Lesson 08 - Moral

 Lesson 8 - Moral

Principle 4: Openly examine and confess my faults to myself, to God, and to someone I trust.

“Happy are the pure in heart.” (Matthew 5:8)

Step 4: We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

“Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord.” (Lamentations 3:40)

Introduction

This evening we will be talking about listing out a Moral Inventory.

The first 6 lessons have prepared us for this step. We have learned about coming out of Denial, recognizing we are Powerless, and learning that our Hope is in Christ. We learned that in Christ we can achieve Sanity, by Turning to our hope, Christ, and putting into Action what we are learning.

In the Moral lesson we take the theory and put it into practice. This is where the action starts.

Moral simply means “upright”, “honest”, “straightforward”, “open”, “honorable”. The goal of this lesson is to introduce you to doing a “Moral Inventory”, or said another way, writing down an “honest, straightforward, open inventory”.

Doing an inventory can be painful. Our tendency is to go around it or jump over it by rationalizing our past. But this is an important step, for if we want recovery, we need to know what we need recovery from, what it is we are going to work on.

Heb 12:11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

In this step, you need to list all the significant events—good and bad—in your life. You need to be as honest as you can be to allow God to show you your part in each event and how that affected you and others.

Tonight’s acrostic will explain the five things you need to do to make a MORAL inventory.

Make time

Open

Rely

Analyze

List

First you need to MAKE time.

Schedule an appointment with yourself. Set aside a day or a weekend and get alone with God! God tells us in Job:

Job 33:33 (TLB): “Listen to me. Keep silence and I will teach you wisdom!”

An example of “making an appointment with God” is found in the story of the woman with the issue of blood.

Mat 9:20-22 Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. (21) She said to herself, "If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed." (22) Jesus turned and saw her. "Take heart, daughter," he said, "your faith has healed you." And the woman was healed at that moment.

The Woman made time to go to where Jesus was, and get as close as she could to Him. There is a strong lesson to be learned in this activity on the part of the woman. In faith she believed, and her belief was fulfilled in her actions. So it is with recovery.

The next letter in MORAL, O, stands for OPEN.

“Let me express my anguish. Let me be free to speak out of the bitterness of my soul” (Job 7:11, TLB).

“Open” simply means to make your inventory a “moral” one. Be honest and transparent before God. When we are open we give the Holy Spirit more to work with.

Psa 139:23-24 Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. (24) See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Some areas that we could consider when making our list.

What do I feel convicted about?

Don't confuse this with guilt. Guilt leads to self condemnation, “I'm no good”, “I can't do anything”, “I'm doomed” like an adversary accusing us. Conviction is something that the Holy Spirit uses to motivate us to a better place like a parent teaching their children.

What do I resent?

Resentment results from burying our hurts, and has the effect of creating a wall between ourselves and others. A wall between ourselves and others creates a wall between ourselves and God.

Luk 6:37 "Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.

What are my fears?

Fear prevents us from expressing ourselves honestly and taking an honest moral inventory.

Joshua 1:9 (GNB) tells us, “Do not be afraid or discouraged, for I, the Lord your God, am with you wherever you go.”

Am I trapped in self-pity, alibis, and/or dishonest thinking?

These are all just excuses.

The next letter is R, which stands for RELY.

Rely on Jesus to give you the courage and strength this step requires. “Come to Him”!

Isa 40:28-31 Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. (29) He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. (30) Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; (31) but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

You can renew your strength with His help. We should be sure enough about this to put our faith in it and believe we can rely on Him to bring about change.

Psalm 31:23–24 (TLB) tells us: “Oh, love the Lord, all of you who are his people; for the Lord protects those who are loyal to him.… So cheer up! Take courage if you are depending on the Lord.”

Now you are ready to ANALYZE your past honestly.

Proverbs 20:27 (GNB) says, “The Lord gave us mind and conscience; we cannot hide from ourselves.”

Analyze is defined as:

1) to separate into constituent parts or elements; determine the elements or essential features of

2) to examine critically, so as to bring out the essential elements or give the essence of

3) to examine carefully and in detail so as to identify causes, key factors, possible results, etc.

Another word that can be used with “analyze” is “meditate”. As we think about these things, connecting dots, we realize that true insight comes in the meditation of the Lord and His works in our lives.

Psa 49:1-3 For the director of music. Of the Sons of Korah. A psalm. Hear this, all you peoples; listen, all who live in this world, (2) both low and high, rich and poor alike: (3) My mouth will speak words of wisdom; the meditation of my heart will give you understanding.

Psa 119:15 I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways.

Psa_119:99 I have more insight than all my teachers, for I meditate on your statutes.

The issues that we are dealing with today are directly related to our relationship with the Lord's decrees. We will find so many connected dots between either ignorance of or rejection of His decrees and the issues we face in this life.

The Lord's decrees are the spiritual principles that He built the universe with, how things work.

L in moral: LIST.

This lesson is about getting a start in practical application of what we are learning step by step. By writing an inventory down, we are able to break the issues down into parts and identity the connection between spiritual principles and our activities.

A good understanding of a spiritual principle and how it relates to practical action is known as “connecting the dots”. When we understand how the dots are connected, it enables us to act in wisdom. Wisdom is positive action that aligns with God's spiritual principles.

There are two ways we see dots connected. One is positively, where we can see how our alignment with God's spiritual principles brings blessings in our life. Examining these dots provides positive reinforcement and builds faith. We believe that God's is able and will bring about sanity in our lives. We need to list these as they give us knowledge and understanding of God's decrees, or spiritual principles from a positive perspective.

The other is negative, and these are the connections we need to work on. By writing them down we can bring order to our thoughts. We can meditate on these issues and develop a plan to bring them into alignment with God's principles.

Lamentations 3:40 tells us, “Let us examine our ways and test them.”

Wrap Up

We have heard the verse that states “greater is He that is in me than He that is in the world”.

1Jn_4:4 You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them [the spirit in the world], because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.

Our strength comes from the presence of the Holy Spirit in us. Without the Holy Spirit in us, we are weaker than the world.

When you accept the provision that God made for you, dying on the cross, His Spirit comes to make His dwelling in you, and THAT is what enables your recovery.

1Co 12:13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body--whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free--and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

If you have never accepted Christ, do it tonight.