DailyCelestialChallange:Monday-darkness
The word vice means habit of acting badly. Defect or excess that some people have as a custom, or that is common to a community. Special taste or too much love for one thing, which encourages abuse of it
(1 Peter 1:15)
And rather, according to the Holy One who called you, make yourselves holy also in all [your] conduct
What most people do not understand is that often a vice or a bad habit is something more than a simple natural reaction that we have inculcated. When you have a certain weakness and you consent to it and give in to it for quite a long time, there are often bad spirits that are causing these habits, and that increase them and try to keep us enslaved to them, and more if they are bad habits and harmful to us or our health, or to our relationship with others.
According to the Word of God, there is no doubt that there are demons who foment certain sins and vices with the intention of destroying us through them. As for example demons of gluttony, demons of alcohol, drugs and tobacco, demons of game, demons of sexual perversions, of homosexuality, etc.
These are some of the most obvious vices, but many do not realize that things like hatred, guilt, resentment, worry, pride, envy, jealousy, self-righteousness, fear, say lies and deceit are also bad habits and vices, and the spiritual forces that bind people to them can be just as intense and destructive as the addiction that drives some irresistibly to play, consume drugs or abuse alcohol.
The first thing to do is to be willing to recognize that a spiritual force is imprisoning you in that vice, and you should want to free yourself to such a point that not only are you willing to confess it to the Lord and cry out asking Him for help, but you have to be willing to confess to others that you need help and prayer to overcome that weakness and bad habit. Because some vices exert so great control over people, even Christians, that they make them practically powerless to fight them on their own.
One of the best ways to protect ourselves is to always be busy serving God and neighbor, doing what is known to be obligation, and at the same time occupying the mind and heart with positive, encouraging, strengthening and uplifting thoughts of His Word, remembering it, memorizing it and constantly quoting it to yourself and even to the Enemy when it attacks you. And "pray without ceasing"
1 Corinthians 10:13
Until now, you have not had temptations that exceed your human strengths. God is faithful, and he will not allow them to be tempted beyond their strength. On the contrary, in the moment of temptation, it will give them the means to get rid of it, and help them to endure it.
We can not eliminate all unhealthy desires and thoughts. Human nature has not changed in the last centuries. Human beings of all times have had to struggle with vices, bad habits and what has been called their "sinful nature. Getting out of addiction is a matter of faith, addiction is, in large part, a spiritual problem, the solution must also be spiritual. Everything is possible only through the grace of God, who produces power, to experience a transformation from the bottom.
1 John 2:16
Because nothing of what there is in the world the bad desires of the body, the greed of the eyes and the arrogance of life comes from the Father but from the world.
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Note: @sirknight started a contest and its daily topics are:
Sunday-light
Monday-darkness
Tuesday - animal kingdom
Wednesday-Structures
Thursday-ForcesNature
Friday-loveBeautyFreedom
Saturday-Agriculture