It is said any habit can be done or undone when an action for or against it is done consecutively in 30 days. Obviously there are alcoholics, drug addicts, nicotine addicts, and other addictions that might take more time. I'd like to add food addictions to the over 30 day list. Even though I have lost a lot of weight this year sometimes I still fight with the mental addiction to food. Humans are capable of overcoming a lot but I don't believe they are capable of overcoming everything on their own.
Some of us may be addicted to worry or criticism. I know I have!
I want you to get a picture of some habit you have, it does not have to be a problem habit. Take a few minutes. Got it.
Okay lets get real simple here, brushing your teeth is a habit. It is something that has to be done everyday. Going to the bathroom is a habit. Obviously after preschool this comes almost without thought to most of us, that is until we get older and start losing control and must be conscious about it.
Now think of a habit you do now that you have not always done. My new habit is setting the table everyday after every meal so that it is always ready for us to sit down together and eat. It makes getting to the table a lot easier. This takes work to get all the dishes done, choose colors for the season, and always make sure there is enough silverware to go around. I even started putting out a teapot and tea so hot tea is available at breakfast. I started serving fresh cut fruit with redi whip in fancy dishes every morning just so we would make sure we get our fruit servings in. Bread can so easily take over if you let it as will processed foods. So I make the healthy stuff look good to us and avoid too much toast or cereal, etc.
To get back on subject, I really just want you to get a picture of what a habit is.
Now I want to talk about heart habits. I don't have to make a habit to love my children it comes naturally. I don't have to make a habit of breathing I was born breathing. I don't have to make my heart pump as it was programmed before I was born. Actually that is something I can't even control, that is kind of a neat thought. God designs us and installs some things in us, but sometimes we have to hit the download or finish button to receive the benefit.
Let's take this to the next level when you come to know Jesus Christ and He comes to live in You. Bear with this computer illustration, He downloads into your heart, your soul, your will and your emotions. He is sort of like an override button.
Have you ever had to reinstall a program, some files are still there but when you restore a program any new files will override the old ones. It's kind of how the Holy Spirit works in us. We have to run the program to make it work. In our lives we have to let the Holy Spirit run in our lives.
If we are constantly running the old system, eventually it gets bogged down and slow. We keep trying to put all these new things in but we keep getting error messages. It takes the power of God to override the junk in our lives. He can't work unless He is given space in your life to work.
Have you ever opened up the program files in your computer to find all these old programs still in there but never used. We need to free up some disk space. Delete some old things.
A computer only does what the operator tells it to do though some of us will argue differently, the fact is they only do what they are programmed to do.
God didn't create us to be robots, He created us humans with free will able to accept or deny Him. Some of your first responses to that may have been well I have accepted Him. Have you? If we were to do a full system scan on ourselves today what would we find? Have we been downloading viruses, cookies, and running slow on old files?
We may have accepted Him but have we downloaded Him? I hear this over and over "I started going to church when I was nine. I was taught to sit and be quiet, I was told to tithe, I was told to go every Sunday, I was taught to; the way we were brought up, what the church teaches is, that's way it's always been done and I don't question it, etc." I've said that.
What I found was though I was lost. Don't take everything that is fed to you. Seek the Lord and let Him help you discern the truth. So going to church might have been a good start but it is not the finish.
When I hit the download things have not ever been the same. Try and put a virus in what happens? WARNING: Your system is at risk, please click to resolve this issue. I have a new level of protection in my life. You see God downloads His love on us and it is so powerful that we begin to operate differently. He begins to send messages, you need to bless him or her, give a hug, write a note, forgive, admit, eat healthy, clean yourself up, etc. and the joy from all this begins to overflow and infect in a good way everyone that is around you.
Did you know there are people attending church every Sunday, some even serving as leaders and as pastors but they are lost. They know the book, they have been taught and repeat actions over and over out of habit but don't truly know the Jesus they speak of. How scary is that?
We can program ourselves to do good all day long but what does it profit us if we don't have eternal security, if we are not genuinely experiencing God?
Everything we do that is done out of selfish motives will be burnt up. How many times have I done things out of habit or to please someone else and not God. Pride is dangerous thing to have. Please don't fall like I have had to, I used to be involved in everything there was to be involved in at church and then God got a hold of me, "What are you doing?" You see the enemy can use good things to pull us away from a personal intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. John 10:10 says The thief comes to kill, steal and destroy but Jesus came so that we may have life, life abundant until it overflows.
Would you take some time with me and lets take an evaluation of ourselves and our motives before a Holy God. He died so that you can have life now until it overflows.
Let's look together at 1 Corinthians 13 (Amplified Bible)
1 Corinthians 13
1IF I [can] speak in the tongues of men and [even] of angels, but have not love (that reasoning, intentional, spiritual devotion such [a]as is inspired by God's love for and in us), I am only a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
2And if I have prophetic powers ([b]the gift of interpreting the divine will and purpose), and understand all the secret truths and mysteries and possess all knowledge, and if I have [sufficient] faith so that I can remove mountains, but have not love (God's love in me) I am nothing (a useless nobody).
3Even if I dole out all that I have [to the poor in providing] food, and if I surrender my body to be burned or [c] in order that I may glory, but have not love (God's love in me), I gain nothing.
4Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily.
5It is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride); it is not rude (unmannerly) and does not act unbecomingly. Love (God's love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it [it pays no attention to a suffered wrong].
6It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail.
7Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening].
8Love never fails [never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end]. As for prophecy ([d]the gift of interpreting the divine will and purpose), it will be fulfilled and pass away; as for tongues, they will be destroyed and cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away [it will lose its value and be superseded by truth].
9For our knowledge is fragmentary (incomplete and imperfect), and our prophecy (our teaching) is fragmentary (incomplete and imperfect).
10But when the complete and perfect (total) comes, the incomplete and imperfect will vanish away (become antiquated, void, and superseded).
11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; now that I have become a man, I am done with childish ways and have put them aside.
12For now we are looking in a mirror that gives only a dim (blurred) reflection [of reality as [e]in a riddle or enigma], but then [when perfection comes] we shall see in reality and face to face! Now I know in part (imperfectly), but then I shall know and understand [f]fully and clearly, even in the same manner as I have been [g]fully and clearly known and understood [[h]by God].
13And so faith, hope, love abide [faith--conviction and belief respecting man's relation to God and divine things; hope--joyful and confident expectation of eternal salvation; love--true affection for God and man, growing out of God's love for and in us], these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Your heart must be downloaded with the supernatural love of Jesus Christ. We can't buy it, it is a free download!
If we ever want to be an effective witness for Jesus Christ and if the church wants to be powerful in this world we must operate under the love and power of Jesus Christ.
A church that operates on old programs and habits will just continue to do what it has been told to do but a church that downloads Jesus Christ in whole will be restored and used to communicate The Message to a lost and dying world.
Don't go to church out of habit, don't tithe out of habit, don't do good things out of habit. Seek God with all your heart, all your soul, all your will and all your emotions and all these things will be added to you. Joy, love, patience, peace, etc. You will be an effective witness, you can't help but be in relationship with other believers.
He will put a fire in you that can't stay shut up and you will infect others and the power of the Holy Spirit will spread rapidly through this world.
Once you are exposed to the Truth there is no turning back, put your hope, trust and faith in Jesus Christ and lean not on your understanding but on Him, Jesus, the rock, the only foundation!
I feel like Jeremiah tonight: Jeremiah 20:9 If I say, I will not make mention of [the Lord] or speak any more in His name, in my mind and heart it is as if there were a burning fire shut up in my bones. And I am weary of enduring and holding it in; I cannot [contain it any longer].
Don't contain the fire, download it and run it!
Worship the Lord ask Him to come to you and fill you, empty those old dead files, heal those viruses and restore you!
Dreaming big of total restoration today!
I close today with Hillsong
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZpPIKmiMuo
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