Plan Out Your Strategy — AVOID TEMPTATION
Realize before you begin that giving up cigarettes may be a major project, for you. Depending on the extent of your habit, it may require firmness of determination and tremendous personal effort!
But the reward is certainly worth it.
Therefore, face up to the fact that at first, when you quit, there will probably be more nervousness, tension, and a craving for tobacco. Face the fact that smoking has had a deathlike hold on you, and to overcome it will take time, effort, and a certain amount of suffering. But realize that YOU CAN DO IT! And the final result is WORTH IT for you!
Always keep your goal in mind. Never let it grow hazy, or disappear from your view. KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE GOAL!
When do you usually smoke? Face these particular times of temptation by AVOIDING THEM as much as possible. Don't foolishly put yourself in a situation when you might compromise with your goal, where friends or relatives might persuade you to give in "just once." Chances are, if you do you will be HOOKED once again, right back where you started! So don't take a chance on it.
It may be tough sledding for a while, but with help there is no doubt — YOU CAN DO IT!
Don't deceive yourself with a "tough guy" approach and proclaim you're going to quit, but still carry a pack with you — it won't work that way! Throw away all cigarettes you have — and if you buy more, throw them away the first time you get back strength to do so. Flee cigarettes! Keep away from them, and keep them away from you!
You must realize from the start that one of the hurdles you must cope with is our smoking society — your environment. Cigarettes are advertised everywhere, and your friends and relatives probably smoke. Prepare your mind to face this difficulty squarely. Don't give up to outside pressures. Determine within yourself that NOTHING - no, not anything — will deter you from the path you have set!
As you proceed, you might reinforce your behavior by giving yourself little rewards along the way. This might help make the pathway somewhat easier for you.
Also, smoking substitutes (fruit, raisins, chewing gum, or such things) might help you a little and get your mind off cigarettes. Fruit would be a good substitute. These things, however, do NOT take the place of your own willpower and sheer personal MOTIVATION to overcome smoking. They are merely stop-gap measures which may provide a little help along the way.
Stop COMPLETELY
Some have found, too, that deep breathing and exercise helps overcome smoking, by getting the mind off the temptation and onto something more worthwhile.
The basic key to remember, however, is simply this: When you quit, quit completely. Stop all smoking. Use the "cold turkey" method. Tapering off almost never works!
The "tapering-off method" only spreads the agony of withdrawal over a long period of time. As one man put it, "Tapering down is about as humane as cutting a dog's tail off by inches so it won't hurt so much." Some few may quit smoking successfully by "tapering off." We cannot recommend this method, however. It is too risky — and doesn't work for most people!
Should a CHRISTIAN Smoke?
All the facts show plainly that NOBODY ought to smoke, for the simple reason it is proven hazardous to health. But for the Christian, there is additional incentive NOT to smoke!
If you are a Christian, or want to please the Creator God and do what is right in His eyes, then you should not smoke for one very simple reason -SMOKING is against God's will. It is contrary to His divine LAW ordained for our welfare!
How so?
Nowhere does the Bible say "Thou shalt not smoke" in so many words. But it does say, "Thou shalt not KILL"! And smoking virtually amounts to committing slow suicide! It means subjecting your body to all kinds of pain, punishment and pollution. It means extending an open invitation to lung cancer or some other fatal disease.
God says, "Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If any man DEFILE [margin, destroy] the temple of God, him shall GOD destroy; for the temple of God is tioly, which temple you are" (I Cor. 3:16-17).
That is plain language. Smoking defiles and pollutes the human body — the temple of God's Spirit. Therefore, if a person smokes, He comes under God's judgment — he is courting God's anger!
Smoking, to put it in Biblical language, is a SIN! But what is "sin" ? In I John 3:4 we read the definition: "For SIN is the transgression of the law." Whatever breaks God's Law, therefore, is SIN. Does smoking break the law of God?
The law of God says, "Thou shalt not COVET" — or, "Thou shalt not LUST." Coveting, or lusting for anything, including cigarettes, violates the law of God and constitutes SIN.
The apostle James wrote under inspiration, "Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin" (James 4:17).
You KNOW that smoking is harmful. You KNOW that it would be good NOT to smoke. You KNOW that smoking defiles and pollutes the human body, the temple of God's Spirit. You KNOW that smokers covet or lust after that little tiny weed called a cigarette!
You KNOW, therefore, that if you smoke you are breaking God's holy, inviolable, immutable, inexorable LAW!
If you want to please your Creator, and do what is GOOD for YOU and what is also right in His sight, you must not smoke!
Jesus said we are to live by EVERY WORD OF GOD (Matt. 4:4). The apostle Peter says we are to be OBEDIENT children, not fashioning ourselves according to the former LUSTS (I Peter 1:14). Therefore, if you desire to receive God's blessings, and enter into His coming Kingdom, you must not smoke!
God says, "For ye are bought with a price: therefore GLORIFY GOD in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's" (I Cor. 6:20). Does it glorify God — honor our Creator who gives us every breath of clean air we breathe — if we pollute our bodies, ruin our health, court lung cancer, and lust for self-gratification by smoking a drug called tobacco?
What about it? "Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or WHATSOEVER ye do, DO ALL to the glory of God" (I Cor. 10:31).
Far from glorifying God, the use of tobacco in any form HARMS the body, and is offensive, not pleasing, to others around you.
Smokers are those who love themselves MORE than the Creator God or His Word (II Tim. 3:2-4). Paul warns, "For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, NOR COVETOUS MAN, who is an IDOLATER, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God" (Eph. 5:5). When you get right down to it, smoking becomes an act of IDOLATRY — putting a weed before the True GOD!
Moses, a man of God, forsook the "pleasures of sin for a season" — the temporary pleasures of this world, of which smoking is one — that he might obtain the everlasting, truly satisfying
HAPPINESS which comes from obeying God (Heb. 11:25). Those who seek the temporary sensual pleasures, however, will howl for the miseries they reap (James 5:1-5).
Christians are commanded by God to Come OUT of the sensual pleasures and lusts of this world (Rev. 18:4) — to become HOLY, as God is holy (I Peter 1:15-16). Christians are no longer to live according to the lusts of men, but to the will of God (I Peter 4:1-5). Think about that. Smoking becomes a SPIRITUAL SIN — a sin against character, as well as a physical sin against the health of the human body. It becomes a matter of IDOLATRY, as well as a matter of physical health!
Does this mean Christians are not to enjoy life? Of course not. Christ came to bring us life MORE ABUNDANTLY (John 10:10). He intends for us to be truly happy, radiating with joy. He wants us to have the right kind of pleasures which are GOOD for us! Smoking, however, obviously is not one of them!
A Christian has a tremendous MOTIVATION to quit smoking, if he has picked up this dirty habit. He also has God's PROMISE to help him conquer the habit because God has decreed that "SIN SHALL NOT HAVE DOMINION OVER YOU" (Rom. 6:14). No sin can "lord it over" you, regardless of what it may be, because God extends a promise to all who really WANT to quit smoking!
"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to CLEANSE us from all unrighteousness" (I John 1:9).
GOD HAS OBLIGATED HIMSELF TO CLEANSE US FROM SMOKING, when we repent, acknowledge our sin, and CALL on HIM for the extra help we need!
Therefore, YOU CAN QUIT!
But remember, once God HAS intervened for you, and you have succeeded in rooting out the sin of smoking, don't ever turn to it again! If you do, it will become MUCH MORE DIFFICULT to quit the next time — or the next, and the next! "For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning" (II Peter 2:20).
May God grant YOU will take action, and obey . . . he laws which He has given for our GOOD!
Join the "QUITTERS"
Many have successfully quit smoking. A man from Philadelphia wrote us, "Two and a half years ago, with the help of the Eternal, I quit smoking . . . Truly God's ways are best. Take it from one who is smoking none now and enjoying it more!"
A woman from Baltimore wrote, "I didn't believe you when you said 'you can quit smoking,' but I've proved it's true. I quit a month ago, thanks to hearing you talk about it. I smoked for 15 years."
A man from North Carolina, in the heart of the tobacco belt, writes: "For forty-one years, I have known nothing but tobacco. I raised tobacco, worked tobacco in my neighbor's fields, 'slept' tobacco, 'ate' tobacco, and as a child, 'played' tobacco. I even began smoking at an early age and kept up the habit for twenty-eight years. All this changed for us ten months ago."
This man says he began listening to The WORLD TOMORROW program, and reading The PLAIN TRUTH magazine and other literature we sent to him.
He concludes, "We also began reading and studying our Bible to 'prove' this new doctrine we were hearing. In this study, I proved to myself, from the Bible, that smoking is a sin. On February 20, 1966, I was smoking 40 to 50 cigarettes a day — I gave up smoking, asking God in humble prayer to come in and clean me up. To this day, I have not wanted the first cigarette!"
There is a real witness!
You can have that same Source of spiritual help! God loves you, and He is not pleased if you are ruining your life through smoking. He is much concerned for your health and welfare and doesn't want to see you suffer. He is willing to help YOU overcome smoking, if you turn to Him, and ask Him.
A woman from Odessa, Texas, wrote, "Something wonderful has happened to me. I have been smoking for a number of years. I wanted to quit for some time, but I just never could seem to do it. So I wrote for your article on smoking. After I read that I knew I had to quit. I don't know how many times I read that article. I prayed constantly and on the evening of August 28, God intervened and I knew instantly that this was the help I had been waiting for. I quit smoking and have never even wanted one since. When God says He will cleanse us of our sins, He means just that. I never knew what those words really meant before." These people, with God's divine help, successfully quit smoking. You can too, no matter how much you smoke or for what reasons.
Quit now and start living!