Aversion therapy is an intensely controversial way to change human behavior. This therapy rests on the premise that you punish undesirable behavior over and over until the patient so links the behavior and the punishment that he gives up that behavior. Those who want to quit smoking are given electrical shocks every time they pick up a cigarette. The drinker who desires to stop is either shocked or so chemically treated that a drink makes him physically ill. This therapy does not attempt to get at the root of behavior; it merely conditions a person's actions.
While this form of therapy sounds good, it will never really work. Change must come from within, not from external pressures. James pointedly said the problems of behavior spill over from the heart. Temptations are temptations only because the person has first been drawn away by his own lusts. Obviously, the best therapy is to have a change of both heart and head through Christ.
Understanding this, the believer looks to Christ for inner strength against evil. Then there is something each of us can do: Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls (James 1:21).
“But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.”
James 1:14 KJV
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