�I wish I could quit smoking. I've prayed to God about it and have tried so hard to. I know without His help I will not be able to do it. I just wish that He would take this urge to smoke away from me.�
Hi,
Thank you for message.
Let's think together:
Imagine. I am a Christian and I live in Cairo (Egypt). My lover makes sex with me every day. God said:
Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. 1 Corinthians 6:18
Am I saved in this case if I continue to live in sins? In sexual immorality? The answer is no. Not I should live, but God should live in me. This is what we call regeneration/the birth of God/ born again Christians. This is the new life. That�s why to live with god, we should abandon our sins. We should TURN from them and in this case, we repent of our sins. This is the true repentance. God Jesus calls you to repent of your sins and abandon them. If you live in sins, God does not live in you! That�s why the Holy Scripture says that we should DAILY die for ourselves to live with God in a renewed life. Believe me no matter what I say (whether I am a Christian or not) if I will make sex with Arabs in Cairo, I will be JUDGED by God for my sexual immorality. No matter what you say (whether you are a Christian or not) if you will make sex with children in your Catholic Church, you will be JUDGED by God for your sexual immorality. No matter what you say (whether you are a Christian or not) if you will kill Americans, you will be JUDGED by God for your murders and God will judged you even in the USA by the American laws because His laws are almost the same. And you will be a killer for God in this case. Will He consider you as a Christian? Of course not. He addressed to you by saying that:
21 �Not everyone who says to Me, �Lord, Lord,� shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, �Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?� 23 And then I will declare to them, �I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!� Matth.7
So, if you disobey God, it means you practice lawlessness and God will judge you for violation of His laws. He command you (not gives you advice!): �You should be HOLY, because I am HOLY!� All sinners/killers/ sexual immoral people were killed by God in the life time of Moses because God cleansed His Jewish people from criminals/ sinner to make them righteous and HOLY people. That�s why God said in the Old Testament that He loves among His HOLY people Israel. If you do not want to live with God, you lives against God. There is no third option!
That�s hwy die for your sins! Abandon your sins! Conform your life to high God�s standards to be a HOLY man of God and His follower and son adopted by Him through FAITH in the Son of God. Or you will live and die in sins and finally judged by God for your sins/crimes because it is God�s nature: JUSTICE and It means that He hates out sins.
Effects of Denying the Resurrection
Otherwise, what will they do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead do not rise at all? Why then are they baptized for the dead? And why do we stand in jeopardy every hour? I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily. If, in the manner of men, I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantage is it to me? If the dead do not rise, �Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!�
Do not be deceived: �Evil company corrupts good habits.� Awake to righteousness, and do not sin; for some do not have the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame. 1 Corinthians 15: 15: 29-34
Let me tell you it so: Awake to righteousness! Stop sinning! If you live with God you cannt sins! Do not sin! For some do not have the knowledge of God. If you know what God thinks about your sins, then ABANDON them! It is the true Christianity when daily you are refined (like gold) of all your sins (alloys) to live in righteousness and be READY to meet the Lord. Because He is coming back to judge this world for sins. Will you be judged by God for your daily sex in Cairo? Or will you be a HOLY son of God who will TURN hearts of Arabs to the living God and His Son Jesus? Save people and be worthy of your name: �a son of God�. Or return to your vomit like dog and to your mud pit like swine! If you prefer your sins, HOW can you dwell in the Presence of the HOLY God who HATES your sins?!
Thus, to enter into the God�s dwelling place, we should be ready and prepared by Him. That�s why get cleansed of your sins! Repent of your sins! Abandon them! ABANDON your lover in Cairo! Stop putting to your body what is abomination for God! Your intoxication is MADNESS and it made you a SLAVE of your sin- smoking. But the Truth of God can set you FREE. This TRUTH commands you to live a HOLY life because God is HOLY! Jesus took the sin of the world on the cross and if you will live during your life in constant sex with Arabs then HOW are you going to get to the Kingdom of God? You will live and die in your sins.
God Jesus tells you:
�unless you repent you will all likewise perish.�
Luke 13
Repent or Perish
1 There were present at that season some who told Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2 And Jesus answered and said to them, �Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things? 3 I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. 4 Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.�
Thus, if you bear the name �Christian�, then CONFORM your life to God�s standards. If you will live and die in sins i.e. in BOLD disobedience to God�s words then your way will perish and you will find yourselves in the lake of fire judge by God for your sexual immorality, lie, anger, hatred, disobedience, disbelief�..And it is God�s nature JUSTICE will JUDGE you among millions of Christians who disobey the Creator of the universe Jesus and kill, make sex, take drugs and intoxicate their bodies by alcohol, cigarettes�WHY do they do it today? Because they do NOT Know God who is against their abominations! He is the JUDGE and soon he will start judgment from the Church of God.
Ponder: What is the difference between sexual immorality when you put inside of you sperm of other men or if you put there alcohol or drugs�..??? My answer: you sins against your own body.
God Jesus said that no one of unrighteous people will see the Kingdom of God!
He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son. But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.� Revelation 21:7-8
Sexually immoral�..
God Jesus died on the cross to give you FREEDOM from your sins. Abandon your sins! And you will be FREE! Get out of your slavery to be a FREE man and to set people FREE! The TRUTH- Jesus- gives you forgiveness of your sins. But if you will continue to live in your sins, then you will even die in your sins. God Jesus commands you: �� unless you repent you will all likewise perish.� Die for your sins to live eternally in God�s presence!
Bryan Curtis started smoking at 13, never thinking that 20 years later it would kill him and leave a wife and children alone. In his last weeks, he set out with a message for young people. :angeldevil:
ST. PETERSBURG -- Cigarette smoke hangs in the air in the room where Bryan Lee Curtis lies dying of lung cancer.
His head, bald from chemotherapy, lolls on a pillow. The bones of his cheeks and shoulders protrude under taut skin. His eyes are open, but he can no longer respond to his mother or his wife, Bobbie, who married him in a makeshift ceremony in this room three weeks ago after doctors said there was no hope.
In Bryan's emaciated hands, Bobbie has propped a photograph taken just two months ago. It shows a muscular and seemingly healthy Bryan holding his 2-year-old son, Bryan Jr. In the picture, he is 33. He turned 34 on May 10.
A pack of cigarettes and a lighter sit on a table near Bryan's bed in his mother's living room. Even though tobacco caused the cancer now eating through his lungs and liver, Bryan smoked until a week ago, when it became impossible.
Across the room, a 20-year-old nephew crushes out a cigarette in a large glass ashtray where the butt joins a dozen others. Bobbie Curtis says she'll try to stop after the funeral, but right now, it's just too difficult. Same for Bryan's mother, Louise Curtis.
"I just can't do it now," she says, although she hopes maybe she can after the funeral.
Bryan knew how hard it is to quit. But when he learned he would die because of his habit, he thought maybe he could persuade at least a few kids not to pick up that first cigarette. Maybe if they could see his sunken cheeks, how hard it was becoming to breathe, his shriveled body, it might scare them enough.
So a man whose life was otherwise unremarkable set out in the last few weeks of his life with a mission.
* * *
Bryan started when he was just 13, building up to more than two packs a day. He talked about quitting from time to time, but never seriously tried.
Plenty of time for that, he figured. Older people got cancer. Not people in their 30s, not people who worked in construction, as a roofer, as a mechanic.
He had no health insurance. But he was more worried about his mother, 57, who had smoked since she was 25.
Bryan Lee Curtis' mother Louise Curtis grieving at his grave site
Louise Curtis grieves for a son who told her, a smoker for 32 years, to worry about herself, not him.
[Times photo: V. Jane Windsor]
"He would say, "Mom, don't worry about me. Worry about yourself. I'm healthy,' " Louise Curtis remembers. "You think this would happen later, when you're 60 or 70 years old, not when you're his age."
He knew, only a few days after he went to the hospital on April 2 with severe abdominal pain, how wrong he had been. He had oat cell lung cancer that had spread to his liver. He probably had not had it long. Also called small cell lung cancer, it's an aggressive killer that usually claims the lives of its victims within a few months.
While it seems unusual to the Curtis family, Dr. Jeffrey Paonessa, Bryan's oncologist, said he is seeing more lung cancer in young adults.
"We've seen lung cancer earlier and earlier because people are starting to smoke earlier and earlier," Paonessa said. Chemotherapy sometimes slows the process, but had little effect in Bryan's case, he said.
Bryan also knew, a few days after the diagnosis, that he wanted somehow to try to save at least one kid from the same fate. He sat down and talked with Bryan Jr. and his 9-year-old daughter, Amber, who already had been caught once with a cigarette. But he wanted to do more. Somehow, he had to get his story out.
When he still had some strength to leave the house, kids would stare.
"They'd come up and look at him because he looked so strange," Louise Curtis said. "He'd look at them and say, "This is what happens to you when you smoke.'
"The kids would say, "Oh, man. I can't believe it,' " Louise Curtis said.
a smoker lights a cigarette after Bryan's June 8 funeral service
After the graveside service June 8, this friend and a handful of relatives light up.
[Times photo: V. Jane Windsor]
In the last few weeks, Bryan's mother has been the agent for his mission to accomplish some good with the tragedy. She has called newspapers and radio and television stations, seeking someone willing to tell her son's story, willing to help give him the one thing he wanted before he died. Bryan never got to tell his story to the public. He spoke for the last time an hour before a visit from a Times reporter and photographer.
"I'm too skinny. I can't fight anymore," he whispered to his mother at 9 a.m. June 3. He died that day at 11:56 a.m., just nine weeks after the diagnosis.
Bryan Lee Curtis Sr. was buried at Memorial Park Cemetery in St. Petersburg on June 8, a rare cloudy day that threatened rain.
At the funeral service at nearby Blount, Curry and Roel Funeral Home, Bryan's casket was open and 50 friends and relatives could see the devastating effects of the cancer.
Addiction is more powerful.
As the graveside ritual ended, a handful of relatives backed away from the gathering, pulled out packs of cigarettes and lit up.
�I wish I could quit smoking. I've prayed to God about it and have tried so hard to. I know without His help I will not be able to do it. I just wish that He would take this urge to smoke away from me.�
Hi, Thank you for message.
Let's think together:
Imagine. I am a Christian and I live in Cairo (Egypt). My lover makes sex with me every day. God said:
Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. 1 Corinthians 6:18
Am I saved in this case if I continue to live in sins? In sexual immorality? The answer is no. Not I should live, but God should live in me. This is what we call regeneration/the birth of God/ born again Christians. This is the new life. That�s why to live with God, we should abandon our sins. We should TURN from them and in this case we repent of our sins. This is the true repentance. God Jesus calls you to repent of your sins and abandon them. If you live in sins, God does not live in you! That�s why the Holy Scripture says that we should DAILY die for ourselves to live with God in a renewed life. Believe me no matter what I say (whether I am a Christian or not) if I will make sex with Arabs in Cairo, I will be JUDGED by God for my sexual immorality. No matter what you say (whether you are a Christian or not) if you will make sex with children in your Catholic Church, you will be JUDGED by God for your sexual immorality. No matter what you say (whether you are a Christian or not) if you will kill Americans, you will be JUDGED by God for your murders and God will judge you even in the USA by the American laws because His laws are almost the same. And you will be a killer for God in this case. Will He consider you as a Christian? Of course not. He addressed to you by saying that:
21 �Not everyone who says to Me, �Lord, Lord,� shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, �Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?� 23 And then I will declare to them, �I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!� Matth.7
So, if you disobey God, it means you practice lawlessness and God will judge you for violation of His laws. He commands you (not gives you advice!): �You should be HOLY, because I am HOLY!� All sinners/killers/ sexual immoral people were killed in the life time of Moses because God cleansed His Jewish people from criminals/ sinners to make them righteous and HOLY people. That�s why God said in the Old Testament that He lives among His HOLY people Israel. If you do not want to live with God, you live against God. There is no third option!
That�s why die for your sins! Abandon your sins! Conform your life to high God�s standards to be a HOLY man of God and His follower and son adopted by Him through FAITH in the Son of God. Or you will live and die in sins and finally you will be judged by God for your sins/crimes because it is God�s nature: JUSTICE and It means that He hates our sins.
Effects of Denying the Resurrection
Otherwise, what will they do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead do not rise at all? Why then are they baptized for the dead? And why do we stand in jeopardy every hour? I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily. If, in the manner of men, I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantage is it to me? If the dead do not rise, �Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!�
Do not be deceived: �Evil company corrupts good habits.� Awake to righteousness, and do not sin; for some do not have the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame. 1 Corinthians 15: 15: 29-34
Let me tell you it so: Awake to righteousness! Stop sinning! If you live with God you cannt sin! Do not sin! For some do not have the knowledge of God. If you know what God thinks about your sins, then ABANDON them! It is the true Christianity when daily you are refined (like gold) of all your sins (alloys) to live in righteousness and be READY to meet the Lord. Because He is coming back to judge this world for sins. Will you be judged by God for your daily sex in Cairo? Or will you be a HOLY son of God who will TURN hearts of Arabs to the living God and His Son Jesus? Save people and be worthy of your name: �a son of God�. Or return to your vomit like dog and to your mud pit like swine! If you prefer your sins, HOW can you dwell in the Presence of the HOLY God who HATES your sins?!
Thus, to enter into the God�s dwelling place, we should be ready and prepared by Him. That�s why get cleansed of your sins! Repent of your sins! Abandon them! ABANDON your lover in Cairo! Stop putting to your body what is abomination for God! Your intoxication is MADNESS and it made you a SLAVE of your sin- smoking. But the Truth of God can set you FREE. This TRUTH commands you to live a HOLY life because God is HOLY! Jesus took the sin of the world on the cross and if you will live during your life in constant sex with Arabs then HOW are you going to get to the Kingdom of God? You will live and die in your sins.
God Jesus tells you:
�unless you repent you will all likewise perish.�
Luke 13
Repent or Perish
1 There were present at that season some who told Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2 And Jesus answered and said to them, �Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things? 3 I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. 4 Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.�
Thus, if you bear the name �Christian�, then CONFORM your life to God�s standards. If you will live and die in sins i.e. in BOLD disobedience to God�s words then your way will perish and you will find yourself in the lake of fire judged by God for your sexual immorality, lie, anger, hatred, disobedience, disbelief�..And it is God�s nature JUSTICE will JUDGE you among millions of Christians who disobey the Creator of the universe Jesus and kill, make sex, take drugs and intoxicate their bodies by alcohol, cigarettes�WHY do they do it today? Because they do NOT Know God who is against their abominations! He is the JUDGE and soon He will start judgment from the Church of God.
Ponder: What is the difference between sexual immorality when you put inside of you sperm of other men or if you put there alcohol or drugs�..??? My answer: you sin against your own body.
God Jesus said that no one of unrighteous people will see the Kingdom of God!
He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son. But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.� Revelation 21:7-8
Sexually immoral�..
God Jesus died on the cross to give you FREEDOM from your sins. Abandon your sins! And you will be FREE! Get out of your slavery to be a FREE man and to set people FREE! The TRUTH- Jesus- gives you forgiveness of your sins. But if you will continue to live in your sins, then you will even die in your sins. God Jesus commands you: �� unless you repent you will all likewise perish.� Die for your sins to live eternally in God�s presence!
He (Jesus) himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.
1 Peter 2:24
Romans 6:2 By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?
Romans 6
Dead to Sin, Alive to God
1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? 3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7 For he who has died has been freed from sin. 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
12 Therefore do not let sin :devil: reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.:angeldevil: 13 And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace. :angel:
Romans 6:11 In the same way, count yourselves dead :winksmile: to sin but alive :angel: to God in Christ Jesus.
Romans 6:13 Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. :angel:
