Willpower Doesn’t Work

I was writing today about this, not only you but also myself. My health is going down hill. And I have to stay committed to making changes in my life.

Here’s hoping this article will help some else.

“Many people think that all we need is willpower, nothing could be further from the truth.” -Arnold M. Washtin,

If you want to make any permanent change in your life, willpower won’t get you there.

Whether you want to get healthier, stop using social media so much, improve your relationships, be happier, write in a journal or start goal planning. Willpower won’t help you with those things.

Personal progress and achieving success are best approached like you’re overcoming an addiction. Because, quite literally that’s what you’re doing. As human beings, we have addictions.

I openly admit being addicted to social media, my current belief system, my comfort zone,and my excuses. I’m also addicted of behaviors that contradict my goals.

We are all addicted to something. And cognitive dissonance is numbing.

If you’re serious about the changes you want to make willpower won’t be enough. Quite the opposite. Willpower is what’s holding us back.

I can sit that look at social media for hours even while I know things need to be taken care of, dishes need to be washed, laundry needs to be done. But I keep telling myself just a few more minutes.

Willpower is a broken approach to thriving and success.

“Willpower is for people who are still uncertain about what they want to do.” –Helia

If you’re required to exert willpower to do something, there is an obvious internal conflict. You want to eat a cookie, but you also want to be healthy. Environment -vs- goal.

What are you going to do?

Ate you going to be strong this time and resist? Or are you going to crumble?

According to psychological research, your willpower is like a muscle. It’s a definite resource that depletes with use. As a result, by the end of your strenuous days, your willpower muscles are exhausted and you’re left to your naked and defensive self with zero control to stop the night time munchies and time wasters.

At least, that’s what we’ve been taught.

Clearly, the research on willpower explains human behavior. But only on the surface level and it’s effects. The vary fact that willpower is required comes from two fundamental sources-the causes:

1. You don’t know what you want, and are internally conflicted.

2. You haven’t committed to something and created conditions that facilitate your commitment.

What do you really want?

“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson-

If our lives requires willpower, then we haven’t fully determined what you want. Because once you make a decision, the internal debate is over. As Michael Jordon once said.

After we decided what we want, the decision is make. All future decisions regarding that matter have also been made. No questions.

So, are you serious about this? Or are you just talking? Are you still on the fence or have you decided?

Until we decide, we’ll be required, and continue making minimal progress.

Are You Committed?

What is commitment?

How do we know of we’re truly committed to something?

When it comes to achieving goals, commitment involves:

  • Investing upfront
  • Make it public
  • Setting a timeline
  • Installing several forms of accountability
  • Removing or altering everything in your environment that opposes your commitment

If we’re truly committed to something, in our mind, it’s as though we’ve already succeeded. All doubt and disbelief has to be gone.

Example: If you’re committed to running a marathon, you’re going to put everything in place to make sure it happens. You’re not going to leave it up to chance.

You’re going to start by signing up for a race (investment). You’re going to a running partner who holds you accountable You’re going to track your progress (feedback) and account your progress to your accountability partner. Lastly, you’re going to remove things in your life that keep you from running.

Commitment means we need to build our external defense systems around our goals. Our internal resolve, naked and I defended and opposing environment is not commitment.

No matter how much internal resolve we have, we will fail to change our life if you don’t change our environment.

For myself I know if I want to lose some weight. I cannot go to the store and buy anything sweet, even if I tell myself “I’m buying this for my husband and I’ll only eat one.” Because I’ll even up eating most of it.

This is where the willpower approach fails. The willpower approach doesn’t focus on changing the environment, but instead, on increasing personal efforts to overcome the current environment. What ends up happening is that eventually we’ll succumb to our environment despite our greatest efforts to resist.

Our environment is more powerful than our internal resolve. As human beings we always take on the form of the environment I which we continually place ourselves.

Consequently, the best use of our choice is consciously designing environments. Actually, if we’re really committed to something, this is exactly what we’ll do.

If someone is trying to stop drinking alcohol, they must stop being around people that drink alcohol and places that serve alcohol and stop going to the liquor or store to buy alcohol. Their willpower will fail if you don’t. They need to truly decide their done, to commit, and then create an environment to make the success of their commitment inevitable.

This is how evolution works. We adapt to our environment. Conscious evolution involves purposefully choosing or creating environments tat mold us into the people we want to be become.

Everything in life is a natural and organic process. We adapt and evolve based on the environments we select. You are who you are because of your environment. Want to change? Then change your environment. Stop the willpower madness.

Don’t Pray For An Easy Life

Pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.

It’s impossible to change the world around us but we can change ourselves to be as prepared as possible for what it may throw at us.

Amid hardship, it’s tempting to wish that circumstances were different. We may lament that things are as they are, gaining hoping that fate and fortune will cut us a break. We dream of better times ahead. In a time when the world feels so competitive and cut-throat, such sentiments come instinctively.

We pin our hopes on favorable conditions coming about spontaneously is likely to lead to disappointment.

A healthier response might be to accept difficulty as an inevitable part of life. And to prepare for it and to lean into it when it comes.

When you. Accept that challenging conditions, interference from adversaries and unforeseen misfortunes occur will frequently in life.

Once you resign yourself to the fact that bad things happen to good people and stop living in futile hope for something better, you can focus instead on building the strength and resilience to take it in stride.

We might question whether praying for strength or working to develop it might be the best course of action the sentiment remains the same either way.

Many, many years I wasted time hoping, wishing and waiting, for things to get be better. Then I realized that nothing was going to get better if I changed my perspective.

I began praying and asking God to show me what I needed to do with these trials. And what was the lesson to be learned?

James 1:12 says. “Blessed is the man (woman) who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of (eternal) life, which God has promised to those who love Him.

John 16:33 says. “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world, you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the World,

Every time I am dealing with trials or tribulations in my life I always ask the Lord. What do you want to teach me, through this? I stay focused on the lesson that I need to learn through every test He puts before me.

The Paradises Of Hell

I was reading an message by Jonathan Chan. It teaches up a valuable lesson. But only if we heed the warnings.

Hit let promised to usher in a thousand year kingdom of glory for the Aryan people. Stalin promised a workers paradise on earth. Mao, likewise, promised China a people’s paradise. Around 6 million Jewish people perished under Hitler; 9 millions of other nationalities are similarly murdered by the Nazis. Soviet Communism has taken 35 to 45 million lives. And Chinese Communism is responsible for the death of 35 to 64 million people. Why is it that instead of producing hell?

The answer is simple. What links them all together is that they each made the leader, the party, and the state, their god. When you glorify yourself and deny God…. the end of godlessness is death. If God is not the center of what you’re doing, then what you’re doing is empty.

Have we forgotten our past history? Did anyone ever tell you that history repeats itself? The United States want to destroy history. Have you ever wondered why History isn’t being taught anymore?

If you pay close attention to what’s happening in America right now. You can see this is exactly what the Government is wanting to do. Spend some time reading, researching, learning. People are playing right into the Governments hands. They want Communism.

All Propaganda Has To Be Popular And It Has To Accommodate Itself To The Comprehension Of The Least Intelligent Of Those Whom It Seeks To Reach. –Adolf Hitler-

Yom Kippur- Day Of Atonement

Following God’s calendar Wednesday 15th starts the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur in Hebrew.

It’s the holiest day of the year for the Jewish people. It’s central themes are atonement and repentance. The Jewish people traditionally observe this holy day with a 25 hour period of fasting and intense prayer, often spending most of the day in synagogue services. Yom Kippur completes the annual period known in Judaism as the High Holy Days or the Days of Awe.

While most believers do not celebrate this holiday as the Jewish people do. I think it’s important to stop for a while and reflect and repent on personal sins, the fate of each person is sealed for the next upcoming year.

The definition of Yom Kippur. A Jewish holiday observed with fasting and prayer on the 10th day of Tishri in accordance with the rites described in Leviticus 16.

Wrath Of Abandonment

Everywhere we look we can see God’s hand, His divine power and things about His character, the beautiful landscapes, the flowers and trees, rainbows promises that He will never flood the World. The word says that everything on earth pleases God. The trees with their leaving blowing in the wind. The birds singing. All the earth bows to You. -Psalm 66:4-

He is all around us, but people are too busy to even notice Him. Many people don’t seem to know about conscience anymore. Children were never taught about God, or have not introduced to the Bible. It seems like the world is all about “me, me, me,” as long as their happy nothing else matters. We have so much of this in the world today.

The results of whenever that light and revelation is rejected things happen. So out of the beautiful things we back in the pigpen. It’s not nice reading when you get to the end of Romans 1 but it is a reality and we can’t scoot around the outside of it because we will see that it is the very culture that we are living now.

What happens when you reject God?

Romans 1:21-22 says because, “although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, not we’re thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools.“

Paul is speaking here about what happens to people that reject the evidence of God. The first thing is that they achieved glorify God and not we’re they thankful. The Bible speaks a lot about thankfulness for what God has done for us as His people, and actually having a heart that is thankful towards Him for all of those things. So these people are not thankful at all for all the things that God has provided and Paul says that they come futile in their thoughts and their foolish hearts are darkened, professing to be wise they become fools.

The Bible says a fool is someone who says in their heart that ‘there is no God.’ God calls that person a fool. Once someone begins to reject the light and the revelation this is given, philosophies and vain thoughts start to come into their mind. Evolution is a print example of something that is taught these days within our schools. It is taught as a truth rather than a persons theory. It is taught as ‘the truth’ about our existence and how we got here. It is one of the biggest lies ever to come down to human beings. Vain imaginations, theories, and humanism deny the existence of God who created us for an intelligent purpose. Processing to be wise they became fools. There is a professional.

Romans 1:23 “And changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made my corruptible man- and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.”

The order in which Paul starts with is “man” and then he goes down through the animal kingdom right to the bottom of things where things creep along the ground. Bob Dylan sang the song years ago- “You are you going to have to serve somebody.” “You may serve the devil or you may serve the Lord, but you are going to somebody.” Everybody worships something. Idolism has come in and the first thing that Romans talks about is about is that man (woman) is now actually worshipped. So either self is worshipped as an idol or it is someone or is it someone else that is put up in that place and they are idolized and worrshipped. In a lot of Asian and Indian cultures, you see idols everywhere, things that they fashion with their hands and now down to. I heard a missionary from India who said that in Hinduism they have 300 million gods. How you could ever come up with that amount is unbelievable but everything is worshipped as a god. So idolism is rampant in those cultures.

Won’t idols do we have in our culture that we face? Money is huge in our secular society. An idol is anything that takes the place in your heart that God should fill.

The dreaded “giving-over”

Romand 1:24. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves.

Paul uses this term…a giving up or giving over. It’s a judicial term, as when a judge gives a sentence. It a a giving over by God of people, nations and cultures because they reject the light and the revelation that they have been given.

“But my people would not heed my voice, and Isreal would have none of me. So I gave them over t their own stubborn heart, to walk in their own counsels. -Psalm 81:11-12-

When Israel wouldn’t listen to His instructions, wouldn’t listen to His prophets, and would have none of the Lord. He gave them over. I feel the same thing happening in our world today. God had given us over to our stubbornness and our foolishness.

We have a progression here and that is why people are in a pigpen. They rejected the light and come up with all sorts of reasonings. Idol worship, persuasion. You may not realize that Paul lived in a time where homosexuality was accepted. The Roman Empire and it’s Emperor we’re either homosexual or bi-sexual and it was accepted and was legalized. They had legal prostitution of boys, there were public holidays for legal prostitution of boys. It was a big part of their culture. This is where our culture is headed today. History repeats itself, we must learn from it.

Out With Genders…

Romans 1:28-31. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to those things which are not fitting.

Here is a list:

Being filled with unrighteousness, sexual immorality.

Wickedness

Covetousness

Malicious, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness, their are whispers.

Backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedience to parents.

Undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, Unforgiving, unmerciful.

All of these things are in the Bible and they are all happening in the world today.

Finally hearty approval Is given.

Romans 1:32. Who, knowing the righteous judgement of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.

They is so much sin in our nation, we will suffer the Wrath of Abandonment, from God, He will take the cover of protection away from us and we will suffer the consequences. And we will be enter the place of “Armageddon” will begin. A place where the last battle between good and evil will be fought.

It’s all written in the Holy Bible. The Prophecies come true. Are you ready for the:

Wrath of Abandonment

Are We Being Swayed By The Evil One?

Is the world controlled by the Devil?

There are a few verses that are sometimes used to defend Calvinistic idea of total depravity. That seem to say that the world is under the control of satan. Here they are:

“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. – 1 John 1:8-

If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. -1 John1:10-

We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one. -1 John 5:19-

It’s obvious that John is not teaching any sort of doctrine of total depravity, but is simply saying that everyone has sins, and that if anybody claims to be without sin; they are singing by making such a claim. No non-Calvinist disagrees with this.

Almost all Christians of all types believe that everybody sins. It is a straw-man fallacy and non-sequiter to say that if a person denies the Calvinistic idea of total depravity then they don’t believe that a,k people are sinners.

You can deny total depravity and still accept the biblical teaching about the universal sinfulness of humanity.

The third passage quoted above, 1 John 5:19, is sometimes quoted in reference to total inability.

This verse is used to say that people are under control of the devil, and therefore, cannot see or understand the truth of the gospel, nor respond to it, for the devil, who controls them will not allow it.

“The whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one.” -1 John 5:19

John is saying the world lies in wickedness. It is covered in wickedness. This point would be identical to what John wrote earlier in his letter, that everyone is a sinner. -1 John 1:8-10- John is understood to be saying that the world lies under the power, control, or sway of the wicked one, this verse still does not teach total inability for at least two reasons.

The words “power,” “control,” or “sway” are not found in the text, a translator is free to add whatever words he wants to help the reader understand what John is saying.

The entire book of 1 John is engaged in this idea about good and evil, light and darkness, truth and error, and John is intent on showing his readers that based on who God is and what Hesus has done for all people, we can choose to live in love, light, and righteousness, rather than abide in hatred, darkness, and evil. This is how to understand John’s letter.

John is not making a statement about total depravity but is calling upon his readers to “choose this day who we will serve. God or Satan.