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I did not want to quit smoking. I liked to smoke and felt my smoking wouldn’t change my lifespan since God already knows the day we are born and the day we die. I did not think He was up there deducting time off my life for each cigarette I smoked. Of course, I did believe my quality of life would improve if I quit smoking, but that wasn’t the selling point for me. I asked Rick about quitting smoking because he kept saying the gospel is the answer to everything. I just couldn’t figure out how Jesus dying for my sins and defeating death was an answer to someone trying to give up an addiction like my smoking idol. I asked him to explain this to me, and he did. I do not have the exact words or sketches he drew for me, but I will tell you what struck a chord with me and what I realized since I decided to trust Christ with one of the little things in my life. The most important aspect for me to remember is that I didn’t quit smoking; I decided to live in faith, and God did the rest.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).
If I believe what John said, I should have a response to that verse daily, and that would be my faith expressing itself in my life. Then, I must think of my faith and what that looks like. I go to church meetings, read my Bible, pray, attend care groups, and have fellowship with believers, on and on and on. These disciplines are all me doing things and living in my little Christian box, but where am I growing? I am growing in knowledge and truth, but where is the evidence of my faith manifested in my life? If we are to grow in faith, we need to step out of our boxes; that is where we see the evidence of faith, grace, mercy, and the Holy Spirit dwelling in us and manifesting in our lives. Remember, God always goes before us, and sometimes, He takes us to places outside our daily boxes because He loves us.
God’s mysterious and painful work may be the loss of a job, the loss of a loved one, moving to a new state, a troubled teen, facing the fact we have an idol, etc. As far as idols go, it may be that doctor telling you your blood sugar is high, the feeling of being run down all the time, a cough that won’t go away. You could have to spend money on new clothes, but your old ones are perfectly fine; they just don’t fit anymore. Suffering is the place that puts feet on our stagnant faith as God places us outside our neat little boxes and asks, “Am I still God when you are out there? Do I still love you when you’re out there? Do you still trust in the gospel when you’re out there?” At that point, we have to preach the gospel to ourselves and believe in Him again, even though it isn’t under our control.
We then must keep walking towards the cross, following Him as He goes before us. Each time He takes us outside our box, and we trust in Him fully, our box gets bigger (our faith increases), and our praise grows as our testimony for Him grows. All the glory belongs to Him! Realizing I had been growing in knowledge and truth for many years by receiving the gospel made me realize God was equipping me for this stepping out of the box, and I was immediately amazed by His kindness. At that point, I had not even decided to give my cigarettes to Christ, but I had to examine my motives for giving them to Him. I would have to trust Him daily and walk closely with Him physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I would have to put all my weight on Him. Our confidence in Him has to be exactly that: our trust in Him!
For me, especially giving smoking over to Him was the hardest part as I sat on my knees, face on the ground in my bathroom for over two hours, crying like an infant, talking with God. My conversation was like this: “I know you are who you say you are, and I know I can trust you. I know you will take this from me, and I won’t have to worry about it, but I have to be the one to give it to you, and this is the part I am struggling with the most. I have to choose between trusting in you and trusting in my idol. To trust in you means I must relinquish my idol to you today by trusting in you, and then I have to choose to trust in you daily to sustain me.”
As I was having this conversation with God, it became apparent by giving God this idol, I was living out the gospel. Therefore, the gospel is the answer to everything. After I had put the burden of my idol on Him, my responsibility of trusting Him daily was light. BAM!! There you go, the gospel once again!! Since that first day, I have realized that Christ freed me from a false god. What was I thinking? I would get stressed, bored, anxious, etc., bow to my idol (smoke a cigarette), and then feel okay as if I accomplished something. No, Christ’s work on the cross is the only true life-sustaining accomplishment! I hope this helps you! I will pray for His accomplishment through you.
1: Praise God
You like smoking. It’s your habit, but you know it’s an addiction because you won’t walk away from it. Smoking controls you. You also love Jesus, but you’re unsure how to connect the gospel to your smoking habit. Where do you begin? How do you kick the habit? You first want to praise God for moving your heart to kick the habit. Whenever a person wants to change, it is a reason to praise God for the desire because it’s evidence of His favor in their lives. The addicted Christian does not have to despair—only people without the gospel despair. Christians have the answer to the problems of life. As you praise God, you also want to address the idolatry in your heart practically. Idolatry is a vandalism of the heart that marginalizes the gospel. You don’t want to vandalize your heart. Therefore, your goal is to elevate the gospel to the most prominent place in your life.
2: Preach the Gospel
Rose talked about connecting the gospel to her smoking addiction. What did she mean? How do you do that? “Preaching the gospel to yourself” is not a Christianized version of self-talk. Preaching the gospel to yourself is bringing your thoughts to the obedience of Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5). Preaching the gospel to yourself is an intentional focus on Christ rather than thinking about yourself or your temptations. The gospel is Christ; thus, preaching the gospel to yourself is similar to preaching Christ to yourself. As you preach Christ to yourself, you explicitly and theologically instruct yourself about what Christ did to take all your sins and give you His alien righteousness. The gospel is not magic or formulaic. Neither is it like waving a wand over your soul. It is active and intentional obedience to God. It is the opposite of addiction, which is obedience to yourself.
3: Power of the Gospel
Do you believe there is power in the gospel (Romans 1:16)? Do you understand the power of the gospel that regenerated you can also sanctify you? Do not move too quickly here. Think about it. I am not talking about a cliche or Christian-speak. There are times when you experience acute temptation that is real and dominating. Your gospel must be more than nominalism. I’m talking about “gospel-grunt-work” that empowers you in proportion to your cooperation with the Lord through the change process. You cannot live a non-gospel-centered life and expect there to be gospel-centered power to get over the humps of acute temptation. That is presumption (Psalm 19:13). People do this when the plane goes down; they reach out to God in a crisis.
Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure (Philippians 2:12-13).
4: What Is Wrong?
But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death (James 1:14-15).
All fallen people are in crisis every second of the day, so you want to activate the power of the gospel every second of your life. The biggest problem we have is in our hearts, not our behaviors. Whatever may be between our fingers is behavioral, but we will find the cure elsewhere. This sinful desire of our hearts is the same as any external behavioral addiction. Smoking, eating too many Happy Meals, ongoing excessive shopping, or TV binge-watching have one thing in common: the original cause came from the heart. Because smoking has bad optics, too many folks tend to focus on the appearance of tobacco rather than the cause of smoking. Christians are susceptible to condemning smokers, which is ironic since we all have a similar kind of active worldliness in our hearts. The only difference is that our heart idols manifest in socially acceptable ways.
An example of this is the overweight person. The smoker is sabotaging his lungs, while the overeater is sabotaging his heart. There should not be a debate between smokey lungs and clogged arteries. If the choices are between smoking or eating too much, I think I would rather light up than be overweight, though neither option is wise. What is wrong with the smoker is his motive for smoking. His habit gives him something he wants. If he wants to change, he must discern and disarm this desire. Not addressing the heart motive is why modifying the behavior has a low success rate. Rose said it this way:
Since that first day, I have realized that Christ freed me from a false god. What was I thinking? I would get stressed, bored, anxious, etc., bow to my idol (smoke a cigarette), and then feel okay as if I accomplished something. No, Christ’s work on the cross is the only true life-sustaining accomplishment!
First, she had to address her wrong motives. If she did not eliminate those causes, she would light up when stress, boredom, or anxiousness returned. Let’s say she quit smoking but did not repent of her heart’s ruling motives. The smoking behavior does stop, but she is still an idolator. Because she is an idolator, she will find another way to comfort her troubled soul when difficulty comes, probably swapping one idol for the next. Perhaps she gains weight in response to stopping smoking. She did not change at the fundamental core of her being. The idolater continues to worship something other than God. So, what happened here? She switched idols: smoking to overeating.
5: Repent Rightly
If you believe smoking is a sin, you need to repent of it, which means getting to the real issue if you want to change. You need to dig deeper. You have to identify, isolate, and repent of the right things, the things that led to smoking cigarettes. If you get the heart idolatry piece right, there will be proper motivation, hope, faith, encouragement, excitement, and eventual freedom. Here are a few examples of possible heart motivations of the addicted person. Perhaps some of these things are triggers for you. Maybe you can add other things to your list. You’ll notice these are not exclusive to the addicted smoker.
| Self-reliance | Fear | Unbelief |
| Comfort | Anger | Criticalness |
| Envy | Unforgiveness | Laziness |
| Unhappiness | Jealousy | Bitterness |
| Self-righteous | Ignornace | Discontent |
All of these conditions in the heart represent reasons for smoking (or whatever your addiction may be). All addicted people find some of these things hanging out in their hearts. Smoking masks these underlying idols. I appeal to you to critically assess yourself to see what idols are lurking in your heart. It would help to have an open dialogue with someone who knows you. Overcoming an addiction alone is nearly impossible.
6: Motivate with Kindness
Condemnation is the worst thing you can do for an addicted person. Self-righteous attitudes toward fallen soldiers are ludicrous. Everybody is addicted to something. Being shocked when someone fails is a misunderstanding of the human condition. If you want to help him, encourage him. Paul said the kindness of God leads to change. God’s kind favor to you resulted in your repentance. If you want to help an addicted person change, show God’s kindness to him. Model the gospel by encouraging him. You can also show kindness by praying with him—not just for him, but with him. Another way to demonstrate compassion is by your patience (1 Thessalonians 5:14). The addicted person will likely fail, and you will be disappointed. Paul said to keep an eye on yourself as you help the caught person (Galatians 6:2). Give him a shoulder to cry on and an ear that listens.
The Lord models the gospel to you in these ways: He is kind, encourages, and intercedes. He also sympathizes and listens when you speak. One of the best gifts you can give the addicted is your imitation of Christ. “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children” (Ephesians 5:1).
7: It Takes a Community
Sin festers and grows in a dark and silent world. To overcome the ever-present pull to be drawn into it, you must walk in the light while talking about the light. One way to do this is by letting others know what God is doing in your life. It takes a community. There are three good reasons to let others know about your struggle and your need for their help:
You must tell your friends what is happening and what you are doing about it. These friends must not be people-pleasers. They must be grace-empowered, God-honoring, neighbor-loving, truth-tellers. Real friends should be compassionately critical during this season of your life.
Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy (Proverbs 27:6).
8: Change of Plans
Talk to your friends about all the ways some people and situations have been sources of temptation to smoke. Get specific. Examine your life.
Repentance means to “go the other way.” This concept of turning around could be broad in its sweep and cause hurt feelings. Change is often painful, but the growth that will accompany repentance is worth the pain of change.
9: Love God and Neighbor
Sin is doggedly self-focused. It will turn on you to devour you (1 Peter 5:8). Love, on the other hand, is always other-focused. Sin leaves you wanting, but love satisfies. Sin eats at you until nothing is left but a shell, while love fills you to the brim (Psalm 23:5). You want to replace your bad habit of self-centeredness with the proper biblical habit of other-centeredness. Stop making it all about you. Paul talked about putting off and putting on (Ephesians 4:22-24). It’s time to put off your self-centered lifestyle and put on a God-centered one. Practically serving others is an excellent, gospel-centered idea. It is the opposite of what an addicted person does. It is impossible to quit smoking and not fill your heart or time with other things. God created you to worship from the heart while manifesting that worship to His world. Something will always rule your heart and your behaviors. The Creator created you to worship Him and love others (Matthew 22:36-40). The gospel is the perfect picture of what that looks like in a fallen world. How can you spread the fame of God by actively serving others in your community? Ask God to give you ideas.
10: Pray Without Ceasing
Rose said she fell on her knees and cried like a baby. Her example is the best way to describe what your life must resemble. It’s a praying life. I cannot overstate this. You will have to live on your knees. As you pray, enlist others to pray for you. Bombard the throne of God with relentless petitions for merciful grace. There is grace for the humble, and He loves lavishing His children with much of it (James 4:6). Here is the good news: If you are considering quitting smoking, you have correctly positioned yourself for God’s other-worldly favor to come to you.
Rick launched the Life Over Coffee global training network in 2008 to bring hope and help for you and others by creating resources that spark conversations for transformation. His primary responsibilities are resource creation and leadership development, which he does through speaking, writing, podcasting, and educating.
In 1990 he earned a BA in Theology and, in 1991, a BS in Education. In 1993, he received his ordination into Christian ministry, and in 2000 he graduated with an MA in Counseling from The Master’s University. In 2006 he was recognized as a Fellow of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC).
