Step 1 – Recognise

The purpose of this step is to recognise what these intrusive thoughts and feelings/urges are that you experience.

The question here is: What are these thoughts? What are these feelings/urges?

These thoughts and feelings/urges are forms of temptations – the conflict between sinful nature and God’s Spirit.

You need to increase your mindful awareness to recognise these intrusive thoughts and feelings/urges for what it is.

Mindful awareness helps you to be aware of thoughts and feelings/urges, and to focus on the present and what is most important to you.

Normal awareness is automatic and usually quite superficial. Contrary to this, mindful awareness is deeper and more precise. It is achieved only through focused effort, and requires the conscious recognition and mental registration of what they really are.

In this step you recognise a troublesome state of mind for what it is: a temptation in the form of a sinful thought or feeling/urge. (Anything that brings guilt feelings) Call it by its name: temptation.  In doing this you develop the ability to see the difference between what is a temptation – grounded in the old sinful nature – and what is pleasing to God, being "a new creation" (2 Cor. 5:17 – ESV) in Christ.

Recognising these thoughts and feelings/urges won't make them go away.  In fact, the worst thing you can do is to tryand make them disappear. They have a spiritual cause beyond your control.

What you can control is your response to it.

Keep in mind: repeated sinful thoughts and behaviours form habits and even changes in the physical structure of your brain, which in turn reinforce these unwanted thoughts and behaviours.

When you resist temptation, you actually change these habits. New brain patterns are formed which assist you to live the new life in Christ habitually. However, the process of forming new brain patterns take weeks or even months. It requires patience and persistent effort. Attempting to dispel these thoughts and feelings/urges quickly causes frustration, demoralisation, and stress. It tends to make them worse, and will cause you to give in to them.

Probably the most important thing to learn is that your response to the thoughts and feelings/urges are within your control, no matter how strong and bothersome they may be. The goal is to control your response to these, not to control the thoughts and feelings/urges themselves.

Temptation has all to do with your thought life. You cannot fight a temptation with will power. You have to calmly and relaxed replace one thought with another thought.

Keep the good news in mind: "God is faithful, and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation He will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it" (1 Cor. 10:13 – ESV).

The next two steps are designed to help you learn new ways to control your behavioural responses to temptations.

The second step to master is Reappraise, and that is next week’s discussion.

SOURCES

English Standard Version (ESV); God's Word (GW).

Schwartz, JM, Beyette, B, Brain Lock: Free yourself from Obsessive-Compulsive Behaviour, (Harper Collins Publishers, Inc: New York, USA, 1996).

Schwartz, JM, Begley, S, The Mind &The Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force, (Harper Collins Publishers, Inc: New Yourk, USA, 2002).

Schwartz, JM, Gladding, R, You are not Your Brain" The 4-Step solution for Changing Bad Habits, Ending Unhealthy Thinking, and Taking Control of Your Life, (Penguin Books Ltd: London, England, 2011).