Do true Christians have addictions or bad habits?

Yes.

No.

Yes. But it may be at death or else it may not be uniform.

A homosexual may defeat that sin to the degree that they never again engage another person in the flesh but work their whole lives to defeat occasional lapses in their thoughts.

The dying thief didn't defeat any of his habits or addictions.

We are not supposed to be habitual sinners. But I would dare to suppose that everyone here has had a sin problem of some sort in the past that they occasionally fail on now.

We tend to think of "big" sins. But to believe that we can completely defeat every sin in our lives is to suggest sinless perfection.

Perhaps someone was a liar in the past and every once in awhile slips up under pressure and isn't completely candid.

You can't say that the sin of lying was completely defeated nor can you say that the person was habitual or addicted to lying.

 

I find some of the topics on this BB very distressing. This is one of them.....am I a "true Christian" if I am not perfect.

I habitually overeat. That's why I need to lose weight. I also have a thyroid problem, other health problems, a disabled husband, and in-laws with serious health considerations which I allow to contribute to my "excuses" for overeating. I use the same "logic and reasoning" to justify my overeating as do alcoholics, drug addicts, sex addicts, gamblers, and pathological liars. I eat too much because I find "comfort" in food--rather than turning exclusively to my Lord and Savior for that comfort. However, judging by the many posts of others all over this BB, I must be in good company, because there are so many on diets and others who say they NEED to lose weight.

Don't kid yourself--the fact that we're addicted to FOOD doesn't make it any less of an "addiction", or any less wrong. It doesn't make it any more "right" to overeat when we're not actually hungry than it is to abuse alcohol or drugs. We are guilty of the sin of gluttony and misusing God's bountiful provisions and abusing our bodies--the temple of the Living God. And, yet, I'm quite sure that NONE of us willfully overeat with the intention of SINNING. And you know what, I can say that about a LOT of people I know -- Christian or otherwise -- with OTHER addictions. We don't PLAN to sin--but, because we are HUMANS on this earth NOW, we are not yet perfect.

And, in regard to bad habits--is there ANYONE who has NO bad habits????? Is it POSSIBLE to be that close to perfection in this body? Should every Christian question their salvation if they habitually forget to turn off the lights when they leave a room? They're wasting electricity, after all. Likewise, I know a pastor's wife who habitually interrupts her husband in mid-sentence--a habit that is rude at best. Should she wonder if she is condemned to hell because she hasn't yet mastered controlling her tongue? And what of gossip? Is there ANYONE who has never gossipped? (If so, I commend you heartily!) How many "Christians" will be sitting on church pews come Sunday morning talking about so-and-so on Pew #4??? Are they Christians in reality, or only "Christians"???

I don't mean to sound harsh. I am merely trying to make this point--> on various and sundry BB forums I have seen almost EVERYONE's salvation questioned because this one didn't believe what that one thought about whatever the current topic under discussion was. WHO IN THE UNIVERSE DO YOU (AND I MEAN "YOU" IN GENERAL--NOT ANYONE IN PARTICULAR)THINK JESUS CHRIST IS????? Is He not the origin of immense mercy, understanding, love, grace, hope, charity, longsuffering, strength, etc., etc., etc.???? Was His work on the cross so pitifully insufficient that it cannot prevail against the fact that we are STILL humans after we are saved? Do you not think that He OF ALL PEOPLE WHO EVER HAD A BODY KNOWS WHAT TEMPTATIONS WE ENDURE?? Do you not believe that He can overcome and understands that we must overcome every day of our lives??? He lived in this flesh--even He was tempted. He knows that we are not capable of living a spotless life as He did--that is why he washes us in His blood....and WASHES in the "ever-inclusive-for-our-entire-lives" tense. And I'm NOT talking about a calvinism/arminianism debate here, either. I just know that my Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ my Savior, and the Holy Spirit within me KNOW that I am a wretched, pitiful creature without Them. And that I have the genuine joy, hope, and MERCY extended to me every day of my life to ENSURE my firm and complete faith and assurance that I am SAVED even IF I ate a brownie when I wasn't really hungry.

 

Teriloo - I understand what you are talking about.
Even though I may not look like I have those bad eating habits any more since I have lost weight, I still slip right back into those terrible habits that have defined my life. Its a daily struggle, and I will never have it "licked" (pardon the pun ) I see how it can apply to whatever the "addiction" is. But the main things, to me, is that on a daily basis, I ask and allow the Lord to help me win victory over it.

God hasnt taken away my temptations, He just helps me to stand up through them. When I fail, it certainly isnt His fault.

 

Not trying to be disagreeable... but I disagree.

I don't believe any sin is accidental or incidental. Let me explain using your example- telling a lie to get out of trouble.

Actions proceed from attitudes. Attitudes are developed by repetitive thoughts... in this case, I would not suppose that the person fantasized about lying but rather they had spent time dwelling on their own selfish interests. There are of course numerous forms of rationalization that could have led to what the person would claim was an action where "they just couldn't help themselves".

My point is that there are no unwillful sins. This is why we should meditate day and night on God's law and "think on" good things per Paul's exhortation in Philippians.

 

Posted by IFBreformer: Do true Christians have addictions or bad habits?

We come to Christ as we are.

Posted by IFBreformer:Are addictions the same as bad habits?

Addictions start out as bad habits and progress to the point we are holden by the cords of our sins'.

Posted by IFBreformer: If true Christians do have addictions or bad habits - will they always eventually whip this addiction or habit if they are truly saved?

It depends. Saved people have their secret sins. They will always have access to the power to stop. But will they? Sometimes it takes the chastisement of God to wake us up.

Posted by IFBreformer: Does a proffessed believers failure to have victory over a addiction or bad habit prove them to be a false believer?

No more so than any believers pet sins. The shame of an addiction is it gets in the way of serving God and can and does ruin a persons testamony. If Satan can render a believer useless for service it is almost as good as being unsaved.

 

2 Cor. 12:9, "And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me."

 

I'm gonna bump this thread back to the top...I'm personally struggling with a horrible tobacco addiction/sin that I can't seem to gain victory over...I want to hear more input/ideas over this.The key issue for me seems to be "desire".I've prayed many times to the Lord for Him to take this desire from me....but it still lingers.I feel very low much of the time.

Greg Sr.

"I know in Whom I have believed......"...so...why can't I get a victory?

 

Is it wrong to smoke and chew tobacco....I guess if one is "addicted" to it....has anyone tried the "cold turkey" method....is nicotine any worse than caffeine....what about all the processed junk that everyone's always eating....many of those chemicals do who knows what to our bodies....I do think it's possible to live in victory and not be "addicted" to anything but Jesus, but that has to do with kicking bad habits in the butt, and that includes kicking in the butt each and every thought that leads to a will decision to put into action a bad desire or thought, and in so doing we may stop the process that keeps the habit in place. Everyone already knows the battle is first and foremost in the mind, and that's why we're always supposed to be thinking on whatever is good, right, noble, just, honest, pure, etc. Of course the world, the flesh and the devil are intertwined and working feverishly to deceive us and use our desires for evil instead of good. Anyway, the situations involved in our bad habits that tend to lead to bad desires (for whatever) must also be avoided. For example, if lounging around watching football makes you frantically desire a cigaratte, listen to the game on your walkman while walking around the neighborhood. These are just my own thoughts from dealing with bad habits of various kinds in my own life.

Yours, Bluefalcon

 

I agree with Bluefalcon here.

I will also add that if anyone uses tobacco products and believes that it is a sin to do so, they need to stop using the products and stop making excuses. Million of barbarians have quit using these products resting on purely natural means—how much more easily can any believer in Christ quit with the help of the Holy Spirit. Jesus freed you from the power of sin when he died on the cross. Believe it and thus experience it.

John 8:32. and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free."
33. They answered Him, "We are Abraham's descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone; how is it that You say, 'You will become free'?"
34. Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.
35. "The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever.
36. "So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

Are YOU sinning? REPENT!

1 Cor. 10:13. No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.

1. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?
2. May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?
3. Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?
4. Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
5. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection,
6. knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;
7. for he who has died is freed from sin.
8. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,
9. knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.
10. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.
11. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts,
13. and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
14. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
15. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!
16. Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?
17. But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed,
18. and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
19. I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.
20. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
21. Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death.
22. But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.
23. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

(All Scriptures NASB, 1995)

And if Satan is lying to you and telling you that Paul the Apostle was “of flesh, sold into bondage to sin,” read Adam Clarke’s Commentary on Romans 7:14-25 at this site:

http://e-sword.net/

Here is a quote from Clarke’s commentary:

“It is difficult to conceive how the opinion could have crept into the Church, or prevailed there, that “the apostle speaks here of his regenerate state; and that what was, in such a state, true of himself, must be true of all others in the same state.” This opinion has, most pitifully and most shamefully, not only lowered the standard of Christianity, but destroyed its influence and disgraced its character. It requires but little knowledge of the spirit of the Gospel, and of the scope of this epistle, to see that the apostle is, here, either personating a Jew under the law and without the Gospel, or showing what his own state was when he was deeply convinced that by the deeds of the law no man could be justified, and had not as yet heard those blessed words: Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way, hath sent me that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost, Act_9:17.”

 

Psalm 130:3 If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?

 

Absolute nonsense. Rom. 7:14 - 25 depicts the struggle of a Jew striving to—but failing to—keep the Law of Moses. To think that Paul, as a born-again Christian, was striving as a Jew to keep the Law of Moses could not possibly be more absurd.

Paul had written just moments before:

Rom. 6:1. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?
2. May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?
3. Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?
4. Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
5. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection,
6. knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;
7. for he who has died is freed from sin.
8. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,
9. knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.
10. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.
11. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts,
13. and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
14. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

Why would any Christian listen to those who advocate for the power of sin to defeat a blood-bought child of God? Jesus gave us a promise; let’s believe in Him and His promises,

John 8:32. and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free."
33. They answered Him, "We are Abraham's descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone; how is it that You say, 'You will become free'?"
34. Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.
35. "The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever.
36. "So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

The truth will make you free, but the lie from hell that the Apostle Paul was “sold into bondage to sin” will keep YOU in bondage to sin if you choose to believe that lie.

Let me ask you a question, “Who had the power to sell the Apostle Paul into bondage to sin after he was redeemed from sin by the blood of Christ?”

For an in depth study of the Greek text of Rom. 7:14-25 and the theology of it, see the following work:

William Sanday and Arthur C. Headlam. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on The Epistle to the Romans. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1902.

1 Cor. 10:13. No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.

 

These words could NOT possibly be further from the truth of the teaching of the Bible:

1 Cor. 15:51. Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed,
52. in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.
53. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality.
54. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, "DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory.
55. "O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?"
56. The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law;
57. but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.

“The sting of death is sin.” Death is caused by the sting of sin. Although Christians have been redeemed from the power of sin and are expected to realize that redemption and live it, we have all sinned in the past, and the sting of that sin is physical death. However, the redemption of the physical body awaits us,

Rom. 8: 23. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.

“The power of sin is the law,” and Christians, all Christians, the very moment that they are saved, are released from the law, being made dead to it:

Rom. 7:4. Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.

For the Christian, the power of sin is a thing of the past. Yes, Christians are tempted to sin, but they are free to say no to every temptation, and free to say yes to God and His righteousness. The choice is yours!

Victory in Jesus
I HEARD AN OLD,
OLD STORY
HOW A SAVIOUR CAME
FROM GLORY
HOW HE GAVE HIS LIFE
ON CALVARY
TO SAVE SOMEONE LIKE ME

I HEARD ABOUT
HIS GROANING,
OF HIS PRECIOUS BLOOD'S
ATONING
THEN I REPENTED
OF MY SIN
AND WON THE VICTORY

OH, VICTORY IN JESUS,
MY SAVIOUR FOREVER
HE SOUGHT ME
AND HE BOUGHT ME
WITH HIS REDEEMING BLOOD

HE LOVED ME
ERE I KNEW HIM
AND ALL MY LOVE
IS DUE HIM
HE PLUNGED ME TO VICTORY
BENEATH THE
CLEANSING FLOOD

I HEARD ABOUT HIS
HEALING,
OF HIS CLEANSING POW'R
REVEALING
HOW HE MADE THE LAME
TO WALK AGAIN
AND CAUSED THE
BLIND TO SEE

AND THEN I CRIED
"DEAR JESUS,
COME AND HEAL
MY BROKEN SPIRIT"
AND SOMEHOW JESUS
CAME AND BROUGHT
TO ME THE VICTORY

OH, VICTORY IN JESUS,
MY SAVIOUR FOREVER

(Words and music: Eugene M. Bartlett, 1885-1941)

 

Soldiers of King Jesus, raise the shout again,
Victory in Jesus, victory!
Marching to the music of the glad refrain,
Victory in Jesus evermore.

Refrain

Victory, victory, victory in Jesus!
Sing His overcoming blood, sing the grace that frees us;
Ring it out more boldly, song of faith and cheer,
Till the whole wide world shall hear.

O’er the pow’rs of darkness, o’er the hosts of sin,
Victory in Jesus, victory!
Trusting, watching, praying, we shall surely win,
Victory in Jesus evermore.

Refrain

Send the happy watchword all along the line,
Victory in Jesus, victory!
Let all error perish, lives the truth divine,
Victory in Jesus evermore.

Refrain

For His church and kingdom, for each trusting soul,
Victory in Jesus, victory!
From the courts of Heaven joyful paeans roll,
Victory in Jesus evermore.
Refrain

(Words & Music: Eliza E. Hewitt, circa 1900)

 

Weakness--> bad habit--> compulsion--> sin--> addiction--> copout--> habitual sin--> unrepentant sin

In these overlapping categories, is this how you would place them in a progression? If not, how, and/or with what additions or deletions? Finally, where would the points be at which a person is an unbeliever, or had forfeited salvation?

 

Maybe it is because smoking is not a sin at all. Maybe we have just fallen victim to legalism gone amok.

 

Cannabis is legal in Spain so can Christians there smoke a fat joint and feel good about it?

And mellow out with the word of God.

I am serious!

David