Welcome back to spirituality and mental health. I'm your host Don Mackintosh and we've been talking about power sources to increase willpower. And in our last time together, we looked at what the science is actually begrudgingly saying, remember, we we talked with our two authors, Tony and Baumeister and the power of the will, and they being agnostics had to acknowledge that there's some kind of power in spiritual disciplines. And they began to cover those things. One that we covered was reading the Word and hearing the word read either by yourself or in a small group. And we showed how that would number one, increase your willpower or self control in the moment, but also your recovery time by up to 53% recovering from depression that much sooner.

So maybe you would Want to do that maybe what am I want to make a list of promises or things that you could read or hear or maybe consider making a list of potential small groups that you might want to, you know, dig deeper into, I know in the outpatient here at Venus, we have a study of the first six chapters at that book we mentioned Daniel, you might want to sign up for that. or read that remember, they had compliance of much higher level just by adding in a study the book of Daniel, the other thing that was mentioned was personal testimony being heard or given. And we talked about Alcoholics Anonymous, but what about writing your own testimony out? A simple way to write a testimony say what was my life like before I came to the the bonus program? What happened during the program and what do I want to happen afterwards?

So every testimony has that element, what happened before what happened during and what I want to see in the future and when you say That, write it out and share it, it actually increases the effectiveness that you're going to have going forward. So let's continue on now, as we look at our power sources or way to increase the will. And we want to think now about the power of simplicity. This was another thing that the researchers pointed to. Why does this work? Why does a simplify life enhance our willpower religion reduces people's inner conflicts the researchers stated among different goals and values, thus reducing depletion and giving the person clear priorities.

So it simplifies your life. You don't have to who is everywhere is nowhere Seneca used to say and it helps focus you and gives you a stronger will power. So the Word of God is a great simplifier of life's conference. Located pursuits and the gospel message is a wonderful simplifier of life's problems as well. Next, the power of commandments. This was a fascinating one that the research has pointed to as well.

They talked about what were called bright lines, people need bright lines. These really help with self control. Zero Tolerance is a bright line total abstinence with no exceptions anytime. This is like related to the tea in the New START acronym temperance, not totally abstaining from things that are negative. If you believe the rule is sacred, a commandment from God the unquestionable law of a higher power, then it becomes an especially bright line. People who have a set who have set aside the Bible and by self help books and whatnot, they don't have the same power they replaced the 10 commandments with the 12 steps with the Eightfold Path or some seven habits, rules and dogmas.

The research has said may leave you cold and make you nervous, but don't dismiss them as useless superstition. Why? Well, here's the research, we took a group of 450 participants, we split them into two groups, and set them loose on our usual matrix task. That's the task where they try to decrease their self control by having to make a bunch of decisions about things. And then we asked half of them to recall the 10 commandments and the other half to recall 10 books that they had to read in high school. Among the group who recalled the 10 books, we saw the typical widespread but moderate cheating on the test that we use to examine whether or not they would exert self control.

And the group that were asked to recall the 10 commandments, we observed No cheating whatsoever. we rerun the experiment reminding students of their school honor codes, instead of the 10 commandments, and we got the same result. We even this was the fascinating thing to me. We even re ran the experiment on a group of self declared An atheist as they don't believe in God at all, asking them to swear, put their hand on the Bible and got the same No cheating results yet again. So there seems to be some kind of power in just seeing or hearing the 10 commandments, maybe another assignment for you reread those 10 commandments and say, hey, how can I bring my life into, you know, congruence with those 10 commandments. Thou shalt have no other gods before me simplify, just have one God.

Thou shalt not make any graven image. Don't Don't make a representation. Don't take the name of God in vain. But think about this relation. relationally let's say, let's say you said thou shalt have no other wives before me or your spouse said that to you. That's actually a pretty good, good rule.

It simplifies life, doesn't it? Don't make graven images, you come home and you have a graven image of your spouse. Do you think that would be a good idea? I think that would really help the relationship. Probably not Don't every time something bad happens you know, you stub your toe or you hurt yourself. Use your spouse's name as a curse word.

And remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. It's kind of like remembering a birthday. Don't say, Oh, I know your birthday was on Tuesday, but I've decided we're going to do it on Monday. This is not going to help your relationship. All the 10 commandments are actually very good relational principles. Whether or not you are actually a believer in the Bible, and try and live within them.

Look at them relationally as well. Okay, our next way to increase willpower, the power of public assembly. This is what they discovered church attendance and worship helps monitor your behavior. religious believers build self control by regularly forcing themselves to interrupt their daily routine routines in order to pray. And religion also improves the monitoring of behavior. Know that the central steps to self control, worship regularly regularly Be involved in rituals such as Yom Kippur, what is Yom Kippur?

It was the Day of Atonement, it was a day of cleansing. It's a day when everybody said, Hey, we need to bring our lives back into a clean state. And so being involved in those things throughout the year actually helps us in maintaining progress towards the goals or changes in our thoughts or behavior we desire. And so here's how the book to the Hebrews in the New Testament kind of summarizes this. And let us consider one another's or provoke unto love or stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some but exhorting one another. So provoking one another, stirring up the love assembling together, exhorting one another and so much more as you see the day approaching.

So maybe you should identify a faith community that could help you with this. What are your options, maybe Make a list of those. Next the power of prayer. How does prayer increase our self control? Why does it work prayer increases self control. It's clearly seen by these agnostic researchers, brain areas for self regulation and control and attention light up when we pray.

People who are subliminally exposed to religious words like God, or the Bible becomes slower to recognize words associated with temptations, like drugs or premarital sex. And so when we're praying when we're focusing on God, it actually protects us from things that might harm us, and also increases our self control. prayer and meditation are kind of here's what they said, a kind of aerobic workout for self control. Now, maybe in another time, we could talk about exactly how to pray and how to meditate in a healthy way for your frontal lobe. But we'll come to that in another presentation. Interestingly enough, Daniel himself prayed three times a day.

And he had to resist appetite and passion. Remember how we talked about Daniel and how he just reading him increases your self control? Well, his secret was prayer. Now in the book, rediscovering greatest human strength willpower. I found this particular story the most fascinating that recounted It was about the famous rock and roll or Eric Clapton, and it tells of his experience about how he was able to muster self control in a moment that changed his whole life. I Eric Clapton asked for help getting down on my knees I surrendered.

Now maybe you want to do that maybe want to follow the example of he got down and surrender to God, I surrender everything to you. Since that moment he says he never seriously considered taking a another drink. He was a famous alcoholic. He almost killed someone driving one night and he came in he he knelt down he prayed this prayer that night. Clapton was suddenly West with self control. Sometimes it doesn't happen that simply sometimes it does.

But isn't it worth a shot, maybe just kneel down right now say I surrender I said, or whatever it is, and say God give me the gift of self control. By the way, I might mention this. There's a book in the Bible called Galatians, chapter five, verse 22, and 23 that says, The fruit of the spirit that's the Holy Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering. self control is also in that list. And so it's actually a gift from God. That's why we kneel down and say, God, help me.

You might want to do that. Right now. Next to the power of meditating on God's word, power, meditating God's word, meditate day and night, just three hours of meditation practice led to improved attention and self self control in the study they cited in their book. After 11 hours, researchers could see those changes in the brain. The new meditators had increased neural connections between regions of the brain important staying focused, ignoring distractions and controlling impulses. So meditation can help us focus, ignore distractions, control the impulses, and they're actually changes in the brain.

And also notice this meditation increases blood flow to the prefrontal cortex. And that's the whole purpose of everything we do in the outpatient program here, the bias clinic, we're trying to increase blood flow to the frontal lobe with all the physical things we do, but meditation itself does that. Now we recommend here focusing on maybe one of those promises or may have passage from God's Word or some spiritual story and meditating on that story. We're not saying empty the mind we're saying fill the mind and focus it on positive things, then actually change your brain going forward. When you ask the brain to meditate, it gets better at a wide range of self control skills including attention, focus, stress management, impulse control and self awareness. And regular meditators.

Here's the research have more gray matter in the prefrontal cortex as well as regions of the brain that support self awareness. So this might be something to again start right now start today, let me give you a song as an assignment to work on. I won't go through it now but someone, someone is perhaps one of the my favorite songs to meditate on. And I want you to notice as you meditate on that song, the steps downward that can be taken if you focus on the wrong things. There's three steps in that song, but also, what can be focused on to actually improve the brain and surround yourself with people that are going to help you Psalm one. Now the strength received through communion with God united with earnest effort and training the mind to thoughtfulness and caretaking prepares one for daily duties and keeps the spirit and peace under all circumstances.

However, trying so communing with him, it actually focuses your mind on thinking about positive things and prepares you for the duties of the day. The practical results of communion with God are these peace in the heart will shine forth in the countenance, it will give to the voice, a persuasive power. It will enable the character in the life and it will impart a power that nothing else can get. Now I wanted to say, I wanted to testify that this is true. I have a favorite passages Isaiah 50 that says, that the Lord will give me the tongue of the learner that I will know how to speak a word in season to him to this weary he awakens me morning by morning, and I don't turn away In other words, I he wakes me up. I haven't had an alarm clock for 30 years, and I've always said, Lord, I want to wake up at this time and I wake up exactly at that time.

The only time it doesn't work is when I have jet like, but I wake up And then I began, I begin meditating on some aspect of God's Word. What happens is throughout the day, it's not only helping me, but actually helps me know what to say to people. It's kind of uncanny. It just comes to my mind. So it's a power. Next the power of the cross, perhaps one of the most important self control pictures that we see.

And and we experience is the cross. Have you seen a cross on a steeple? Have you seen a cross on a necklace? Have you seen a cross somewhere? I remember I was traveling in Venezuela one day, and I'm driving down the road and I saw these crosses. And I realized the crosses were there because someone had died there.

And I began focusing on the cross so I wouldn't go off the road. So the power of the cross was very practical in that that case. Now the Apostle Paul, especially enjoyed the cross. This is what he said, or is written about his experience, one glance glance at the cross cost indicator gird up a new the lines of his mind, that is to you know, pull himself together in his thoughts and press forward in the way of self denial and his labors with his brethren. he relied much upon the manifestation of infinite love and the sacrifice of Christ with its subduing, constraining power. So focusing then, on this key element of the Christian message, which is self sacrificing love dying for others, and what they had done wrong rather than allowing them to die on a powerful concept.

You can read through these next quotes on the cross which are very powerful as well. The power of public vow and confession, we'll close with this one public vow and confession in a recent study by decarlo diclemente of people undergoing CBT or cognitive behavioral therapy. is found that resolutions are more likely to be kept if they were made in the presence of other people. And so when when we make a decision if we can make it in the presence of other people, maybe there's an appeal that's given by someone who's giving a sermon or a lecture or something, and then we publicly commit to that. That's why we have weddings. So we have all the witnesses.

Well, you know, when I was married, we had, I don't know, 333 hundred 50 people there. And we had witnesses on the one side of the church for the bride and witnesses on the other side for the groom. And they all sat on the different sides of their real function was to remember that day and remind us of the commitment that was made. And then we said, I will or I do not I might, and that was our public vow, our public confession, and it's a very strong thing and that helps with self control, as well. The Bible puts it this If you will confess with eye mouth that the Lord Jesus and believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, you'll be saved. So confessing him actually does something that leads to you being saved from you know bad situations and ultimately forever.

But notice this, this is a powerful concept. I say to you who ever shall confess maybe for men, okay? You confess Him but now you're confessing him before others, him so the Son of Man also confess before the angels Look at this, when we confess our belief in God or whatever, before others, he actually according to this sends the angels now I know our authors that we're writing the books and stuff for agnostics, and atheists and whatnot, but they they don't understand the power perhaps the power is these angels that come to be ministering spirits to those who are heirs of salvation. I want to end with just a couple quotes and then we'll summarize when you rise in the morning Do you feel your helplessness and your need for strength from God? And do you humbly hardly make known your wants to your heavenly Father?

If so, notice this angels mark your prayers. And if these prayers have not gone forth out of thin lips, in other words and just making it up, know that you're earnestly praying, when you are in danger of unconsciously doing wrong, and exerting an influence which will lead others to do wrong. Your guardian angel will be by your side, prompting you to a better course the who this choosing your words for you and influencing your actions. Oh, man, how many of you think that is this a powerful concept? Now, here's what I want to end with today. You know, let's say you're having a struggle with even believing in God or any of this religious stuff.

Maybe it just seems like a bunch of babble to you. I want to give you a simple thing when I was an atheist before I became a believer And this really helped me. The will must be placed on the side of God's will. You're not able of yourself to bring your purposes and desires and inclinations into submission to the will of God. But if you are willing to be made willing God will accomplish the work for you. Even casting down imaginations and bringing into captivity, every thought to the obedience of Christ.

Now, here's the thing, I came away from reading that and I said, Okay, that's what I'm just gonna pray. It's gonna kind of be my, my, my mantra, so to speak. God make me willing to be made willing. Can you say that? God, make me willing to be made willing. I mean, that's not committing too much of anything except for being willing to be made willing.

And when we do that, God Connect. I want to end with the power praise. In devotional music. God is always present with his grace is what Johann Sebastian Bach said. And he is always present. There's Nothing about music that's powerful.

And Psalm 18 verse three says this I will call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised, so shall I be saved from my enemies, praising God led to us being saved from enemies. As you confessed before men and women, your confidence in the Lord, additional strength is imparted to you determined to praise him with firm determination to increase willpower, and soon you will find that you cannot help but praising him. So let's review these power sources. Reading the word can increase our self control hearing it whether just ourselves or in a small group. And then of course, we talked about studying the book of Daniel and increasing self control personal testimony heard and given the power of simplicity, the power of bright lines or the commandments, church attendance and worship, being involved in Davidson. And type rituals or things in church that help you maintain your self control and positive practices prayer, meditation, the cross, public vow, and confession and finally, prayer and praise.

Remember our promises we closed as many as received Him. To them he gave power to become sons of God in them that believe on his name was for born not a blood nor of the will of the flesh nor the will of man, but if God desire that today, I hope that is your experience throughout today. And as you go forward