Think long-term not short-term www.verywellmind.com/ said the following: Delaying gratification involves putting off short-term desires in favor of long-term rewards. Researchers have found that the ability to delay gratification is important not only for attaining goals but also for well-being and overall success in life. The "Hot-and-Cool" System Based on his research, Walter Mischel proposed what he referred to as a "hot-and-cool" system to explain the ability to delay gratification. The hot system refers to the part of our willpower that is emotional, impulsive, and urges us to act upon our desires. When this system takes over, we may give in to our momentary desires and act rashly without considering the potential long-term effects.8 The cool system is the part of our willpower that is rational, thoughtful, and enables us to consider the consequences of our actions in order to resist our impulses. The cool system helps us look for ways to distract us from our urges and find more appropriate ways to deal with our desires. Recap The ability to delay gratification is linked to a number of benefits including better goal attainment and positive life outcomes. Finding ways to distract yourself from temptation can help you strengthen your ability to delay gratification.” A great habit to work on is to think in a slow, cool, rational way. Key Point: Never let short-term bad decisions ruin your week and month. Say: I will have self-control and have a great week and a great month. Pray: “Father, show me the consequences of my decisions. Pray: “Father, help me to think long-term with my decisions.” You probably have more self-control than you think. The problem is, we get tired or frustrated and in that condition, we think in a poor manner. But, if you are a Christian, you can get a lot of assistance. Simply develop the habit of studying scripture when temptation arises. This habit invites the Holy Spirit to give us direct assistance with our decisions.
Self-control is one of the gifts of the Spirit. The problem is... we need to get more of the Spirit in us. Spending time in prayer is a good way to increase the Spirit in us. Reading Scripture is even better, and studying Scripture is better yet, and doing what the Scripture says is really a powerhouse increase. Consider studying and praying over the great verses. Study, pray, and analyze how to understand, love, and do what the scripture says to do. Many people pray for 15 minutes daily, asking God to do this, that, and the other thing for them. But if you really want answers to those prayers... Instead, start doing what these verses say to do. Or, start praying to be filled with the Holy Spirit so that He can show you what He wants you to do. Then increase a focus on obedience. Then you will start to see prayers answered more rapidly. You will see a powerful increase in your Self-control when you do these things. You can use this increase as motivation that you can quit a lust addiction for good. Realize that it is rarely an instant fix to gain self-control over lust. We want to solve a problem we made stronger and stronger for 19 years in 19 hours. Instead, realize that you likely have to dig up more and more roots that go in all kinds of directions while you at the same time get more and more scripture in. But you will have a powerful experience even today if you dig into scripture. Then you can use that strength to realize. God is real. He does help us. He wants to help us. Today, consider praying about what God wants. “Father, show me what You want me to do.” When we spend 15 minutes praying about what God wants, plus time in the all-powerful Word of God, darkness starts to leave, and the Spirit fills us more and more.
I like what you say about self control. I am practicing it as much as i can. It covers so many areas in life, not just porn and lust. I would disagree with you when you say "we need to get more of the Spirit in us." this isn't true. We either have the spirit or we do not. What we do need to do is utilise the ordinary means of grace he has given us, such as those you so helpfully described.
The Bible says: Ephesians 5:18 "And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit." It is my understanding that in the Greek it is written "being filled with the Spirit."
I take that passage to mean that we are filled with the Spirit as our default state as disciples of the Master and children of the King. We can sort of squeeze the Spirit out with excess alcohol consumption. We dissipate the Spirit with spirits, so to speak. (I wonder if Greek had this double meaning, just as we do in English?) Just my $0.02.
Jesus told his disciples: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. 5 For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
Planning and understanding are keys to self-control. Planning How complete is your plan to turn from lust? Do you have a foolproof plan to immediately dig into the verses for quitting if temptation starts to overwhelm you? Do you have a plan to reverse the effect of negative emotions, if they are about to sink you? Self-control involves understanding. Wisdom wants long-term joy, satan will tempt you with short-term pleasure. Wisdom wants peace, and love, satan will tempt you with power and lust. Wisdom insists on thinking, obeying, then acting, satan wants you to “want, then act.” Wisdom wants to know what God's will is, satan wants you to “get what you want with no thought of consequences.” Plan – understand – succeed.
The thing comes out of the self-concept of modern men and those who wrote the Bible. Man is all consciousness-spirit and only our awareness of the spirit and spiritual world( of which our earth is but a shadow) can shed light on this saying. It literally means that you fill yourself with spirit when your attention is singularly focused outside your body and the material world, outside outward appearances of things otherwise you fill yourself with earthly problems and joys pertaining to what your eyes can see and hands can touch, with what seems logical and possible to you. I am talking about the world of prayer, meditation, and the time when we are forgetting ourselves in sleep for most of us. The Lord looks upon the hearts of men not on the outside appearances and empty words. The content of our heart is our living prayer . What is it -Love? Judgment and contempt? Anger ?Kindness? How much do we practice and are in control of our true prayer?
I do not agree with the statement that planning and understanding are the keys to self-control.. I think that the keys to self-control are prayer and faith.
But didn't God create matter and call it good? Didn't he place us in bodies? And at the resurrection, won't we be embodied once again (albeit in glorified vessels)? For these reasons, it does not seem accurate to say that all we are is consciousness/spirit. Welcome to NoFap, btw!
But we are consciousness/spirit believing to be these mortal bodies of flesh...no not like matrix's mixture of half truths and damn lies and not the prison but the only way to experience who we really truly are. And the only way to do that is through Christ and His salvation from ignorance, forgetfulness, and believing in many false gods which for some are money, for some power and influence, for some family and support from other people etc. You can tell what are your gods from observing where and who you turn to when things go pearshaped to seek your salvation from your problems. Thank you for you welcome !
Hmm. There might be a false dichotomy here. Is it possible that planning and understanding, instead of being opposed to prayer and faith, may be the outworking of prayer & faith? (The "actualizing" of faith) Just a thought!
Well, in a way the outcome of the planning corresponds to the degree of faith you have put into the plan(why not put your faith directly into the desired outcome and let the planning take care of itself? Do you really think that you have a free will to do anything in the world?). But it also means that you have put logic and understanding(which pertain to the variables you use out of what you can see as real for you and understand its properties/qualities) to use which would work for something up to your current level of ability to see and connect the dots of the variables of the situation and it implies a different degree of effort in the process while prayer and faith on their own accord will achieve the best possible result with a minimum of effort. In the first case, you would rely on your own will and power while in the latter on the divine will and providence, but in case you do not consciously pray and have little to no control over what you believe in, planning can give you some ground to believe in the efficiency of your plan based on the outside sources you trust.
Who is Jesus Christ for you and how can you tell that He has arrived and is here? What is Salvation for you personally? Maybe He is here with us all along but we just fail to recognize it because we think that it is not the right time. And maybe the problems we see in our world are in reality our own problems. 31 When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. 34 Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.' 37 Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' 40 The King will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.' 41 Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.' 44 They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?' 45 He will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.' 46 Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.'
Hey @Limad! I have very strong opinions on the topic you've touched and of course I have all the respect for you as a fellow human being, I'm disagreeing with your statement in the strongest way possible. My experience is generally that, if I let the planning take care of itself, no vision will ever manifest into physical reality - but if I make a plan, diligently worked out, with stepwise approaches, then, from experience, I usually succeed in whatever I set my eyes on. Prov. 21.5: The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance (ESV) It's my responsibility to make sure that any plan for any achievement I'm pursuing is submitted humbly under the lordship of Jesus. One way of doing that, after praying about it personally, is sharing and receiving advice from the apostolic leadership that we're sitting under, provided that there is apostolic leadership and it's well stewarded.
I respect your beliefs brother and especially I like 'whatever I set my eyes on.' Maybe it is easier when you know and have seen it before, but sometimes it is something new and still unseen. Sometimes you have to go like Paul says ' they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us'
I said that planning and understanding are keys to self-control. Prayer and faith are keys as well. Last, sometimes there are so many comments that people forget to do anything the articles talk about doing. So, whatever your beliefs, remember whether you want to make changes so that you can fight lust.
There is no way to fight lust on it's own. I think once you are in this fight you fight against gluttony/greed, pride, your own ego, your own impatience, your anger... If you're limiting your fight just to lust it's bound to survive and come back top's eventually.
Very true. Lust may be what gets our attention, but we quickly realize there are many varied levels to our sinfulness. We learn just how great is our need for Help! And the we begin to experience the joy of realizing that as Christ redeems one part of our lives, he is truly redeeming the whole of it. The fruit of the Spirit that we experience as a result of one lesson learned can manifest in all our future challenges. We do make progress. No matter how slow it may be, it is very real. Onward, toward Christ and Christ-likeness!
