United Church of God

Examining Our Habits

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Examining Our Habits

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Examining Our Habits

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Habits can be good or bad. Some we readily recognize. Others we don't even think about, like how we brush our teeth. A four-step process is provided for examination of our habits so we can discern the good from the bad and follow a process of removing the bad habitual behavior from our lives.

Sermon Notes

Presenter's Outline

Brethren, what kind of habits do you have?  Are you aware of what your habits are?  What is a habit anyway?

Define habit – Dictionary.com

Researchers tell us 40-50% of our daily lives are made up of habitual activity.  Examples

SPS - With the spring Holy Days approaching and the time of focused self-examination coming on us, today I want us to consider our habits.  Our good habits, our bad habits.  Our conscious habits, and our subconscious ones.  Consider the habits we’re aware of, and the ones that are there that we don’t even give a thought to.  Consider the habits your husband or wife points out to you.   Or for you kids, think about the habits your parents say you have.  All this with the goal of doing away with our bad habits, and increasing and sharing our good ones.  The title of the message is “Examining Our Habits.”

The fundamental scripture that we use to determine we are to be examining ourselves at this time of the year.  1 Cor 11:27-32

There are probably still some bad habits with each of us that have been there since Day 1 of being called to God’s way of life.  If we’re not persistently looking for them, we may not be able to see the habits that are so embedded in our mind and nature.   Jer 13:20-23  Sin can be so embedded in us, so habitual that we don’t even realize we are sinning.  People can become so accustomed to doing evil that there comes a point where there is little hope left of being reclaimed from it.

As we read earlier in the definition, habits are also acquired by our conscious actions.  These are things that we initially have to think about as we first do them, and then after purposely doing them over and over they become second nature and then we rarely give them a second thought.  EXAMPLES

Scriptures regarding habits:  Heb 5:14, 1 Cor. 15:33, Heb. 10:25, Acts 17:1-2, Tit 2:6-8, Ps. 1:1-3

How can we overcome bad habits and strengthen our good ones? 

1. Identify Our Bad Habits2 Cor 10:4-5, Ps 19:12, 90:8

With awareness, comes choice.  This is where the self-examination process comes in.  Once you understand that you have certain habits, you have the ability to change them.  The subconscious habits are harder to recognize.  We must work to identify them and bring them into the light. 

Breaking habits is not easy.  Changing our paradigms is difficult.  God knows every last one of our sins, and he can reveal them to us if we ask him.

2. Confess and repent of our bad habits.Prov. 28:13, 1 Jn. 1:9, Heb. 12:11

Do you have a hard time admitting when you are wrong?  Even when those closest to you point out a fault or weakness, or when two or three witnesses do it, do you still automatically deny it? 

3. We have to FIGHT our bad habits.Rom. 7:15-25, Gal. 5:1, Is. 41:10, Heb. 4:15-16

We need our habits to move from our subconscious to our consciousness, to confess and repent of them, and then do battle with them.  Never give up, never quit.

Story of elephant & small rope

4. We must replace bad habits with good ones.Luke 5:36-39, Col. 3:1-14, Eph 4:22-24

We cannot mix new wine with old wineskins.  You must replace the old wineskins with new ones in order for the new wine to properly ferment and expand while being transported.  We cannot hang on to our bad habits, our old wineskins.  We must completely replace our bad habits with good ones.  

Unlearning bad habits is very difficult.  Sometimes you can't completely unlearn a bad habit.  You try to replace it with a different, more deeply ingrained, good habit.  But the old man never completely goes away.  Like a bigger nail drives out a smaller nail, so a better habit drives out a worse habit. 

CONCLUSION:  Rom. 12:2

We should be transforming ourselves into a whole new pattern of thinking, from negative to positive.  Armed with good habits, we will be able to consistently live in a manner pleasing to God.  You will have purposefully developed your brain to do them automatically.

Let’s use this time of self-examination before the Passover arrives to search out our bad habits, to identify them, to confess and repent of them, to FIGHT the battle against them, and work to replace them with good habits.  Remember, this is the time as we approach the spring Holy Days we are to be working at putting the leavening out, the sin out, the bad habits out.  And then during the upcoming seven day holy day season, after all the leavening has already been put out, we daily eat the Unleavened Bread, we take in good habits as it were.

Let’s examine our habits, put out bad habits, and put on good habits.  WE – CAN - DO IT!!!