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© 1998 by Christian Stewardship Ministries

Glad Tithings is a newsletter of Christian Stewardship Ministries, a nonprofit public foundation. To receive Glad Tithings regularly, send your name and address (with a zip code) to CSM. Gifts are tax deductible, greatly needed and deeply appreciated. The ministry's annual cost per person is approximately $15. Any portion of this newsletter may be quoted or reproduced without further permission, provided excerpts are in context, by adding the following credit line: "Reprinted from Christian Stewardship Ministries' newsletter Glad Tithings, Fairfax, Virginia," and furnishing a copy to CSM.

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Forming Good Habits

Obeying God often is a process of renouncing old bad habits of disobedience and establishing new habits that are in line with His will. When we turn away from sin in one area of our lives, we become free from bondage. As we're freed, we're ready to move on and tackle the next area God shows us. But as long as we persist in sin, refusing to yield to God's gentle urging, we remain in bondage, missing God's fullest blessing and perhaps unable to move forward in other areas as well.

Habits are courses of thought or conduct perpetuated through repetition. After enough repetition, they may become ingrained in our minds to the point that we act in certain ways without even thinking about it. The longer and stronger a habit has us in its grip, the more difficult it will be to break free.

Replacing the Old with the New

The best way to break a sinful habit is to replace it with a new, good habit. But it is not easy to do. It takes discipline. Webster defines discipline as the act of training that corrects, molds or perfects the mental faculties or moral character; to train or develop by instruction and exercise, especially in self-control.

How do we acquire or achieve discipline? Usually we are not motivated to acquire it ourselves (self-discipline), so God has to provide it. Some discipline comes from outside ourselves, through the chain of authority over us (parents, teachers, government, church). God can also use circumstances. Some of us learn more quickly than others. Some of us seem never to learn. As long as we are dependent on letting God direct us through these external forces, we are not likely to discover much of His plan for our lives.

In order to grow in faith and in His will, we must decide to seize the initiative. We must purpose to control our circumstances. We must determine to replace those old bad habits with new good habits. We must choose to form additional good habits.

Making a List

To begin this process, make two lists: old bad habits and old good habits. Your bad habit list will probably be longer-your conscience is reminding you of the sin in your life. Good habits represent obedience, and in those areas, you are already receiving the peace that accompanies obedience. Your good habit list will be shorter because you are able to take many of those areas for granted.

Review your bad habit list and set priorities. Ask God to show you where to start. Then place an A beside all those bad habits that you believe God wishes you to begin to work on within the next week. Place a C beside those that you believe can wait until next year. Everything else should receive a B.

If you have a lot of A's, then you need to prioritize them. Give a 1 to every item you intend to attack today and a 3 to every habit you will leave until the end of the week. Everything else gets a 2.

Begin by dividing your top priority bad habit into small pieces. It will be easier to attack when you see each component of the habit and identify how the new good habit will look.

Let's take an example. Suppose you decide the first old bad habit to dispense with is getting up and out in the morning without spending any (or enough) time with God. If you just decide to spend more time with God, you will get nowhere fast.

Spending more time with God requires planning. So first, you will decide how much time you should be spending with God each morning. Then decide how to rearrange your morning time so that you do have a quiet time built into your schedule. Only after you have developed a concrete plan can you begin to discipline yourself to change to the new good habit.

Exercising Discipline

Now you begin to convert the old bad habit into the new good habit. You will almost certainly encounter the enemy's dual weapons of discouragement and overcommitment. You may also run into a few other favorites such as temptation, interruption, illness, disaster and other unplanned-for circumstances. That's okay. Expect difficulties, embrace them and overcome them.

Remind yourself that you are working on the bad habit you believe God wants you to conquer. Therefore, He must have an answer for each of these weapons. You know that you must establish this new good habit or return to the old bad habit, which you now know most certainly to be conscious disobedience. Hang in there!

Once you have successfully put your first new good habit in place, the second one will be slightly easier. By the time you reach number five or six, you will have such a head of steam, that the process of change begins to look easy. And it does get easier. As a matter of fact, you can establish the new good habit of establishing new good habits. Sin becomes obedience, and obedience becomes greater degrees of obedience.

Your friends will notice the change. They may compliment you on your punctuality, the neatness of your home or the smile on your face. And your new good habits will bring blessings in other areas of your life as well. You may get unexpected raises or be sick less often. Your spouse may show more interest in you, or if you are single, you may become more popular with the opposite sex.

Choosing the Father's Will

Recognize that God is much more interested in our commitment to seek and follow His will than in the final result. In fact, the final result of our attempts to obey Him is within His province.

When Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, "Father, if Thou art willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but Thine be done," He understood this principle. It was His responsibility to be obedient in the process of walking toward the cross and death. If the Father chose to change the process, He could do so, but unless or until He did, it was Jesus' obligation to obey and walk forward. And that process led beyond the cross and death to glory and everlasting life-for Jesus and all who would follow Him. Obedience to God's will brought the greatest reward of all.

As we are able to recognize old bad habits as sin in our lives, establish a plan to change them and exercise discipline to be obedient, we will achieve higher and higher levels of freedom. And until we graduate to glory, that is really what life is all about.