Sun 9:30a Class; 10:30a Worship; 11:35a Communion
Bible Bites
Creatures of Habit
We all are creatures of habit. Time management is a habit. Manage your time and you control your life. Control your life and you determine your destiny. Good habits are usually formed. Bad habits we fall into. A bad habit is first a caller, then a guest, and then a master. It is easier to form good habits than reform bad ones. Habits are either the best or servants or the worst of masters. Chains of habit are usually too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.
When the Bible speaks of changing the way we think and the way we live — conversion — it is addressing the problem of habits. In Ephesians 2.1ff, the apostle Paul wrote:
And you hath he quickened (made alive, JLC) who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also ye all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
Notice Paul says you were “by nature children of wrath.” Sometimes “nature” means what makes the grass grow green. Here it means what causes men to die spiritually. It is the result of continual or habitual practice — we call it “second nature.” To break old habits and form new ones is the challenge of being a Christian. Over seventyfive years ago the great American psychologist William James wrote a scientific treatise on how to develop good habits and break old ones. His ideas were really borrowed from another source. They were in the Bible all along. Here are three things that are involved in breaking old habits and forming new ones:
- Launch the new practice as strongly as possible: total commitment. When King Agrippa said to Paul, “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian,” Paul’s response was the point we make here: “I would to God that not only thou, but also all that hear me this, were both almost and altogether such as I am, except these bonds.” (Acts 26.29) Did you see what Paul said? Not just almost but altogether — total commitment!
- Never let an exception occur until the habit is firmly rooted. Those who quit smoking experience this. At first it is tough. But stopping, starting, stopping — inconstancy — makes it all the harder. Houstonians learn in a driving rainstorm about skidding in a car. A lapse in trying to form a new habit is like a skid — it takes a good deal more effort to recover control of a car than to maintain it from the outset. In Romans 2.7 Paul wrote of “patient continuance in well doing” — a steady persistence. Good habits come as a result of initial efforts of consistency.
- Seize the first possible chance to act on your resolution. William James said, “A tendency to act becomes effectively ingrained in us only in proportion to the frequency with which the actions actually occur. When a resolve or fine glow of feeling is allowed to evaporate without bearing practical fruit, it is worse than a chance lost, it works so as positively to hinder the discharge of future resolutions and emotions.” This is why the Bible warns us repeatedly about hearing God’s word and doing nothing about it. It becomes a habit — a bad habit — and it can destroy our capacity for real change. “Be ye doers of word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1.22).
Sow an act; reap a habit; sow a habit; reap a character; sow a character; reap a way of life; sow a way of life and reap an eternal destiny.
Let us think, learn, act, and form good habits. We all are bundles of habits. What kind are yours? Good or bad?
