How can I break my Sinful Habits?

First of all it is important to take responsibility for the temptation you are under. It’s not that it’s your fault, it’s rather that you are the only person who can resist the temptation – there is no one who can do it for you. God will not give us any temptation than what is common for people to withstand (see I Corinthians 10), but the responsibility is ours to withstand it.

If you are a Christian, it is helpful to remember that although the devil might tempt us, he has already been defeated by Jesus, and there will shortly come a time when the devil will be bound and ineffective. Naturally, all temptation does not come from the devil, but we are constantly being tempted by the things around us in the world, and all by the wayward nature of being a human.

Having sinful habits is something we can beat. God will give us the strength if we ask for it – although it might still be a struggle. To obtain this strength, we need to ask for it, and to ask for it, we need to want to escape these unhelpful habits. This is the most important thing. The thing to remember here, is that beating habitual sin starts with us – first we need to take responsibility – we can’t escape the sin if we refuse to accept that we ourselves need to do something about it. Blaming other people is not going to help. When we realise that we are the only ones to be able to beat the habit, we need to ask God for forgiveness for the sins of our past, and ask for his strength to avoid giving in to temptation in the future. With God’s help we can be free to live as Christ intended, free from the bondage of habitual sin.