In reality, we had a big problem. We were told if we didn't quit our addiction it would kill us, but we paid no attention. We were like Mr. Jay Walker. Jay Walker entered a rehabilitation program. He didn't have a classic addiction problem, but he liked to run in front of moving vehicles. That is the way he got his thrills. He started on this behavior pattern when he was a young bicycle rider. He would leave home on his bicycle, go down town and pick a place on the sidewalk. When a car came along, he would jump on his bicycle and cross the street in front of the car. One day he jumped on his bicycle and started across the road, but he was hit by the car. He suffered a broken leg and stayed in the hospital for about a week. He recuperated at home for another week, during which time he could not continue his dangerous habit. Then he got a pair of crutches and hobbled down to the street and began the same behavior pattern. It wasn't long before he was hit by another car. 

This accident broke his other leg. After another recuperation period in the hospital, he was sent home. They put him in a bed with rollers, so he got his wife to push him down the street. They would stand at the corner and he would say, "Go!" and she would push him across the street.

We may call Jay Walker crazy, but his behavior is no crazier than our behavior while we are under the influence of our addiction. Everybody could see that he had a problem, but Jay couldn't see it. Others could see the results of his problem when they looked at his body. When he would not show up for work, they knew he would be down the street trying to dodge traffic. When people saw Jay Walker coming down the street, they knew what he would do. They would 

ask themselves, "Why does this man do such a thing?" If they tried to talk to Jay about his problem, he would deny having a problem. It was the same with us. Our problem wasn't walking in front of cars, our problem was our addiction. It was destroying everything and everyone around us, but we couldn't see it. 

When he broke his leg on the bicycle, Jay thought to himself, "Well, I'll do it differently next time. I'll cross the street in a different way and I'll have different results." Obviously, his mind wasn't thinking properly. When people tried to help, he would say, "My jay walking doesn't hurt anybody but myself." Actually, he had children at home, he was laid up from work, he was unable to function as a normal husband and father. But his whole focus was to get back on that sidewalk and cross the street in front of another moving vehicle. We can easily see the insanity in Jay Walker. It is unbelievable that a man could be that stupid or crazy. But our behavior has been just as stupid and crazy. 

Is Jay Walker's attitude toward life correct? Obviously something is missing. We are no different when it comes to our addiction. We stay in our fantasy so long that we don't know the truth about ourselves or about anything else. We lean on our own understanding. We defend what we do, what we say and how we act. We deny and project and rationalize and justify. We don't behave like this for a week or two, we continue for years. We have practiced this behavior pattern long enough to be very good at it. We can tell someone a lie, then get angry because they don't believe it. 

Our mind is so distorted, we even deceive ourselves. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. (Proverbs 23:7) The heart this Scripture refers to is not the organ that pumps blood, it is our inner soul, the heart of our thought process. We are the result of how we think. Our attitude, and thoughts determines our behavior. This means in order to change what we have become, our thinking has to change.That is impossible if we try to accomplish it ourselves. Over a period of years, we have developed certain attitudes that have brought about certain actions. After acting out the same behavior over and over, it has become a habit. Our actions and attitudes and habits have been wrong, not only for ourselves, but for everyone significant to us. Our bad actions, bad attitudes and bad habits generated character defects, such as lying, stealing, manipulating and swindling. This behavior pattern has become our lifestyle. If not corrected, our character defects can become satanic strongholds. A stronghold exists that we cannot break. 

Once an addict puts the addictive supplement into his body, he loses the power to stop. That produces the opportunity for a satanic stronghold to be established. When a satanic stronghold is in place, it also affects the way we think. The reverse side of the coin is that godly attitudes bring about godly actions, which develop godly habits. This generates godly character, and godly strongholds. Our problem is not our circumstances or our family or our job or our wife or our boss. Our problem sits right on top of our neck. Our problem is in our head. It is possible to break a habit temporarily, but unless we handle the root issue of the problem, the habit returns. 

The root issue lies within our hearts and is expressed in our attitudes. What we think in our hearts, determines our character and our behavior.If we think long enough about doing something, we eventually do it. We act on what we think. Using drugs and alcohol always begins with a thought. Sometimes we can think about it so much, we can taste it. If that is our focus, eventually it becomes a reality. Our thought process has caused all our problems. This is true in every area of our lives. We have denied and projected to sustain our own behavior. We have said that everyone has a problem but us. We have also excused our behavior, by rationalizing and justifying it. We see ourselves as victims, but we are really victimizers, we are the ones causing the problem. 

We must turn our attitude around so we see ourselves as the cause of our problem, not victims. A spiritual battle is underway. Satan will not come to us, pick us up and carry us off to his kingdom. Also, he will not dwell in us unless we give him a place to dwell. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:3-5) Our battle is not a battle of flesh against flesh, it is spiritual. For us to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, we must turn to the Spirit of God. We can't accomplish it in the flesh.

Consider this example of the battle being fought in the spirit, not in the flesh. When we try not to think about something, we automatically think about it. That is all the mind, by itself, can accomplish. Pornography, for another example, will consume us totally, until our entire lives center around it. The harder we fight, the more powerful it becomes. We try to fight it with our willpower, but willpower is a product of the flesh, and when flesh fights flesh, flesh wins.That is why we must fight flesh with something other than flesh. We walk in the flesh, but we must fight with a power greater than flesh. That power is the divine power of the Holy Spirit. We destroy the fortresses or strongholds of the enemy in our lives through the Holy Spirit. 

We all have this problem. We must destroy speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God. We must take every thought to the obedience of Christ. This change must take place in our minds. We can't do it ourselves, God does it as we turn to Him. Every attitude or thought is either edifying to God or it opens the door for Satan. When we see a dead carcass on the road, we usually see five or six vultures, or buzzards, around it. As we get closer, those birds stay with that carcass until the last moment, and then suddenly they fly away. If we look in our rear view mirror, we see them return to the carcass immediately. We don't see buzzards in a rose garden, because there is nothing to attract them. The rotten, stinking carcass attracts them. It is the same with our stinking attitudes. They attract Satan. We may try to chase the buzzards out of our minds and thoughts, but we can't do it when our attitudes are still rotten. 

The only way to get rid of the buzzards is to get rid of the carcass. Satan is not attracted to anything godly, but he is quick to join anything ungodly. Our ungodly thoughts and attitudes appeal to Satan. Our minds are like landing strips. Bad attitudes and ungodly thoughts offer landing strips to Satan. We give him the right to land in our minds. With no landing strips in our minds, there is no place for Satan to land. He can fly around us, but he can't land. Aircraft fly over us but they don't affect us because they have no place to land. As a buzzard flies to a carcass, Satan is attracted to our ungodly landing strip. We avoid this by doing away with the landing strip of our stinking attitudes and thoughts. That leaves no place for Satan to land and grab for his own use. We must destroy those landing strips every day. Scripture tells us we are to demolish, to destroy the fortresses, the strongholds, and the landing strips. When we repent of our ungodly thoughts and pray for God to renew our minds, we demolish the strongholds. We are not in charge of the demolition, we simply submit the landing strip to God and He does the rest. We tell Him we don't want it in our lives and we release it to Him. If we don't submit it to God, we make it available for Satan to use. When we give God access to our thoughts, He gets rid of our character defects and our ungodly behavior. 

None of this occurs until we give God access. Then, when God takes over, we bury the carcasses and get rid of the buzzards. A buzzard never gets close to a cow while the cow is alive, for buzzards are frightened of cows. But as soon as a cow goes down and begins to die, the buzzards start circling. It is the same with us. When we pray and submit ourselves to God on a daily basis, we don't have to worry about Satan. But when we don't give God access to our minds, Satan starts circling because he smells death in the wind. Satan doesn't have to wait for us to die, he sees the imminent spiritual death, which is certain to come when we stop communicating with God. I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:1,2) God has had mercy on us. We should have been dead because of our sins, but we are still alive. We are called to present our bodies to Him as living sacrifices. We are to present ourselves to Him. This is our reasonable service, the least we can do in return for what He has done for us.God wants to change us. He tells us not to be conformed to the patterns of the world. Those of the world don't present themselves to God, they don't come before Him and make themselves available to Him. They do whatever they want to do, when they want to do it, with no regard for God and His will for them. This is the pattern to which we have been conformed to. 

The purpose of our quiet time is to present ourselves to God in the morning as living sacrifices. People of the world don't have quiet times every morning to seek God's will for their lives. They are conformed to a different pattern of behavior. They are not dependent upon the Lord.

We break our conformance to the patterns of the world as we are transformed by the renewing of our minds. The Spirit of God renews our minds as we seek Him every morning, and He transforms, or changes us. We discover the good, acceptable and perfect will of God. If this transformation is not allowed to take place, we never know the will of God for our lives.

We have to let God renew our minds to discover His plan for us. We can only be transformed by God, so we have to present ourselves to Him as living sacrifices.In the quiet-time part of the Daily Moral Inventory we present ourselves to God and He brings things to the surface of our minds to be released to Him, so transformation can take place. God's Spirit comes into us and we release Him to work in our minds and our emotions. As He changes our wrong beliefs, thoughts, and our hearts then begin to change. As our hearts change, our behavior changes. 

We become different people than we were before we allowed Him into our hearts. "Be still and know that I am God." (Psalm 46:10) Why does God want us to be still? He wants us to present ourselves to Him and be still, so we can hear Him speak to us. Only then will He be able to change us. One of the patterns of the world is busyness. When we are busy, running around all over the place, there is no way we can hear from God. We must be still, and we accomplish this through our quiet time. How can we experience God if we can't hear Him? We can sit in a chair with our Bibles, intent upon having a quiet time with the Lord, open the Bible, then be bombarded with thoughts of the day or of certain conditions that exist in our lives. This is because we are not still before the Lord, we allow our minds to be active. He knows who disciplines himself to be still, and who doesn't. If we allow our minds to race off in another direction, it is impossible for the Lord to get our attention. He wants to communicate with us, but our minds are not still and centered upon Him. We are not doing what we are told to do in Romans 12:1,2. We have not presented ourselves as living sacrifices, because our minds are not present to Him. Our bodies are present, but they are dead sacrifices. We walk in the flesh, but we do not go to war in our flesh. He wants our minds, so He can put life into our bodies. 

That requires disciplined focus on our part. If He has our minds, He has our bodies. If He has our attention, He has all of us. When our addiction had our attention, it had all of us. It is the same in our relationship with the Lord. He wants us to be still, to present ourselves as living sacrifices, so He can transform us through the renewing of our minds. The change must come first in our minds, in our thought process. Then the rest of us changes. This can be accomplished only by His Spirit, as we appropriate His word and as we pray and fellowship with others who are like-minded. 

Transformation is a process that continues the rest of our lives. Our minds are continually renewed, and we continually mature spiritually until we become what He wants us to be. To learn anything in school, we had to pay attention to the teaching, we had to focus. The more attention we paid, the more we learned. The less attention we paid, the less we learned. It is the same with God. The more attention we give Him, the more He changes and matures us. He wants to change our thought process. He uses several methods, one of which is His word. One reason for Scripture memorization is to help the process of mind renewal. Our mind is like the airstrip. If we want to change the airstrip into a watermelon patch, we have to dig it up and fertilize and cultivate it. We have to prepare it to grow watermelons. That is what Scripture does to our minds. It prepares us to receive the heart of God.

Our minds have grown to be as hard and crusty as a well-used airstrip. They have been packed 

down by repeated landings of Satan's aircraft. Sometimes he used big transport planes, like the 

ones the Air Force uses to haul armored tanks. Our minds had to be hard to receive that much 

oppression. God has to plow up that hardness, and one of the ways He does it is with His word. When we plow the field and the rains come, the field becomes soaked and soft. While it was hard, the rain just ran off, but now it can receive the nourishment of the rain. As God renews our minds and plows them and softens them to receive His word, our minds begin to soak up His wisdom and His truth. Once He starts to prepare our minds, we don't want any more aircraft landing and packing them down. Our recovery and our walk with God starts in our minds, in our thought process. God created our minds to be occupied by the Spirit of God.

HOMEWORK: Memorize Proverbs 23:7; Psalm 46:10; Romans 12:1,2

 In the morning we should have a period of time set aside for meditation, bible scripture reading, and prayer. This is one of the most important  spiritual disciplines that you can learn in your relationship with Jesus, because it will set the course for your entire day. Jesus desires and wants you to develop the habit of spending time alone with him each morning. If you begin each day with communion with God you can walk through the day with the confidence of his presence.

To make this time most meaningful we suggest that you select a quiet, secluded place where you can be completely alone. It is almost impossible to concentrate if you are in a room with someone else. Jesus often withdrew from the crowds to refresh himself spiritually, and we too, if we want to grow in his likeness must make the same strategic withdrawal. We need to select a spot that will become our “prayer closet” where we can shut out the world for a time of communion with him. One of the tools we have found very helpful in this time alone with God is a DMI Daily Moral Inventory. This is especially helpful for those with life, controlling addictions, or life controlling problems within their life. We will explain now how the daily moral inventory works.

Take your daily moral inventory 

The DMI is designed to help you identify several negative and several positive attitudes that you may have expressed through your thoughts and behavior the day before. It is a mirror to help you get in touch with your own soul; and it will, if you will do it honestly. It will  give you valuable insights into the attitudes and character defects that motivate your actions. The Bible says “as a man than in his heart  so is he” Proverbs 23:7 . 

There are two basic aspects to the freedom process from life, controlling, addictions, or problems.

1. Physical detoxification from drugs, or alcohol, or a separation from that which one is controlled by.

2. Renewing the mind from mental and emotional contamination.

The first part is much easier of the two. Although withdrawal is physically uncomfortable, the body will, when we quit in ingesting, alcohol and drugs slowly return to normal functioning. The second part is a process that will require your energies and attention for the rest of your life. We call it stinking thinking or negative thinking, and the damaged emotions that accompany our negative thinking . This also includes any other obsessive compulsive behaviors that control our lives. Our mind does not clear up when we merely get sober or detach from our obsessive compulsive behaviors. 

The DMI has twenty four negative/positive characteristics listed on each side of the sheet. When we are in our shame and guilt we can tend to identify with all of these negative actions and behaviors at once because of the negative lifestyles experienced with our addiction. The DMI is a starting point to begin our journaling experience and ask the Lord for His help. We need to only mark down three or four negative characteristics each morning and as we think about the previous twenty-four hours the day before. On the other side of the sheet are twenty positive characteristics. We want to start to learn to appreciate some of the positive aspects of how we have been over the past twenty-four hours also. When we first begin to journal, we write very specifically about each characteristic. This becomes the spring-board for allowing the Lord to minister His words of grace and forgiveness to the inner man in a very personal way. The journaling will be exposing past issues that we need help with.