How Can Christians Overcome Addiction?

Episode 153 Show Notes

How Can Christians Overcome Addiction?

From the Show

How Does a Christian deal with their addiction?

Regeneration doesn’t end the struggle, it actually begins it. For the first time in your life you’re really battling indwelling sin and the good news of the Gospel is that Jesus Christ has already won that victory for us, and the Holy Spirit has applied that victory to us. But, in the living out of that victory, we struggle every day with insurgents within and without…I would say it depends on what kind of addiction it is. Our bodies become addicted to certain behaviors and sometimes, to the extent that that is a bodily addiction, a physical addiction, we need help for that. It might be medical help. It might be a treatment program. It might be Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous, other support groups that are out there. And if you’re a Christian, you’ll be able to sort of steer through some of the fluff and goofiness and outright error that you get in some of those programs, and really get the best out of it. Support is really essential and what better support can we have than from our brothers and sisters in Christ and a local church. — Michael Horton

Questions in this Episode

1. How do addiction struggles figure into regeneration and being a “new creation” for the Christian?

2. What would you say makes for a meaningful life? How should Christian pursue living with purpose?

3. I have been to churches that are Jesus only churches, where we are baptized only in Jesus, that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one, and that when you get to heaven Jesus is the only one there. Can you explain that?

4. What do you say to a Christian who believes that Jesus died for the forgiveness of their sins but is still afraid of dying?

5. John places Jesus’s cleansing of the temple early in Jesus’s ministry while Matthew says that the event happened near the end of his ministry. How do we answer people who think that this is a contradiction?