Troublesome Topic: Breaking Free from Enslaving Habits

If you are struggling to get free from something that has been holding you back spiritually and you want to live in continual victory but find yourself only being able to retain victory for a short time, this section is for you. Here I am speaking primarily of the habits we form and then find difficult to break. It can be an emotional response, an addiction or some other form of enslavement.

Satan wants you to believe there is something wrong with you because you struggle to fight off temptation; you can’t just shut it off entirely.

God wants you to understand that your struggle is necessary to prove that you love Him. Without a struggle, little would be proven.

If you are struggling don’t beat up on yourself for it.

The point is that you are still struggling – that means you have not given up; you have not quit.

It is a fight, but you are still in that fight.

You are less effective and having less impact than you want to have

But you are more effective and having more impact that you realize you are having.

It is not up to you to determine your level of effectiveness in ministering to others. You need to stay focused on being faithful to God.

Those who watch you need to see someone who used to be what they still are, therefore angels would not make good evangelists because people could not identify with them. That fact that you and I are still flawed makes us the perfect tools for God to use to win flawed men and women.

Forgiveness is instantaneous, but freedom from the power of temptations is not instantaneous, it is a journey. Think of a slave in a southern state of the United States in the early to mid-1800s. If he ran away from his master he was free, but since he was still in the South he was in constant danger of losing his freedom and becoming a slave again. He had taken the first important step toward freedom, but he could not stop with just the first step. His freedom was a long and dangerous journey. Likewise our freedom from sinful habits is a long journey. Freedom from the habits we have taken years to form usually does not come overnight.

The Christian life is a relationship, thus it must grow; we will not arrive at a deeper level of closeness to God overnight.

The next lesson is Satan’s Voice or My Twisted Mind?