Overcoming Sinful Habits
No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
1 Corinthians 10:13
Breaking a bad habit can be very difficult, especially when the habit is our will verses God’s will. When we have a sinful desire driven by our flesh, how do we overcome our strong desire and replace it with God’s will? We are fighting against ourselves, our fleshly desires.
What we need is a plan for the next time we are tempted, and we practice this plan so it becomes a natural response without even thinking. We have the promise of God in the scripture above, that if we seek the escape and pray for divine power, we will eventually be victorious.
I can do all things through him who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:13) The Lord will give us his strength and wisdom on developing an escape. A difficult temptation requires deep thought and prayer to overcome. We must depend on the Lord to help us to escape our sinful desire, because we can never succeed in our power because it’s our own fleshly desire. We will fail if we fight our own sinful desire, because it is extremely difficult to fight off our own desire. Therefore, we have to call on the Lord for his power to escape, and we escape at the first thought of our sinful desire.
We are our worst enemy, therefore we fight our sinful desires with the power of God. Therefore, consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. (Colossians 3:12) First we train ourselves to see our sinful nature as dead, this can be very powerful if we know this in our hearts. Then we will respond to sin with our dead sinful nature.
Have verses memorized to overcome the sinful desire, and speak the verses to yourself or out loud. Be aware of the upcoming temptation, perhaps by the location, or beginning to justifying a small step to sin; and start the escape before everything is in place for the full temptation. Most sinful temptations are nothing more than a habit, and we must pray for the Lord to break the habit, and it helps to keep a record of the days of overcoming the sinful desire.
Today realize we are in spiritual war with our sinful fleshly desires, and only the Lord can fight this battle for us. We must call on Lord before the temptation, during the temptation, and praise the Lord when we have victory. Always have in your mind focused on being victorious.
Prayer: Lord, help me to be victorious over my own sinful nature. In Jesus name, Amen