[The Lord seeks to transform our nature, not just to modify our behavior. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the power by which we learn to root out the causes of our spiritual illness rather than devoting all our time and exhausting our strength in the alleviation of symptoms.
Robert L. Millet, “Men of Valor: The Powerful Impact of a Righteous Man”
We live in a time where almost everything, if not everything indeed, is focus on alleviating symptoms, as opposed to fixing the root cause.
The first thing that comes to mind is our medical establishment. Over and over again, pills are being pushed at us to alleviate this or that. Which then, most often requires even more pills to alleviate the symptoms caused by those initial pills.
For those of you that work in the medical field, I'm not saying it's all deceit and lies. Please don't misunderstand. I have tremendous respect for you. There is a great need for doctors, nurses, caregivers, and scientists. I'm just saying, unless for traumatic, life threatening scenarios, focus is usually on the symptoms and not the root cause of those symptoms.
It is typically the same way with our spiritual ailments too. We focus on correcting the not-so-Christlike behavior instead of focusing on being fully converted in the first place to fix that and other behaviors. We focus, at least I do sometimes, on the outward expression caused by mortal tendencies, temptation, or habits, instead of focusing on the inward character and shifting to a more Christlike way of living.
There is a power in focusing on Christ and His gospel. Try it, belive it, and live it.