Habits that build Holiness
“I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery and impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness.” Romans 6:19
I believe that all of us have had a destructive habit that has affected our lives, whether it seems something as small as our thought patterns, it is a destructive habit. The Apostle Paul tells us that there are “limitations to our human nature”. How important it is to have victory in every area of our lives. God’s desire is that his children walk and live in complete liberty, which is, a life of holiness. Before Christ we offered our bodies to impurity and evil, but now that we serve Christ, He leads us towards holiness. I don’t believe that you can talk about liberty without talking about holiness. But how can we live in this world full of sin and still be victorious in Christ? This begets another question: How can we conquer a destructive habits?
In his book, “The Search for Holiness”, Jerry Bridges mentions three areas that are needed to achieve the liberty and holiness. He comments that the first principle to be free from the slavery of a bad or destructive habit ativan addiction is to develop and re-focus the frequency of the repetition. The more we sin, the more we fall into a sinful lifestyle. But the opposite is true as well. The more we surrender ourselves to justice and purity; we rise towards a new level of holiness.
The second principle towards the search for holiness is breaking the habit of sin and acquiring new healthy habits. We need to make every effort to avoid failure. No one makes it their goal to sin exceptionally. When we pay more attention to the times we fall, we enforce the bad habits. We need to re-focus our efforts on good habits.
The final principle towards the search for holiness is to not get discouraged by failure.
Everyone has low moments; it is what we do after the failure that is really critical. Are you going to make the choice towards liberty or towards failure?
Today is the day you can take the first step towards becoming free from habits that don’t glorify the Lord. What ever it is, the victory is yours beloved servant. You aren’t just anybody. God has made you to “serve righteousness.” We know we can’t do it without God’s help. God is waiting for you to walk in freedom and to lead your church towards freedom from habits that don’t glorify Him.
Until next month,
Rocco