Using Present Moment Attention to Disconnect From Temptation Before Sin Blossoms:
1 Corinthians 10:13
"No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it."
Attention is God's gift to you to be employed as the built-in mechanism to break the bonds of sin in your life by stopping it at its source: THE MOMENT OF TEMPTATION.
Struggling with sin is such a waste of time because God has already supplied us with what we need to defeat it at the outset of any onset. Sin, on the other hand, is so comprised as to keep you completely preoccupied with fighting and resisting it.
In fighting and resisting sin, you sin even more, because the only way to fight sin for you is to fall asleep at the wheel of Attention and drift into fantastic imagination, where sin dominates...the Devil's Workshop.
In order to win real victory, we have to turn to the gifts bestowed by God, and the one gift specifically created by Him to give you power over sin...is ATTENTION, which is the ability to focus your Awareness, your entire self, upon Him long enough to let Him do the heavy lifting, with no strain or harm to yourself.
Snap out of temptation by pulling your Awareness (detaching Attention) back from the experience of tempation - the physiologial urge that courses through your central nervous system.
It is the act of letting go of the 'TEMPTATION SIGNAL' and pulling back, of bringing your Awareness into the room with yourself so that you know that you know that you know you are 'centered' within your body.
SIN PREVENTION THROUGH BREATH: GOD'S HAND-HOLD OUT OF HELLISH MENTAL TRIGGERS
A lot of Christians who daily spend quiet time in attempting to commune close to God use their breath as an anchor that they hold Attention to, patiently breathing in and out fully until enough ticks of the clock pass to let the tempting experience of mental distractions fade off into nothing along with any thoughts and emotions related to entirely momentary events.
The triggers of temptation are always temporary, and never, never, never, NEVER too much for you to physically and mentally handle unless of course you are not in stewardship of Attention in that moment, and allow the temptation to dominate, deceive, and leave you feeling lousy about the fact that you were too weak to stop it.
How Do We 'Handle Temptation'? By NOT Getting Into Wrestling Matches With EVIL!!!
Every time you attempt to fight wrongness, you become wrongness. You become agressive, frustratable, ambitious and controlling of others, demanding, irritable, and prone to sink into negativity in order to get your way.
However, if you follow BIBLICAL instruction, then you will step aside and let God handle it instead of you goofing up the process with your 'solutions.'
GOD CHARGES NOTHING TO DEFEAT YOUR INNER ENEMIES!
By 'handling' temptation, it means NOT HANDLING IT AT ALL and letting it fade away to nothing.
This is constant self-monitoring through controlled Attention is the beginning of you LETTING GO OF SIN and, in all practical ways, learning how to become IMMUNE to its present moment effects.
It is through God's gift of Attention that you can begin to learn what true spiritual strength means.
Jeremiah 33:3 - “Call to Me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things, fenced in and hidden, which you do not know (do not distinguish and recognize, have knowledge of and understand).”
You are never, ever 'too weak' to stop a temptation. It is temptation that is the weak, flimsy thing. It's power over you is entirely dependent on you being asleep at the wheel, convinced that it is something 'powerful,' which it is not, as evidenced by the fact that if you take Attention away from the seed then it dries up and nothing flowers.
You are either AWAKE as the Lord commands, or you are asleep, and the limitations you perceive are entirely self-created in imagination.
Training God's Gift of Attention allows you to choose God's Truth over satan's deceits.
By DENYING ATTENTION to the triggered reaction, you seperate yourself from the seductive, tension-inducing, sometimes overwhelming, and even VIOLENT forces that lead otherwise good people into regrettable mistakes or time-wasting, costly errors in judgment.
God is ENTIRELY DETACHED from Temptation, and Has Gifted You With That Same Power!
Revelation 3:2 - Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God.
Detatchment from the temptation of sin is God's holy power built into the biological machine, and by focusing upon that ability, you can become blessedly adept at shutting down even the possiblity of sinning due to simple, mental laziness.
Yes, mental laziness, because no Christian is supposed to make a habit of allowing their Attention to be under the control of anything other than the Steward of your body.
You - your TRUE, INDISTRACTIBLE NATURE - is God's own gift to you. Attention is your AWARENESS, which is YOU. Undeveloped, untrained, undisciplined, your Attention merely reflects your own personal characteristics up to this point.
Where your Attention rests determines your experience. If your Attention is not under your constant, unwavering, responsible control, then neither is your Christian direction.
Where your Attention goes, so goes your spiritual experience - and if it is always stuck in the devil's workshop, being pulled this way and that...well...
Come on, now. You know what that means.
Escaping The Devil's Workshop of Imagination, Lousy Reactions, and Dumb Mistakes.
1 Thessalonians 5:6 - So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.
When your mind drifts, you sin and, for as long as you are asleep at the wheel and allowing yourself to be carried through the day without attentive participation, you are living in sin: The Reprobate Mind ('default mode' in psychology, imagination-feuled, and self-deluding).
When asleep, that's when you're vulnerable to whatever happens in the devil's workshop.
When YOU allow yourself to be continually carried off into THE DEVIL'S WORKSHOP of Imagination without even a fight, only God's gift can get you out of it:
ATTENTION!
When deprived of Attention, WHICH IS YOU!!!!, temptation - ANY TEMPTATION (sex, violence, alcohol, drugs, revenge, self-sabotage, self-abuse, perversions, gluttony, avarice, lust, hate, sloth, pride, wrath, or simple distraction) - quickly dissipates and is gone like it was never there in the first place.
GOD OWNS TIME - TIME IS ALWAYS ON YOUR SIDE!
Temptation is temporary in any given moment. God ALWAYS DESTROYS TEMPTATION within short order if - AND ONLY IF - you are there in the room with yourself to participate in the Lord's power. If you're in the devil's workshop, well, that's who you're submitting to, by mistake.
Ephesians 5:14 - For anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
Let me give you an example of how time is always on your side against the forces of temptation.
At the onset of any temptation, turn your Attention to your breath as dedicated Stewards do to pull themselves out of imagination or distraction.
Find your breath. You can do this without putting yourself or anybody else at risk.
Once you find your breath...start to breath on your own, and DO NOT STOP.
DO NOT STOP BREATHING ON YOUR OWN, COMMANDING YOUR OWN BODY TO EMPLOY THE ACTION.
Within moments, minutes at the most, the temptation will be gone, no matter what it is* and you will still be there...breathing...unbothered by it. At least until you find yourself triggered once more by some thought, some person, or external event.
That's the life, though. One of constant growth through constant overcoming on the walk with our Lord.
Doing this every single day, over and over and over again builds the spiritual strength you need to truly, geniunely walk ever more upright in service and faith.
Your escape route from penalties stemming from Sin that arises from poor stewardship of God's most powerful gift to humanity was built in when you were born.
Proverbs 2:1-5 - My child, listen to what I say, and treasure my commands. Tune your ears to wisdom, and concentrate on understanding. Cry out for insight, and ask for understanding. Search for them as you would for silver; seek them like hidden treasures. Then you will understand what it means to fear the Lord, and you will gain knowledge of God.
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*NO MATTER WHAT IT IS! No thought, feeling, or emotional content can remain in place while your brain's Attention resources are channeled to other work. It MUST fade. Remaining is impossible because there is no psychological scaffolding to support it.