OK Firstly I am not trying to promote or excuse smoking. It is a waste of money and harmful to ones health. But how does God view it compared to other imperfect thingsa we do.
In my youth I went to a church. After the service I as a teenager stood outside and often smoked a cigarette. I was legally old enoughj to smoke. I remember well certain members of the church frowning on me smoking and some would come and shake their heads and gravely tell me that smoking was wrong and Christians should not partake of such a habit. I was quoted
Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.
I grew up thinking anyone who smoked would surely go to hell. It had to be one of the worst sins imaginable.
But then most of the core members of that church only spoke to people on their own social level, apart from a cursory handshake after the service, and only invited such likeminded people into their homes. I wonder whose wrongdoing God was more displeased by, theirs or mine?
The church believed in the Baptism of the Holy Spiorit and obviously speaking in tongues. As a young teneager I had been prayed with to receive this gift, but never did. I believed it was because I was not good enough to receive it. Some in the church would say 'you are not ready to receive it.' I certainly dson't think they believed you cou;ld smoke and be baptised ion the spirit
A few years later I learnt of the grace of the Bible and was saved, and I spoke/prayed in tongues, and I still smoked. I learnt that day that God does not put the demands on people that man often does, and he looks at the heart. I went to a meeting. A minister I had never met prayed with me and told me much about my life and confirmed I could speak/pray in tongues so I know it had to be genuine.
So those people at that church of my youth gave me the wrong impression. I believe there are things that are far more displeasing to God than smoking, but smoking is a fault/frailty/weakness that can easily be seen. And don't we just love to look at people and cast stones or find fault.
If you can be baptised in the spirit and smoke, God cannot consider it to be such a terrible sin, but in saying that with his help it is best to stop