Overcoming Addiction

Breaking Free

(2 Corinthians 10:3-5) For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

A prisoner locked by

 deception.

An addiction is anything that I do that I don't want to do, but I won't stop doing. 

Living life by something that is not true.

The Addiction Lies

(Romans 7:21-24) So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am!

• It becomes a part of my identity.

• When I try to quit but fail, I feel increasingly hopeless.

• Any threat to my addiction becomes a threat to me.

• I begin to lose my life.

•I ease the pain by getting my next fix.

(Romans 7:24-25 MSG) I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.

Overcoming Addiction

(Romans 8:1-2) Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.

Idolatry is anything we allow to sit on the throne of our hearts other than God.  We are a slave to whatever is on the throne of our hearts.

  

1. Put God first in every area of my life.

(Exodus 20:1-3) And God spoke all these words: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.”

(1 Peter 3:15) But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord.

• Give God the first of everything.

2. Say no 

to the flesh.

(Romans 6:12-14) Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God... For sin shall not be your master.

(Galatians 5:24) Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.

• What I starve dies.

3. Go all in with Jesus.

(Romans 12:2 MSG) Fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

• What I feed thrives.

Chris Hodges, Church of the Highlands

Video

https://www.churchofthehighlands.com/media/message/overcoming-addiction

Discussion Guide

https://www.churchofthehighlands.com/files/groups/guides/1-14-18.pdf