How Does God Help with My Addiction?

That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, “You must be born again.” John 3:6-7

Principle 3: When we come faith in Jesus Christ, we are born again into a new, perfect spirit life and restored to communion with God, but we still carry this gift in a flawed flesh life.

In my addiction, I believed that God could help me find sobriety, but I didn’t know what that meant. I heard some preach that once we came to know God that our sin nature was automatically removed. That certainly hadn’t been my experience. I still wanted bad things all the time.

I read a book about how I could be delivered, once-for-all from my addiction. I wanted my addiction gone, so followed the steps in the book, claimed deliverance . . . and relapsed. As it turns out, my destructive desires weren’t gone.

In my disaster, I desperately needed to know exactly what faith meant for me. I read in John 3 where Jesus explained that we are made of flesh and spirit. We are born once of the flesh and then when we come to faith, we are reborn in the spirit. Paul explained that prior to coming to Christ, we were dead (Ephesians 2:1-5) but that we have a new life in Christ.

This new life is not a new physical life. Our flesh bodies don’t die and aren’t reborn when we come to faith. As I said yesterday, if we have diabetes before we know God, we still have diabetes after. The same is true of our flesh nature. We’re all born with flawed behaviors and thought patterns. Just as our flesh bodies aren’t perfected on this earth, our flesh natures aren’t perfected either.

As Jesus said though, we are flesh and we are spirit. It is in our spirit life, that we’re reborn. Because of Christ’s atoning death on the cross, we’re reconnected with God who now lives in us.  This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God (John 17:3). In knowing God, we have eternal life in us, here and now.

Coming to faith doesn’t mean my appetite for donuts or drugs is automatically gone. It means that daily, I have a new spirit life that I can and should follow. God still allows me to follow the old destructive flesh life if I insist upon it. When I follow God, I grow his life in me. When I follow me, I grow disaster.

Author’s Note: I’m currently writing through the principles that have helped me understand my condition as a Christian who still has very real struggles with my destructive appetites. I’ll include the full list here for reference.

1. God created us to live in communion with Him, but man’s sin fractured that communion.
2. We all struggle with flaws in our corrupt flesh nature, though it has different manifestations in all of us.
3. When we come faith in Jesus Christ, we are born again into a new, perfect spirit life and restored to communion with God, but we still carry this gift in a flawed flesh life.
4. Though God may graciously deliver us from some thorns of the flesh, some battles are lifelong, requiring the ongoing work of denying self and following Christ.
5. We may always feel the gravity of the flesh, but we are not to live enslaved to it. We are meant to know and experience freedom daily in Christ.
6. The Christian life (discipleship) is a continual process of abandoning (crucifying) the flesh nature and following Christ. Daily, we are to choose to pursue our spirit life instead of our flesh life.
7. Should we fail, there is always grace and forgiveness for those who believe in Christ.
8. Though we are forgiven, we are not to use grace as an excuse to continue in our destruction.
9. God’s eternal forgiveness does not absolve us from practical, earthly responsibilities and/or consequences.
10. As we all labor, we must be continually honest about our battles. It is not helpful to construct a facade of perfection. In fact, such a facade is detrimental to recovery, sabotaging it.
11. We should regularly meet together with other believers with the purpose of spurring each other on to the pursuit of God.
12. God provides the only adequate replacement for our pursuit of self. This is core to recovery and identity. Though we try to find purpose, joy and fulfillment in self, we find the answer to our deepest needs only in God.
13. Transformation (sanctification) is not an automatic process. It is our responsibility to daily do whatever it takes to deny self and follow Christ. The Holy Spirit always does his part. We must do ours.
14. God allows the daily battles and honest struggles of recovery to deepen our awareness of our constant need for God.
15. Our eternal identity as Christians is in our new life in Christ. Acknowledging our persistent flesh life and its battles does not deny our position in Christ bur rightly identifies the forgiveness and power that alone can be found in Christ as we daily experience life through Him.
16. God saves us from ourselves. We must tell others what He has done for us.