I read an article today that presented some insightful adages that had to do with overcoming alcoholism, but I immediately could see parallels into overcoming any sinful habit.
One reason I think they apply his because Jesus said, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.” (John 8:34) I think we could say that the New Testament expression for “addiction” is “habitual sinning”.
One of the adages given was this one: Nothing changes if nothing changes.
The author went on to explain that, “If we continue the same patterns of behavior and thinking, how can anything change? … We have to remind ourselves that, if we want to see something change, we have to change something.” — Sobriety Sayings (Kerry Nenn)
So what is the answer to addiction? to habitual sinning? In a word, repentance.
John the Baptist once confronted some religious folks that were coming to be baptized, thereby making it look like they were repenting of their sins. However, he suspected that they were just going through the motions of repentance, so he rebuked them and said, “produce fruit in keeping with repentance.” It was as if he was saying to them, you’re not really changing your mind regarding your behavior unless you produce fruit, unless you actually change your behavior in some way.
I think one way to understand that is this: when we sin and repent, part of our repentance needs to be that we carefully consider what facilitated our being tempted in the first place? And once we figure that out, whatever that behavior is must be cut off, removed, or made difficult to return to.
Only Jesus sets us free from our sins, but I think we could say that true repentance activates his power on our behalf. Jesus helps us build roadblocks to being tempted again in that area because to thwart sin, temptation must be thwarted.

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