timcia

Yesterday was bad. To fight back I prayed the following prayers back to back repeatedly:

“Lord, help me to love.”

“Father, help me to be tough.”

“Father, help me to turn from sin.”

“Father, show me Your will.”

Every time I started to think about bad stuff, I started to pray these prayers again. When we fight back, problems that would normally sink us start to be manageable. Why? Partly because now we are focused on other things, and partly because prayer activates God’s help in our lives.

The Bible says to think about good things. This year is the first year for me to be doing that.

Don’t let the bad eat up the good. Planning and prayer lead to stopping.

Bad emotions lead to depression. If you start to become angry, discontent, stressed, or any of a dozen negative emotions… Panic. Negative emotions lead to darkness and darkness leads to bad habits. Yesterday I noted that praising the Lord 100 times is a top 7 way to quit. Why? Because that praise is “fighting” negative emotions.

Second, exercise. Aerobic activity fights stress and fights negative emotions. Consider picking an exercise and then try to make it a habit.

Third, give thanks. It is a Bible command after all… “In everything give thanks.” Satan wants you mad at your wife/husband, job, and everything else. Instead, list what you are thankful for.

Fourth, attack your negative emotions with scripture. I just clicked “Verses frustration.” I scrolled down to the Open Bible list. Wow, it is great. Consider making it a habit to do this when your worst negative emotion flares up.

Fifth, realize you can do something. I have prob given 20 things “To do,” in my last dozen or so articles. Consider starting a notebook that has “To do,” written on its cover. Then, the next time your emotions attack, you will have something to do. Having something “To do” is a top 5 trick for fighting temptation.

Sixth, when you are fighting desperately against negative emotions, having something to do won’t be as fun as a vacation in paradise. So always remember… You are doing this replacement activity as work. As fighting back. As a powerful technique to get you through to where life gets good again. Plus…when you make it safely, life will start to get better and better.

We are always fighting 2 battles. One with our flesh, and the other with satan. Pastor Jack Hayford said, “You can’t cast out the flesh, and you can’t disciple a demon.”
First, how do most demonic battles look? They are often a demon whispering to us, “Think about that, that is spectacular. That is what you want, what you have to have.”
The Bible is clear, some people are demon possessed. But, in addition to that, many people are oppressed to a lesser or greater degree.
Second, if we treat demonic warfare the same as our warfare with the flesh we will get into trouble. The Bible says:
Matthew 12:43 When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none.
44 Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished.
45 Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.”
The key word in this passage is “empty.” The person in this example repented, but then did not start to do God’s will. Did not start to seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Third, whether you have a demon, or are harassed by one, you can get it out. They hate the verses for quitting. I will never forget the day I printed those verses out. I printed them, and decided to attack back when tempted. When tempted I was going to get those verses out and start studying.
I was shocked by how my temptations changed. Sure… I wanted to consider my options, but now I was not being driven toward my habit. I was not enslaved like I had been. It was now a fair fight. A fight I wanted to win.
Fourth, when I say we must “Pound things (darkness) out,” I am referring to demonic harassment. They won’t leave you alone until you pound them in a way they hate.
Fifth, demons of lust hate verses about lust. Demons of drinking hate verses about drinking. Demons of covetousness, hate verses about covetousness. They are smart, they know you are submitting to God by quoting these (Very hard) verses. They know you are learning about them, learning about the destruction, learning about their darkness. Learning how to break the very chains they put on you.
Finally, most importantly, seek your purpose fervently. Seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit fervently. That way… When they check on you they say, “Not much room here for me. This house is full. I am not going to check on them as often in the future.”
After that, it is a fair fight.

Everyone who is trying to quit a habit needs a huge increase in contentment. Consider praying:

“Father, take away this spirit of drinking/drugs and help me to be content.”

If you are single it is wise to learn contentment with being single. I see divorced people who think and talk about finding someone all the time. Instead, it is wiser to think, pray, and talk often about being content. Then to think all the time about doing God’s will. Paul was in the top 1% of people who had great joy. He was single. 
Second, whether you are single or married, put in the prayer and the work so that God becomes the answer to loneliness and other problems. He is the answer.
Third, I recommend dozens of prayers. Consider spending time each week to study exactly what you should be praying more about. No one should be trying to find the greatest variety of prayers and prayer topics. If you have zero contentment with your life, consider praying the above prayer 5-10 times per day, or more.

Fourth, if you have never married, now is the time to learn contentment so that you can do God’s will. If you learn contentment, form habits of going to war with sin, and learn to do God’s will… if you do get married later, it might be one of those rare, great marriages.

Finally, do you need to pray daily about contentment? I do. Today I am committing to working more on it. I am always happier when I am content.

We either fight addiction with power or without it. When we study key verses, power enters our lives. When we declare war on sin, power enters our lives. When we strain to pray all the time, power enters our lives. Daily Bible reading adds power, and praising the Lord adds power. Praying to be filled with the Spirit adds power. Praying to find our purpose adds power.

Second, believe the Bible as written. You can deeply trust the literal versions: NKJV, NIV, NASV, ESV. If a verse does not make sense to you, read it every day until it does. God loves to see a person wrestling to understand and obey scripture. Doing so adds power.

Third, can we quit sinning? The answer is both yes and no. We can go to war with specific sins and start to cut them out. At some point, we will cut certain sins out if we fight enough. We all know people who drank too much but then quit drinking. They quit their most problematic sin, and you can quit your most problematic sin as well.

Fourth, we can cut out specific sins, but some sin will be missed. My brother knew some guy who said, “I don’t sin anymore.” Obviously, his pride is ruining his message. If he said, “I always go to war with sin, and I am starting to see its grip on me fading.” That is saying it in a way more people would believe, and even try to copy.

Fifth, almost all of the techniques I recommended make our bad desires decrease, and that allows the Holy Spirit to increase “in us.” “He” does not sin. If we actually die to ourselves as the Bible tells us to… “He” would steer us on a sinless course for as long as we allow Him to do so. I am always, no, often, trying to do that. I should always try to do that. But no man will ever be perfect in doing that. But trying to improve, is the smartest thing we can do.

Finally, dying to self is the key to joy. The more we work on it, the more we will get that very destructive sin out of our lives.