OCD and Cigarettes

Hopeful37 · Mar 20, 2020

Hi all. I suspect I have ocd. Therapy is not really a viable option for me right now. It started when i thought I committed the unpardonable sin and since then it's been making me feel like I'm a terrible person. A reprobate. I usually try my best to be a genuine, friendly person but I sinned really badly against God and now I have ocd, depression and anxiety. I cry at times but sometimes i feel like i cant cry. Im just depressed and sad. Since I've been doing a bit of reading on the matter of ocd, I think had mild ocd for years and didn't know it. It just came on in full after that terrible sin. I know cigarette smoking is not good. I've been smoking for years and I'm not bragging about this. Based on the little research I did on ocd it's definitely not good for that either. Can those reading this post say a prayer for me and my situation with my Ocd and cigarettes. I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks all.

Tania11 · Mar 20, 2020

Yes, I know how you feel. I'm in the same boat. I strongly feel some of my thoughts are my own. But all I can do is follow God.

This has helped me:

Repentance is a spiritual gift. (See Acts 5:31, Acts 11:18, and 2 Timothy 2:25)
If you feel remorse for your sins and a desire to change, you are obviously not disconnected from the Holy Spirit; and if you are not disconnected, you cannot possibly have committed the unforgivable sin.

Hopeful37 · Mar 20, 2020

I offended God and for this I am sincerely sorry. I want to change. I want a heart that would seek Him in love, in devotion, in repentance, in righteousness, in Holiness. His Righteousness and His Holiness. Not my own. I wanna quit smoking. I keep making excuses I'm stressed and I do feel stressed out alot because of what has happened

Aussie Pete · Mar 20, 2020

Hopeful37 said:
Hi all. I suspect I have ocd. Therapy is not really a viable option for me right now. It started when i thought I committed the unpardonable sin and since then it's been making me feel like I'm a terrible person. A reprobate. I usually try my best to be a genuine, friendly person but I sinned really badly against God and now I have ocd, depression and anxiety. I cry at times but sometimes i feel like i cant cry. Im just depressed and sad. Since I've been doing a bit of reading on the matter of ocd, I think had mild ocd for years and didn't know it. It just came on in full after that terrible sin. I know cigarette smoking is not good. I've been smoking for years and I'm not bragging about this. Based on the little research I did on ocd it's definitely not good for that either. Can those reading this post say a prayer for me and my situation with my Ocd and cigarettes. I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks all.

Read this article. It's exactly for people suffering as you are. The guy who wrote it was a smoker at the time. God set him free a little while later. Are you under condemnation? - Christian Life Frankston

Hopeful37 · Mar 20, 2020

Aussie Pete said:
Read this article. It's exactly for people suffering as you are. The guy who wrote it was a smoker at the time. God set him free a little while later. Are you under condemnation? - Christian Life Frankston

Thanks Aussie!

friend of · Mar 20, 2020

In the same boat as you. Love you! Be strong!

faroukfarouk · Mar 21, 2020

@Hopeful37 Hi; if you can quit cigarettes, fine, but it's the inward and spiritual that is what the Christian life is basically all about: "righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost" (Romans 14.17).

Hopeful37 · Mar 21, 2020

faroukfarouk said:
@Hopeful37 Hi; if you can quit cigarettes, fine, but it's the inward and spiritual that is what the Christian life is basically all about: "righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost" (Romans 14.17).

Thanks Farouk.

faroukfarouk · Mar 21, 2020

Hopeful37 said:
Thanks Farouk.

YW. Ideas about smoking have lurched from one fashionable position to another; before the American Civil War, it was apparently customary for women to smoke after church services in some areas and was even sometimes considered rude not to join in. Then in the Progressive Era after the Civil War it became increasingly taboo for women to smoke to the extent at before World War One a woman was even arrested in New York City for smoking while in the street. Then the situation lurched wildly in the other direction during and after World War One, with huge numbers of cigarettes being mailed by women's groups to soldiers overseas, and after World War One it became extremely widespread for women to smoke, with some manufacturers even holding classes specifically to teach women how to smoke; but meanwhile Fundamentalists, with their cultural perceptions rooted in the Progressive Era made cigarettes a taboo, even though great preachers such as Spurgeon some decades previously used to smoke without embarrassment. Then Californian municipalities decided to start imposing draconian fines on smokers, etc., etc. Seems that things lurch back and forth.

If ppl can quit, fine. But Christian doctrine Scripture is about something else entirely.

Hopeful37 · Mar 21, 2020

faroukfarouk said:
YW. Ideas about smoking have lurched from one fashionable position to another; before the American Civil War, it was apparently customary for women to smoke after church services in some areas and was even sometimes considered rude not to join in. Then in the Progressive Era after the Civil War it became increasingly taboo for women to smoke to the extent at before World War One a woman was even arrested in New York City for smoking while in the street. Then the situation lurched wildly in the other direction during and after World War One, with huge numbers of cigarettes being mailed by women's groups to soldiers overseas, and after World War One it became extremely widespread for women to smoke, with some manufacturers even holding classes specifically to teach women how to smoke; but meanwhile Fundamentalists, with their cultural perceptions rooted in the Progressive Era made cigarettes a taboo, even though great preachers such as Spurgeon some decades previously used to smoke without embarrassment. Then Californian municipalities decided to start imposing draconian fines on smokers, etc., etc. Seems that things lurch back and forth.

If ppl can quit, fine. But Christian doctrine Scripture is about something else entirely.

Farouk, I appreciate the feedback. Its not so much that I think smokers are less Christian. I made a promise to God a good few years ago and I would like to keep it. Also, it's not healthy. Just like eating two boxes of cookies is not healthy. Its more keeping my promise.

faroukfarouk · Mar 21, 2020

Hopeful37 said:
Farouk, I appreciate the feedback. Its not so much that I think smokers are less Christian. I made a promise to God a good few years ago and I would like to keep it. Also, it's not healthy. Just like eating two boxes of cookies is not healthy. Its more keeping my promise.

Sometimes - for example - cutting down gradually can work - like 5 per day for one week, then the next week, some days 5, some days 4, then the next day, 4 every day all week, etc. (If for example this is the general direction in which you might like to go.)

I do get the impression that in the UK a lot of Christians would be maybe a bit more free from the 'taboo mentality' that some North American Fundamentalists seem to have.

faroukfarouk · Mar 21, 2020

friend of said:
In the same boat as you. Love you! Be strong!

Hope that you can quit, but I don't think ppl need to beat themselves up about it.

faroukfarouk · Apr 8, 2020

@Hopeful37 So how are you doing? Romans 8 is another very encouraging chapter for the believer; its end verses are amazing, read in faith. Paul's language is so strong and assuring, that, when read in faith, it gives enormous confidence, by God's grace.

As for smoking, well, quit if you can, but don't beat yourself up. While there are certainly health benefits to quitting, yet a lot of the stuff around smoking is as much about subjective cultural taboos as it is about health. (After all, Spurgeon smoked.) I guess in some ways it's a bit like tattoos: years ago few women got them, maybe because of a perceived taboo, but now that has changed enormously. So all the best cutting down, even quitting cigarettes, but don't waste time agonizing to little profit about it.

Hopeful37 · Apr 8, 2020

faroukfarouk said:
@Hopeful37 So how are you doing? Romans 8 is another very encouraging chapter for the believer; its end verses are amazing, read in faith. Paul's language is so strong and assuring, that, when read in faith, it gives enormous confidence, by God's grace.

As for smoking, well, quit if you can, but don't beat yourself up. While there are certainly health benefits to quitting, yet a lot of the stuff around smoking is as much about subjective cultural taboos as it is about health. (After all, Spurgeon smoked.) I guess in some ways it's a bit like tattoos: years ago few women got them, maybe because of a perceived taboo, but now that has changed enormously. So all the best cutting down, even quitting cigarettes, but don't waste time agonizing to little profit about it.

Although Spurgeon was a great man of God and smoked, I wanna quit. I believe the Lord wants this from me. I wanna be better for Him.

faroukfarouk · Apr 8, 2020

Hopeful37 said:
I want a heart that would seek Him in love, in devotion, in repentance, in righteousness, in Holiness. His Righteousness and His Holiness.

@Hopeful37 Great sentiment indeed; but good to remember the Lord Jesus's words:

"Then the Pharisees and scribes asked him, Why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashen hands?
He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do.
And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition. ...
There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man."

(Mark 7.5-9)

In other words, real holiness (not just 'Holiness' traditions and religious rhetoric) is inward and spiritual, and it's what comes out of the person - from a sinful heart - that defiles, and it's the assurance of the righteousness of God which is received by faith in the work of Christ (Romans 3) that is truly precious to the believer separated to God.

So all the best quitting if you can, but it's absolutely not the believer's main focus for spiritual life in Christ, as the Scriptures are read prayerfully.

Hopeful37 · Apr 8, 2020

faroukfarouk said:
In other words, real holiness (not just 'Holiness' traditions and religious rhetoric) is inward and spiritual, and it's what comes out of the person - from a sinful heart - that defiles, and it's the assurance of the righteousness of God which is received by faith in the work of Christ (Romans 3) that is truly precious to the believer separated to God.

Care to elaborate on this a bit more? I know it's not by works but sometimes because of what I'm experiencing I'm kinda at a loss with all this because Christ said if u love Him, obey His commands. I know not smoking is not a commandment but aren't we supposed to be ambassadors for Christ? Living examples?

faroukfarouk · Apr 8, 2020

Hopeful37 said:
Care to elaborate on this a bit more? I know it's not by works but sometimes because of what I'm experiencing I'm kinda at a loss with all this because Christ said if u love Him, obey His commands. I know not smoking is not a commandment but aren't we supposed to be ambassadors for Christ? Living examples?

@Hopeful37 The Pharisees were unrighteous at heart, but they had a veneer of religion and so called holiness. The Lord Jesus called for His true followers to be assured of heart matters and truth and doctrine instead.

Among religious people there is a lot of what amounts to Medieval-style mysticism and 'holiness' talk ("If only I didn't do this...", "if only she didn't wear such and such...", "if only this...", etc. ...a little like the mindset of single-issue campaigners for whom, whatever the issue is, it sometimes becomes a frenzied end in itself). This does not get to the heart matter, and is no substitute to the peace with God (Romans 5.1) which comes from resting in faith in the finished work of Christ.

When I see campaigners in the street clamoring for something or other (often being manipulated by politicians with their own, less obvious agendas), it makes me think of Medieval 'holiness' rhetoric which can be turned on and off like a faucet, but does not remotely deal with truth and doctrine issues in a Biblical and balanced way.

150 years ago it did not particularly use to be a taboo for women to smoke. Then in the late 19th century it was a taboo. Then after World War One — to say the least — it wasn't any more (except for ppl in the Fundamentalist culture, who just assumed it had to get its taboos from the late 19th century rather than the mid-19th century.)

For all the talk of taboos or non-taboos, it all has little to do with issues of truth and doctrine from the Bible.

Yes, it's good to be an example to others. We may remember also that unfortunately in the culture of fundamentalism there is sometimes a regrettably strong stream of busybodying in other men's matters (1 Peter 4.15), which has little or nothing to do with truth and doctrine from the Scriptures.

Hopeful37 · Apr 8, 2020

I've been concerned with the "Depart from Me" scripture lately. The road is narrow according to the Bible and salvation is not by works. I'm still figuring it out.

faroukfarouk · Apr 8, 2020

Hopeful37 said:
I've been concerned with the "Depart from Me" scripture lately. The road is narrow according to the Bible and salvation is not by works. I'm still figuring it out.

Narrow indeed from a moral and spiritual perspective as the Lord through Scripture defines it.

Not driven by subjective cultural considerations or taboos, etc.

faroukfarouk · Apr 8, 2020

PS: The Parable of the Sower is an excellent illustration of the good seed of God's Word becoming deeply rooted in good ground; those with no root may be said never truly to have known the Lord, even though they might have professed enthusiastically for a limited time.

You can see now that the topic is getting way off that of your cigarettes, which are really merely one corner of a big kaleidoscope, so to speak.

OCD and Cigarettes

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