Habits

Throughout our lives habits come and go, and depending upon how committed we are to them the longer they stick around or if those patterns are seen as a threat to our existence they live a short life or at least we will it even when we cannot find it. New Year’s resolutions prove this point rather well. It is the way we have been wired, put on to much weight and diets are on the cards but until that regime becomes a habit the initial intent will soon be lost to self-indulgence, but break the shackles of over eating or ingesting incorrectly and the results will soon become evident. Most of those types of intentions come from a place of self-centeredness; we do certain things to feel better about ourselves and that varies from person to person. We have a resolve to achieve some remarkable things when something deep within us gets triggered. A soldier is pushed to the brink of his endurance and he cries out, “I can’t go anymore corporal” but the instructor insists he has to continue or he will not qualify and from somewhere he finds another gear and continues with new vigour. Where did that come from? God Knows! Now if we have that sort of drive prior to salvation, how much more should we be motivated to walk in the Spirit? We now have the mind of Christ; it shouldn’t be a tap that we switch on and off as we once did. We are new creatures in Christ and the reality of our lives is that we must now learn to apply a different set of rules to our understanding, the overarching laws of grace, a freedom to now walk habitually in victory with sin no longer having the power it once held over us; the Lord Jesus Christ has freed us from that bondage.

This should now become the way we understand our position in Him; “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” (Romans 6:11-14)

Walking in the Spirit should be habit forming, something we no longer have to think about but live out by default because of what Christ did for us on Calvary. But unless we are deliberate with our intent, we could end up in unwanted territory.

Take a normal morning and unpack the events that take place in our lives and it will become obvious that we do what we do because it needs to be done, not much thought gets in the way of our intent. We wake up, have a quite time, shower, brush our teeth, get dressed, and pack school lunches, we drink coffee, eat breakfast, make sure kids are ready for school and so on; the list varies depending upon the demands of life and where we fit into it. But as Christians we all have the same Spirit that guides us, therefore we must all learn to put Him first in our lives. When He is shelved we see that our lives take a turn for the worse. Not that our comforts are always stripped from us, on the contrary it’s often our comforts that keep us from Him. There is a measurement which accurately weighs us in the balance, the scale of peace of God in our lives; “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:7) – Regardless of the trial of life when we have peace with God it outweighs everything else, praise God for His comfort.

The churches except for two, Smyrna and Philadelphia lost their way and somehow a snare captured their understanding leading them down the wrong road and so repentance was called for. Have we learnt to walk in the Spirit with a clear conscious or is our life still filled with entrapment with the bad habits of the past keeping us from our freedom in Christ?

I trust we will observe the good example of the Church at Philadelphia, learn from their example and follow suite. Good habits are available to all of us you confess Jesus Christ as Lord and to those you believe that God raised Him from the dead. We have the mind of Christ and we must learn to use it proficiently. Grace is available to all of God’s children but it is imperative that we find endurance in applying it into our lives. Only then will the peace of God surpass all understanding.

“"And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: 'The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens. "'I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. Behold, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie--behold, I will make them come and bow down before your feet and they will learn that I have loved you. Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth. I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown. The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.'” (Revelation 3:7-13)

Lord willing we will unpack this in more depth in the next post.

Signing off

Tyrone