Live Blog: 9 Reasons We Struggle With Addictive Sin From Johnny Hunt Men’s Conference

This weekend I will be live blogging from Johnny Hunt’s Men’s Conference.  This has become a must-attend event for me personally as it offers me two days to recharge my leadership batteries coming out of the holiday season.

With over 6,000 men live in attendance and 26 churches viewing in simulcasts around the world, this year’s theme was Battle Ready.  A war is waging, a daily battle for our hearts, our minds and our souls.  Before you swore allegiance to Jesus, the enemy had nothing against you. Now a servant of the King, you are the primary target of an enemy bent on the destruction of you and your family.

Before getting to Pastor Johnny’s challenging insights, if you want last year’s best conference quotes, click HERE and as a free gift for subscribing to this site, you can receive my Ebook 1269 Leadership Quotes: Timeless Truths From 2016’s Top Christian Leadership Conferences.  You will get the Johnny Hunt Men’s Conference sessions along with the ReThink Leadership, Orange and Leadercast Conferences.

The following are 9 Reasons We Struggle With Addictive Sin From The Johnny Hunt Men’s Conference Second Session:

1. What you’ve done to honor us most is not what you give but who you are.
2. It’s not easy when someone has a habit that becomes a stronghold. It’s not easy to break from it.
3. God never intended any of us to go it alone.
4. Either there is a moral absolute or there is not.
5. If you are known for being with Jesus, you are known as a righteous man.
6. Men have become too easy of prey for the enemy.
7. You know the pattern. You fall into some particular sin struggle, and it seems like that sin overtakes you. Nothing you do brings victory. Prayers seem fruitless. Temptation only grows stronger. Battle losses are common.
8. We don’t recognize the reality of spiritual warfare.
9. The devil wants to demoralize you.
10. We face a real enemy who wants to keep us in bondage (Ephesians 6:12). He’s vicious. He’s tenacious. If we don’t recognize this reality, we’re destined for defeat. Do not be ignorant of his desires.
11. On Sunday morning the enemy would like to plant someone to tick me off before I preach.
12. We’re all just one decision from stupid.
13. We love our sin.  Youve embraced something.
14. You can’t pray lying.
15. Pray when you feel like it. And when you don’t, keep praying until you do.
16. That’s hard to admit, but we must be real. We hang on to sin because we get something out of it. Whatever it is may be temporary, but it’s strong enough to draw us back again and again.
17. No one’s taught us how to overcome sin.
18. I’m amazed by how few churches give practical guidance for breaking sin patterns. Our people wrestle every day, but our teaching is often only general (e.g. “You must stop”). We need specific, intentional application of the Word to know how to overcome sin. We need to learn to pray Scripture.
19. Sin is first and foremost an offense to God.
20. We prefer hiddenness over confession.
21. Any sin we cover, God uncovers. Any sin we uncover, God covers.
22. A lie will never trump the truth.
23. Confession is never easy. It’s embarrassing and painful at times. Sometimes it just seems easier to stay in the darkness than it is to confess our wrong to somebody else.
24. You ought to be memorizing Scripture.
25. There’s some riches God gives you that money can’t buy.
26. We have no one to talk to.
27. We’re designed to be relational, but Christians are often notorious “lone rangers.” We don’t have enough strong, deep relationships with folks we trust, so we talk with nobody about our sin.
28. We assume we’re the only one dealing with this sin.
29. Millennials are killing themselves at an unbelievable rate. An epidemic in our nation is suicide. One of the things the enemy does is get you in isolation.
30. God never tempts anyone with evil.
31. The enemy never delivers what he promises.
32. On that day Joseph lost his coat but he retained his character.
33. What seems the best – running with sin or running from sin?
34. We pull away from believers.
35. Sin isolates people. It pulls us away from relationships and accountability. Disconnected believers almost always delve more deeply into their sin.
36. A fool isolates himself.
37. We convince ourselves that our sin “isn’t so bad.”
38. That’s a dangerous step to take, but it’s easy to go there. Any time we weaken the gravity of our sin, we give ourselves permission to continue in it.
39. “This life is just a dress rehearsal for eternity.” – Rick Warren
40. We’ve lost hope of breaking the pattern.
41. Man can go 40 days without water, 4 days without food, 4 minutes without oxygen, but it’s hard to live 4 seconds without hope.
42. After a while, we come to believe that we’ll never find victory over this sin. When we give up on God, we turn from the one hope we have and return to the sin that cannot satisfy. The cycle thus continues.
43. Self-confidence is not enough to sustain the battle with the devil.

Do you know people who struggle with recurrent sin patterns? Who seem to live in continual defeat? Are you that person, even as a church leader? If so, here are some steps to breaking those patterns.

1. Recognize the spiritual warfare element of the struggle.

• I don’t want to assess how much God was using until after it was taken away from me.
• For the sake of illustration, imagine a “sin line” that marks the place where we cross from obedience into disobedience. On one side of that line, the Enemy is the enticer (1 Chronicles 21:1) who seeks to draw us across the line. He makes sin look inviting, exciting, and satisfying, even as he ensnares us with his messages: “Go ahead and do it, nobody will know.” “Look at what you are missing.” “Everybody else is doing it.” So alluring is the sin, and so loud are the messages, that we choose to cross the line.
• Then, the Enemy changes this approach. The enticer on one side of the line becomes the accuser (Revelation 12:10) on the other. Here’s what it sounds like before and after the sin line, when the encouragements to sin become taunts of accusation:

Enticer

“Go ahead and sin; God will still love you”

“Just one more time, and you can stop.”

“Don’t worry; God will forgive you.”

“You deserve this. Don’t miss it!”

Accuser

“God will never love you again.”

“You’ll never overcome this sin.”

“God won’t forgive you this time.”

“You’re just a loser.”

• You have to be repentant and broken to be forgiven by God.
• God redeemed you and He even knew your future.
• God chastens in order to correct. God rebukes in order to restore.
• The process is clear. The Enemy dangles the lures in front of us, and we take the bait. Then, in a demonic twist, he turns on us and beats us up with accusations. When we accept his charges as truth, our resolve to fight future temptations is weakened. We accept lies as truth and fall even more into sin that cannot satisfy.
• If that’s where you are, know that the Enemy doesn’t have to win.
• Sin thrills and kills. Sin fascinates and assassinates.

2. Be honest with somebody about your struggles.

• I know that’s a risky step, but we don’t overcome sin patterns when we fight the battles alone.
• God has designed the church in such a way that we can lean on each other for help. Ask God to direct you to someone with whom you can confess your struggle (James 5:16).
• Trust that godly love, restoration, and forgiveness will trump the power of sin (Galatians 6:1).
• There is no sin anyone in this room that’s been committed that every man in the room is not capable of committing.

3. With the help of others, focus on the glory of Christ.

• You need to weigh your sin against something. Measure it against the glory of Christ.
• When we’re caught in a sin pattern, we keep drinking from the well of sin while thinking that our choices will somehow bring fulfillment-only to discover that sin leaves us thirstier in the long run.
• Satan dangles a sin in front of you and tries to get you to believe you can’t live without it. As a Christian, the truth is you can’t live with it.
• Lawlessness leads to lawlessness.

4. Repent, and rejoice in small victories.

• It’s a journey to freedom.
• An unguarded strength is a double-weakness.
• That’s the bottom line, of course. We must turn from our sin, but God gives us His Word, His Spirit, and His people to lead us to victory. And don’t leave one out of that.
• Each time you successfully fight through a temptation, take time to praise the Lord-and remember that every small win is one step closer to victory.
• For everything He has delivered me from, there’s other things I fought.
• I pray that victory will become real for you today.

We have one session left.  This has been an incredible event!  I hope you have enjoyed the material.

As mentioned above, click HERE or on the image to the left and as a free gift for subscribing to this site, you can receive my new Ebook 1269 Leadership Quotes: Timeless Truths From 2016’s Top Christian Leadership Conferences.  Featured are last year’s Johnny Hunt Mens Conference sessions along with the ReThink Leadership, Orange and Leadercast Conferences.  If applied, these insights will make you an exponentially better leader.  Enjoy!!!