LESSON 07: MORAL INVENTORY

STEP 4
"We searched and made an honest moral inventory of ourselves.”

James 3:21
But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having
been wrought in God.

THINK ABOUT IT
Family dysfunctions paved the way tor addictions and compulsive behaviors in varying degrees.
We After making a decision to turn our lives and our wills over to the care of our Lord Jesus Christ,
we are now ready to go through a new phase of our recovery. We learned in the previous lessons
how family and environment affected our image of God, ourselves and others have seen how our
past stirred us into denial and later to unmanageability.

In business, an inventory is a detailed, itemized record of all assets and liabilities of a company.
Our responsibility in Step 4 is to make a personal inventory as Jesus Himself reveals them to us.
Doing this would cost us something. For as we will be seeing clearly who we are and what we are
made of, the need for change will definitely cause pain especially in areas where our denial is
profound. Moreover, this exercise will reveal to us what God does already knows.

A. MORAL INVENTORY
The term "moral" means a standard and we will use the Bible for this.

 God's Word reveals who we are and what we are not. It penetrates the core of our
moral and spiritual lite. It discerns what is within us, both good and evil.

Hebrews 4:12
For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword,
and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and
able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

 A moral inventory profiles our understanding of ourselves which in turn profiles our
relationship with God. It is not just a listing our bad actions for which we are
responsible.

 We should examine ourselves to know if we are aligned with God's will and
standard because this will enable us to discern if we are in the faith.

 It would be unwise to compare ourselves with other people. If we seek God's help
in making the inner secrets of our hearts plain to us, He will use His Spirit to reveal
 them. Then we can work on changing what God reveals and what His concerns
are about us.

B. RESENTMENTS
Unresolved resentments can have a variety of negative results on our personality without
our realizing it. It can make us hostile, cynical, or even critical which can prevent us from
forming healthy relationships with others. It could retard our personal and emotional
growth, cause difficulty in self-disclosure and trusting others, and cause us to
overcompensate and lose our self-confidence.
 Resentful feelings spell danger and needs to be dealt with. They show how we
have negatively chosen to respond to painful situations.
 And as we begin to take full responsibility for the way we have responded in lite,
we gradually learn to let go of things for which we are not responsible tor and hold
ourselves accountable for our own actions and responses.
 It should be noted that resentment is an important focal point because it is one of
the most common causes of relapse in recovery.

C. EMOTIONS
Emotional maturity is essentially our development from a state of self-centeredness to a
state of outgoing concern for others. It is not something taught in colleges and universities.
We learn it slowly in the environment as we grow up. However, as we learned in the past
lessons, this environment is laced with dysfunction, thereby distorting our emotions.

As human beings, we need to be taught to be emotionally mature. We learn this from

someone who is already emotionally mature. We cannot learn this from immature parents,
immature leaders, or immature preachers. And the impact of emotional maturity on our
spiritual lives is of utmost importance, because control of our emotions directly affects our
spiritual maturity.

An emotion is any strong feeling that triggers us to act on impulse toward an action that
the mind has not reasoned with or approved of. They move human beings to action and it
dramatically affects people regardless of age or gender. Some of these emotions are
feelings (or impulses) are fear, anger, shame, disgust, grief, joy, surprise, and desire.
Different kinds of emotions in varying degrees can occur in a person.

Like resentment, distorted emotions can also cause a relapse in recovery.

D. THE LIFE COACH

Our program deals with how we handle lite in totality. To accomplish this, we need a
person of the same sex to help us in pursuing recovery. A Glorious Hope life coach is
someone who has gone through the program and has been taught, reproved, corrected,
and trained by the Word of God.
 2 Timothy 3:16-17
All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for
training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped tor every
good work.

The Bible is useful in helping us address our thinking through teaching and correction, and
our behavior through reproof and training in righteousness.

 A good coach is someone who is a good listener.

 Lite coaches are non-judgmental encouragers who purposefully make themselves
available when we need them. They are truthful and will not give false
compliments.

WHY DO WE NEEDA LIFE COACH?

1. Accountability – Having another person who knows us enough to ask the hard questions.
2. Pride check – Ego, grandiosity, and self-centeredness are issues of people in recovery.
3. Honesty – We have mastered the art of deception and looking good outwardly while
inwardly doing terribly even in recovery groups.
4. Objectivity – Having a person committed to being a “sounding board” is essential.
5. Encouragement – We tend to get down on ourselves at times over things, which we have
little or no control.

E. HOW DO WE APPLY THIS LESSON?

The action word tor this step is "search". This means examining ourselves intimately and
continuously because, just like peeling the first layer of an onion, we will discover another
layer hidden underneath the façade of projections and deceptions which we have put up
over the years.

Psalm 139:23-24
Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts;
And see if there be any hurtful way in me, And lead me in the everlasting way.

It is difficult to be honest when we are subjected to our own prejudice. This is why David
asked God to help him search for his Sin and point it out. We too must ask God's help to
the extent of trying us through trials to expose our true self. This is the only way we truly
can be honest.