you engraft the truths of I Corinthians 13, you will bear the fruit of genuine love, and if you engraft the truths of I Peter, you will bear the fruit of patience during suffering.
Memorize Romans 6 and Romans 8 word for word. Then, begin to meditate on those passages, and apply them daily to your life. As you engraft Romans 6 and Romans 8 into your soul, you will start to bear the fruit of victory over sin.
2. Understand, and believe, that you are dead to sin.
Regardless of your feelings to the contrary, the Bible says that believers are dead to sin. God wants us to “reckon” ourselves to be dead to sin, which means to “count it to be so.” (See Romans 6:11.) If a seductive woman walked past a dead man, he would not even blink an eye. God wants us to have a comparable response to the power and appeal of sin—to react to temptation as a dead person would react to temptation.
You died to sin when you became a Christian. At that very moment, you became a part of Christ. Since you are a part of Christ, you share in all of His past achievements: when He was crucified, you were crucified with Him (see Galatians 2:20 and Colossians 3:20); when He was buried, you were buried too (see Romans 6:4); when He rose from the dead, you rose from the dead (see Colossians 3:1). Therefore, you are dead to sin (i.e., not controlled by its power). Choose to believe that truth.
3. Rely on God’s power by relying on His Word to “carry you away” from temptation.
When God led the children of Israel out of captivity in Egypt, He said that He “bare . . . [them] on eagles’ wings” (Exodus 19:4). The Lord “carried them to safety” with His power, and the Lord wants to do that for His children today as well. God wants to carry you away from temptation and destruction “on eagles’ wings.”
When you begin to fall into temptation, it won’t take many seconds of falling before you experience defeat. Satan wants us to believe that when we start falling, there is nothing we can do but surrender to his temptations and be defeated.
Don’t believe the devil! When you start to fall, begin to quote the living, active words of truth found in God’s Word (see Hebrews 4:12 and I Thessalonians 2:13), especially those found in Romans 6 and Romans 8: “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin . . . ? God forbid. . . .” (Romans 6:1–2). As you use the sword of the Spirit to battle against the wiles of the devil (see Ephesians 6:10–18), the temptation will lose its power and appeal, and God will carry you on eagles’ wings out of temptation’s reach. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus will lift you above the law of sin and death. (See Romans 8:1–13.)
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