Pastor’s Podium

Here we are at the first of the year and I want everyone to know they can be an overcomer. Many Christians are prisoners of addictive behavior. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and hopeless when you just can’t seem to beat a habit. In fact, letting go of your addictive behavior may feel like letting go of the very thing that helps you cope, gets you through each day, and sustains you. But it isn’t truly sustaining you. It’s pulling you under.

Drugs, extramarital sex, pornography, alcoholism, unhealthy relationships, negative self-talk, overwork, gluttony, gambling, overspending — these things can become the go-to coping mechanisms for life’s pain, disappointments, and boredom. But they can leave you feeling trapped. A counselor and an account-ability partner can be great assets to help you overcome addictive behavior. But the cure ultimately lies with you and God. Of course, there are things like chemical addictions that must be dealt with appropriately — that’s another discussion. But dealing with behavioral addictions takes shifting your thinking to a new place.

To be set free from addictive behavior, you need to “be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). You need a new way of looking at yourself, God, others, and the things you do. Satan’s strategy to keep you in addictive behavior is to mess with your mind. He wants to plant thoughts in your heads so they’ll take root and bear deadly, destructive fruit in your actions. Remember that whoever or whatever controls your mind also controls you.

God doesn’t want you to be focused on negative thoughts and controlled by them. Rather, God wants you to focus on him, to allow his Word and Spirit to control you and bear good and lasting fruit in your life. Jesus said “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you” ( John 15:7). The key to your victory is in that verse, so let Christ’s words (thoughts) remain in you. When Christ’s thoughts begin to dominate your soul, you’ll experience the new and abundant life he died to give you.

Christian, let me encourage you with this truth: God is at work in you. You are God’s workmanship, and you are a masterpiece (see Ephesians 2:10). Things may not be perfect in your life right now, but life is a process. Don’t look at tomorrow — for “tomorrow will worry about itself ” (Matthew 6:34). Just focus on living this day, this moment trusting God will get you through. That’s all the faith you need. By faith, you will overcome your addictive behavior with moment-by-moment victories that will add up to days, weeks, months, and years. God loves you so much that He’s not giving up on you. He’ll continue to chisel and carve away what doesn’t need to be there, and when God reveals who you truly are in Him, you’ll be amazed.

When things appear to take a turn for the worse in your life, remind yourself that God may be setting things up for a comeback. You just might not be able to see it. In 2 Kings we read an account of an attack on the prophet Elisha. He was a man of God, so closely tied to God that he could discern things beyond the natural realm. But in this particular instance, Elisha called on God to help the person he was with to see as well. Elisha prayed that God would “open his eyes and let him see.” When the Lord answered, the servant “saw that the mountain was covered with horses and chariots of fire” (2 Kings 6:17).

When Elisha prayed, God opened the eyes of the servant to see the Lord’s protection and provision. So when things get difficult for you, take a moment to pray that God would reveal to you what He is doing as well. Then, have faith that He will come through. Remember, believing is seeing.