Breaking the Cycle of Slavery to Sin

By Gordon Magee

Very few people in our world actually walk in peace with themselves and God. As the Bible teaches, this is because we not only sin, which hinders our relationship with God, but through our choices we establish patterns or cycles of recurring sin to which we become enslaved. Jesus said, "whoever commits sin is a slave of sin" (John 8:34). "Breaking the Cycle of Slavery to Sin" takes a fresh look at how God would lead us out of such slavery and into a life of peace and freedom in His Son Jesus Christ.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gordon Magee
• Release date: Mar 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301146802

Gordon Magee

My name is Gordon Philip Magee, I am in my mid 50s, married only to Petra who has blessed me with 7 children and by whom we have many grandchildren. I live and work in Sonoma County CA as a Senior Engineering Manager for an equipment design corporation. But it was not always so. Thoroughly lost by age 18 I said yes to the salvation of Jesus, broken completely as a curbside addict by age 20 I understood His calling and began to follow. My first book 'Breaking the Cycle of Slavery to Sin' includes the story of my recovery through His power. My second book 'Seeking God for Daily Living and Destiny' includes the story of what happened over the years as I let the Lord God have His way and write His-Story into my life.

Book preview

Breaking the Cycle of Slavery to Sin

By Gordon P. Magee

Copyright 2012 Gordon P. Magee

Smashwords Edition

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright  1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

(All Scriptures are presented in Italics in this Text.)

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

Dedication

I dedicate this book to Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior, the one who reconciled me to God the Father and has set me free from slavery to Sin. As promised in the Bible, He has been with me always. He is a constant source of encouragement and correction. He has provided His word as a lamp for my feet and a light for my path and has given me of His Spirit to lead me in this life. Thank you Jesus!

I also want to dedicate this book to my wife Petra, whom God has used in marvelous ways in my life. Much of what I learned about love and a heart of compassion for others I learned from her. It has been largely through her patience and love for me, through her ability to stand her ground, that I learned to keep focused on growing in my own maturity. I love you Petra!

For my children, I leave this to you as a legacy, as a record of and reference to many of the things that God has taught me. May it help you to know me better and also shed light on God’s will for your lives. You are all very special and precious to me.

And for every person who is struggling in this life. I pray God’s encouragement on to you and in to you. In the Lord there is hope, read on. You can be free, first on the inside with the Lord and then on the outside among your fellow man.

Acknowledgements

This author benefited greatly from the editorial comments by my mother Goldie Magee and my Daughter in Law Amy Magee who also provided the original cover art.

Look for my next book:

Seeking God for Daily Living and Destiny

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part One Freedom from Eternal Punishment

Chapter One, Lost in this World

Chapter Two, The Gospel

Chapter Three, This is what happened to me

Part Two Freedom from Slavery to Sin

Chapter Four, The Nature of Sin

Chapter Five, Finding the Roots of our Sin

Chapter Six, Breaking Free from Specific Iniquity

Chapter Seven, Cleansing from Past Hurts

Chapter Eight, The First Commandment with a Promise

Chapter Nine, The Forgotten Part of Forgiveness

Chapter Ten, Repentance

Chapter Eleven, Dealing with Guilt

Chapter Twelve, Breaking Strongholds

Chapter Thirteen, Freedom from Sexual Bondage

Chapter Fourteen, Dealing with the Devil

Chapter Fifteen, Controlling Behaviors

Chapter Sixteen, Your Body the Temple of God's Holy Spirit

Part Three Living a Life of Freedom

Chapter Eighteen, Building in the Good

Chapter Nineteen, The Good Fruit of God's Holy Spirit

Chapter Twenty, Learning How to Do Good

Chapter Twenty-One, The Importance of Knowing God

Chapter Twenty-Two, A New Commandment

Chapter Twenty-Three, Spiritual Gifts

Chapter Twenty-Four, Living in Partnership with God

Conclusion

Introduction:

Don’t skip the Introduction!

(Help for everyone who wants to live free.)

This book was originally written for men and women alike who are now in prison or whose slavery to sin is likely to land them back in prison. One of the ministries that God had put me into was cell-to-cell visitation. It was through my time spent talking with and listening to prisoners that God originally directed me to write this book.

At the same time, what the prisoner needs is the same as what every person needs. If you are lost in this world, if you are trapped in a cycle of recurring slavery to sin that keeps messing up your life, if you just haven’t found how to follow the Lord in doing what is right on a regular basis, these words were written for you.

I have been a Christian for more than thirty-six years. I started out as a mess, addicted to Heroin and enslaved to all manner of evil habits and emotional problems. The Lord has led me to salvation and then He has led me through both cleaning up my life and learning to live for Him. He has involved me in many ministries from preaching and teaching the Bible to short term mission trips, Gospel outreaches, and various kinds of service for His kingdom. The things I have written in this book are things which God has worked in me over the years and which I have actually lived.

Within these chapters I will give you some of my own testimony but I want you to understand from the start that these things are not important because of me or because I say so. Rather they are truths based on the testimony of God’s word, the Bible, and what He has taught and done in me through His word and His Holy Spirit over these years of following Him.

Right up front, this book will bring you face to face with your need to do business with God’s Son Jesus Christ. These words are intended to cut right to the heart of the matter.

Part one is all about our need for salvation. If you are lost and your soul is hungry for the truth about yourself and God or if you are just unsure about that prayer for salvation you made some time ago then this is for you.

Part two explores the many areas in which, even after salvation, we can find ourselves in slavery to sin and how God can help you work through and come to freedom from each one of them. His plan for us is that we all grow up into the fullness of His Son Jesus Christ. This is where we work with God to break the hold that repeating or difficult sin has on our lives.

Part three is about living in the freedom of partnership with God. Wherever you go in this world, whether you have to work hard for every penny, or whether you always have plenty, whether your family is around you, or you end up living alone, even through something as hard as a long prison sentence, you will only find freedom and peace as you learn to walk daily with God.

This book is not going to spend time trying to prove that God exists or that the Bible is His word to man. If you have problems with either of these then I challenge you to get brave and start asking God to make Himself known to you and to show you if the Bible is His word. That bravery includes you doing your part of reading the Bible and taking your questions to God each day in prayer. I suggest you start with the New Testament if you are not familiar with the Bible.

All quotations in this book are taken from the New King James Version of the Bible (NKJV). It is a standard, word for word translation, which means that there is an English word for every one of the original language words instead of a translator’s opinion on what the Bible passages mean. You can still find the passages, which I have used, in any other translation by following the reference given. The end of this introduction will quote Acts 4:12 which you can find in any Bible by looking up the book of Acts in the table of contents, then the 4th chapter and 12th verse.

Whatever other practices or religions have been a part of your life, you will have to be the judge of them. God has made a clear path of freedom from slavery to sin through Jesus and here it is. I don’t mean any arrogance but as Acts 4:12 states: there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

Our Focus Verse for the three Parts of this Book is John 14:6

"Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’"

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Part One Freedom from Eternal Punishment

Jesus is the Way!

Back to Top

Chapter One, Lost in this World

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So many of us are just plain lost in this world. If we will admit it this world is a scary place to be. We have not found the way or even any way that seems to really work for us. Often we have been discouraged in life by the people we know or the circumstances we find ourselves in. But because we have a basic God given need to fit in we all chose a place for ourselves. Some of us have even chosen prison, bad as it is, as the only place where we seem to feel ‘at home’ or where we fit in. So we keep doing things that land us back there.

Think about yourself for a while, what have you chosen? It could be a place or it could be the way you present yourself to people, (tough person, angry person, weak person). All of these things become places for lost people to hide.

What is it about being lost? The Bible says that even those who follow Jesus now were lost once, having no hope and without God in the world, Ephesians 2:12. Over thousands of years man has created many religions. Some of them seem pretty good. Some of them are obviously evil. All of them are an attempt to either know God or to relate to Him in some way. Even Christianity can become no more than a dead religion if it follows the traditions of men rather than God. One way or another our lost-ness calls us to either seek God or settle for a life that works as best we know how. Why is this and what is our basic problem?

Our most basic problem is that all of us are sinners. The Bible story of Adam and Eve shows that they made a choice to join those who disobey God. By their selfish choice of disobedience toward God they joined the camp of Satan whose very nature is selfishness. By this the nature of sin entered all mankind and you and I have inherited a sinful, self-centered nature that is at odds with following God. We want to do what we want to do when we want to do it. Even our heart justifies us in much wrong doing, putting the blame for our actions and choices on others, or deciding that we can do what we want now because we have balanced it with enough good, or by refusing to look at our wrong because we are angry.

On top of this in-born sinful nature we have all added many sins, which we have committed in this lifetime. Some of these sins are horribly evil and others are less so but they are all an expression of our evil nature. In Romans 3:10-12 the word of God says that we are all equal in this before God, There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one.

What does this do to the relationship we should have with God? We would all like to think that we are going to heaven after we die. After all hasn’t our life on earth been hard enough? Isn’t God good rather than condemning? Others of us greatly fear death. We know we have done much evil and will probably be punished by God.

The bottom line is that being sinful puts all of us under the same sentence of eternal punishment as the devil and his angels. This is taught throughout the Bible. Sin separates us from God. Isaiah 59:1-2 reads: Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, That it cannot save; Nor His ear heavy, That it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear. In Matthew 25:41 Jesus speaks to those who died in their sins: Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Sin puts separation between God and us, a sinful nature in particular puts us in the same camp as the devil and under condemnation of eternal punishment after this life.

I told you in the introduction that I would not try to prove to you that there is a God who not only created this world and universe but who also cares about you and me. I personally have discovered (or rather was discovered by) God. I have spent and am spending the time to get to know Him and I know that He not only cares about me but that He takes action because of that care. God both knows you and knows all about your sinful nature and the sins that you have committed. He created you intending that you would belong to His family. The very reason that you are reading this is because you know that everything is not right between you and God. God loves you and doesn’t want you to remain lost and separated from Him through your sin. Whether you realize it or not, He has put in your heart a desire that draws you back to Him, a desire to be right with God.

Now I want you to think about this for a moment: how can we find the right way for our lives? Isn’t God the one who would know? Therefore we have to be careful about what we accept from man. Man has many supposedly great thinkers and religions but if they