Page 91 - Overcoming Addiction

We are not fighting against a physical enemy. We are waging war against
passions and desires and thoughts. Our weapons are those that will enable us to
destroy every thought that rises up against the obedience of Christ.

Ephesians 6:10-18
Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might. Put on the
full armor of God, that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of
the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the
rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against
the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up
the full armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and
having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm therefore, having girded
your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness,
and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; in
addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to
extinguish all the flaming missiles of the evil one. And take the helmet of
salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. With all
prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit...

We will look at the weapons of our warfare in more detail in a later chapter.
For now we want to make the point that God will not deliver you from addiction
without you having to practice warfare. It is vain for a Believer to constantly ask
God to remove the desire, or evil passion from their flesh. He wants you to cast it
down. He wants you to destroy it, and He has given you everything necessary to
face this enemy and prevail.
Satan will seek to tempt us to sin, and he will suggest thoughts to us that are
contrary to the will of God. There have been times when some impure thought
would enter my mind and I would cast it down only to have it appear again. At
times this warfare would last for hours. In this way Satan seeks to probe for
weakness. He wants to see if our commitment to obeying God has limits. God also
wants to reveal the same thing, so He allows Satan to attack us. We must
remember that God has promised to always set a limit to the trial that we might be
able to overcome, but we will be pressed severely at times. The Scriptures declare:

James 4:7
Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

This is a promise. If we resist the devil he will flee. However, there is no word
here that indicates how long we must resist before he will flee. I have learned that
Satan hates to be defeated. When he has determined that we are not going to give
in to his attacks, he will cease attacking us in a particular area. If he has any doubt,
and he believes he might win, he will continue to press us relentlessly. The best
thing we can do is to determine to never give the enemy any hope of victory. When
he sees our commitment to obey God, he will tire of attacking us.
In college I took a psychology course and we studied operant conditioning.
Tests were done on rats to study their behavior. It was discovered that if a rat
pushed a button and received food from it, they would always come back to that