We all have them
We also have habits that we just do that aren’t necessarily bad
We are creatures of habit
There are comforts in doing the same things that we always do
We might go to pizza every Friday night
Read the paper or watch football
or go to church or all three on Sundays
We also have spiritual habits
They can be good and they can be not good
Reading our bibles
Praying
Going to church
Following man’s doctrine
If we are regimented in our spiritual routines or belief systems,
that is where they might not be not good
If God is trying to get our attention,
to bring about something new or different in our lives,
we don’t want to be conformed to our routines,
but open to the newness He is trying to teach us or bring to us
Jesus had a way of challenging His disciples’ habits
Anytime He asks us to do something,
He is essentially stopping us in our tracks
and interrupting our routine
The Bible is full of exhortations that challenge our time in this world:
Come follow Me (Matthew 16:24)
Do not forgive and you will be not be forgiven (Matthew 6:15)
Love your enemies (Matthew 5:44)
Leap for joy when you’re persecuted (Luke 6:23)
Bring the full tithe into the storehouse (Malachi 3:10)
Lay your hands on the sick and they shall recover (Mark 16:18)
Do not judge lest you be judged (Luke 6:37)
You must be born again (John 3:7)
Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth (Matthew 6:19)
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.
If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
1 John 2:15
The most destructive spiritual habit I can think of
as far as God is concerned
would be the unwillingness to respond
when He asks us to do something
We can be in a habit of being closed
or seeking our own will
That is a bad habit that if it were broken,
it would be freedom in Christ
I remember hearing an interview
from 2 people who participated in the Izusa Street Revival
They said the Holy Spirit ran the Revival
People would come forward with something to share
sometimes people would be stopped and not able to share
They said it came to an end because Men wanted to control it,
so, God was pushed out of His own beautiful movement
I suspect this is God’s idea of the perfect church:
How is it then, brethren? when ye come together,
every one of you hath a psalm,
hath a doctrine,
hath a tongue,
hath a revelation,
hath an interpretation.
Let all things be done unto edifying.
1 Corinthians 14:26
If you would for a moment,
consider any habits you have
that may be hindrances in your walk with Christ
Ways that you have solidified your life
and not allowed Him to change or fix or even destroy for His glory
Call them bad habits if you will
but any sort of system you have
that blocks you from serving Him
This can even be a teaching,
preconceived ideas you have,
prejudices you have about certain preaching styles,
the way you think people should receive from God,
the very way that you might be in speaking of our Lord
Since Jesus did nothing but what He saw the Father do
and said nothing but what He heard the Father say,
He was listening to and watching God all the time
If we tried to follow that example,
no matter how foreign it may seem to us at first,
it would be I interesting to see how our lives
might become more like what He has in mind for us
“Not as though I had already attained,
either were already perfect:
but I follow after, if that I may apprehend
that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended:
but this one thing I do,
forgetting those things which are behind,
and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling
of God in Christ Jesus.
Let us therefore, as many as be perfect,
be thus minded:
and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded,
God shall reveal even this unto you.” Philippians 3:12-15
Scriptural References:
Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.
John 5:19
For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.
John 12:49