Habit in Christian preaching refers to the powerful force of repeated actions shaping character and spiritual life, often likened to a current or natural tendency difficult to resist (Romans 12:2). Illustrations emphasize habit's formation through regularity and its influence on behavior, calling believers to cultivate godly practices and break harmful patterns for holiness (Galatians 5:16).
Worn-out horses instinctively formed battle lines and charged during gunfire.
A battle occurred near the corral, where a large number of Gen. Sheridan's worn-out horses were confined. During the heavy firing, they grew warlike, formed in squadrons, and charged upon a number of mules, two of whom they killed; when the rest fled. They next charged upon and overthrew a high rail-fence, and did not cease their demonstrations till the firing ceased.
A magician's habit caused him to lose the true philosopher's stone forever.
There is an Eastern tale of a magician, who discovered by his incantation, that the philosopher's stone lay on the bank of a certain river, but was unable to determine its exact locality. He therefore strolled along the bank with a piece of iron, to which he applied successively all the pebbles he found. As one after another they produced no change in the metal, he flung them into the stream. At last he hit on the object of his search, and the iron became gold in his hand; but, alas! he had become so accustomed to the "touch-and-go" movement, that the real stone was involuntarily thrown into the river after the others, and lost to him forever.
Habit grows stronger with time and regularity, becoming a necessity if unresisted.
We all acknowledge the strength of habit. Its power increases with time. In youth, it may seem to us like the filmy line of the spider: in age, like the fly caught in its toils, we struggle in vain. "Habit, if not resisted," says St. Augustine, "becomes necessity." The physical force of habit is thus clearly illustrated by Dr. Combe. "A tendency to resume the same mode of action at stated times is peculiarly the characteristic of the nervous system; and, on this account, regularity is of great consequence in exercising the moral and intellectual power. All nervous diseases have a marked tendency to observe regular periods; and the natural inclination to sleep at the approach of night is another instance of the same fact. It is this principle of our nature which promotes the formation of what are called habits. If we repeat any kind of mental effort every day at the same hour, we at last find ourselves entering upon it, without premeditation, when the time approaches." Mrs. Sigourney
Miners refused surface work, preferring familiar habits even if less productive.
Some Lake-Superior miners, accustomed to work deep down in the earth, were about contracting for another mine; but, when they found that their work would be on the surface, they refused it, preferring idleness and want to such unaccustomed labor.
Habit governs life like a current, not a pilot directing a vessel's course.
This law is the magistrate of a man's life. It is not the pilot directing the vessel: it is the vessel abandoned to the force of the current, the influence of the tides, and the control of the winds.
— Joseph Johnson
Giving up tobacco parallels renouncing other habits unfriendly to true Christian piety.
A correspondent of the New-York Evangelist says: "I had chewed this poison more than fifteen years. I had often doubted the utility of this practice before I relinquished it. I found that one argument which I had employed against the use of ardent spirits applied with as much propriety to the use of tobacco. The argument is, that it must be unfriendly to true piety, for the Christian, while in health, to be un-
Repeated actions form habits that shape character permanently, like footprints in wet cement.
I wonder if I can make plain to you what a habit is. Have you ever seen men laying concrete sidewalks here in the city, and they put boards across to keep people from walking on the pavements before they were thoroughly dry? I am sure you have. These men keep people off the walk while it is soft because, if any one steps on it, then his footprints harden into the walk as it dries, and will always remain there. Now, boys' and girls' minds are just like those cement walks when they are wet and soft; and if you do a thing over and over again as a boy or girl, you will make such a deep mark in your brains that when you grow up you cannot get the mark out, and you just keep on doing it, whether you want to or not. When once you do a thing, it is easier to do it again. Even cloth and paper find it easier to do a thing a second time than the first. The sleeves of your dresses and coats fall into the same wrinkles and creases every time you put them on. That is what we call the "hang" of a dress or coat. And if you fold a piece of paper once, it quickly gets the habit of folding along the same crease again. And so you see that it is very important for you to get good habits as boys and girls, for first you make the habits, and then the habits make you. You have often seen a little brook running along between its banks and over its pebbly bed. Well, once there was no brook-bed there, but gradually, years ago, a little stream began to trickle through, and finally it wore out a bed for itself. Now it cannot leave the bed if it wishes to. That is just what you do when you make a habit: you make a course which you will follow later in life. First you take the train, then the train takes you. First the stream makes the bed, then the bed guides the stream. They tell us that after we are thirty years of age we are little more than a bundle of habits. I suppose thirty years seems a long way off for you boys and girls, but you will reach it if you live. And there will be men living somewhere who will hear the name that you boys now have, and you are deciding now by the habits you make what sort of man he is going to be. If you want him to be a good, honorable, strong man, be sure you form good habits now.
Habitual sin hardens the heart, requiring stronger spiritual discipline to overcome.
In preparing places for planting new trees, the diggers found it needful in certain spots to lay aside the spade and use the pick-axe. In those positions there had been a well-gravelled carriage road, and hence it was hard to deal with it. How often, when we are under sanctifying influences, do we find certain hard points of our character which are not touched by ordinary influences; these are most probably sins in which we have become hardened, tracks worn by habitual transgression. We must not wonder if the severest processes of affliction should be tried upon us, if the pick-axe is used instead of the spade, that our stony places may yet yield soil for the plants of grace and holiness.
A horse's habit shows how consistent faithfulness supports effective ministry service.
That honoured servant of Christ, Richard Knill, notes in his journal the following amusing incident of the force of habit, as exemplified in his horse. "Mr. and Mrs. Loveless would have me live with them, but they charged me very little for my board, whereby I was enabled, with my salary, to support seven native schools. These were so situated that I could visit them all in one day. My horse and gig were seen constantly on the rounds; and my horse at last knew where to stop as well as I did. This nearly cost a Bengal officer his life. Captain Page, a godly man, who was staying with us until a ship was ready to take him to the Cape, one morning requested me to lend him my horse and gig to take him to the city. The captain was driving officer-like, when the horse stopped suddenly, and nearly threw him out. He inquired, 'What place is this?" The answer was, 'It's the Sailors' Hospital.' They started again, and soon the horse stopped suddenly, and the captain was nearly out as before. 'What's this?'—'A school, sir,' was the reply. At last he finished his business, and resolved to return another way. By doing this he came near my schools, and again and again the horse stopped. When he got home, he said,' I am glad that I have returned without broken bones, but never will I drive a religious horse again.'"
Early habits shape character and determine future direction and duty fulfillment.
E
EARLY HABITS TELL
The tree will not only lie as it falls, but it will also fall as it leans; that is, we shall go after what we are inclined to--is not that so?--which makes it all in all to us what the bent of our mind is.
Twenty years ago there were two boys in my Sabbath-school class, bright, lively fellows, who interested me very much; only one of them made me sometimes feel anxious. I often found him out evenings in company with young rowdies. When I asked him how it happened, he used to say he was only out on an errand; the boys spoke to him, and he could not help speaking, he was sure. Perhaps that was so, still it made me uneasy. I once said to his mother: “Is not Willie out of nights too much?” “Willie out nights! Oh, no; Willie does not go out nights.”
Gluttony leads to coarseness, while abstemiousness fosters modesty and self-control.
Gluttony tends to cynicism. Coarseness and extravagance of speech and manners go hand in hand with dietetic excesses, as, for cognate reasons, the repulsiveness of voracious animals is generally aggravated by a want of cleanliness. Among the natives of the arctic regions, where climatic causes make gluttony a pandemic vice, personal cleanliness is an almost unknown virtue, and Kane’s anecdotes of polar household habits depict a degree of squalor that would appal a gorilla.
Habitual abstemiousness, on the other hand, is the concomitant of modesty, thrift, self-control, and evenness of temper, and is compatible with heroic perseverance, tho hardly with great energy of vital vigor. The dietetic self-denials of Luigi Cornaro, a Venetian nobleman of the sixteenth century, enabled him to outlive the third generation of his epicurean relatives. During the latter decades of his long life he boasts of having enjoyed a peace of mind unattainable by other means. Within the bounds of reason, occasional fasts are by no means incompatible with intellectual vigor, tho they are chiefly apt to stimulate the activity of abstruse speculations. There are intellectual voluptuaries whose enjoyment of mental triumphs in controversy or cogitation seem, for the time being, actually to deaden their craving for material food. Isaac Newton, on the track of a cosmic secret, would send back plate after plate of untasted meals. Percy Shelley, in the words of his sprightly biographer, indignantly refused to alloy the nectar of poetic inspiration with a “boarding-house soup,” and in his creative moods rarely answered a dinner call without a sigh of regret. Benedict Spinoza, amid the parchment piles of his bachelor den, would fast for days in the ecstacy of his “_Gott trunken_”--“God-intoxicated”--meditations. Intermittent denutrition undoubtedly tends to clear off the cobwebs of the brain. (Text.)--FELIX OSWALD, _Open Court_.
Sinful habits enslave the will, leading to spiritual blindness if unrepented.
H
HABIT
Says Jeremiah, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to evil.” The last chapter in the biography of habits is its enthronement, its tyranny over the will. The tragedy of every habit is that instead of being an aid to the will, it becomes its master. Donald Sage Mackay, in “The Religion of the Threshold,” says:
Henry Drummond once told of a man who had gone to a London physician to consult about his eyes. The physician looked into the man’s eyes with a delicate ophthalmoscope, and then said quietly to the man. “My friend, you are practising a certain sin, and unless you give it up, in six months you will be blind.” For a moment the man stood trembling in the agony of discovery, and then, turning to the sunlit window, he looked out and exclaimed, “Farewell, sweet light, farewell!”
Evil habits grow slowly until they enslave and harden the character.
Slowly and insidiously do the evil habits grow until they become as gnarled crooked trees which none may straighten; little by little the gossamer thread becomes a cart-rope which none may break; imperceptibly does the film of ice spread over the river, holding the waters before long in a grasp which Niagara could not burst. The character is stereotyped; the life moves in deep downward grooves. Says the modern determinist, “By habit the mind is reduced into servitude.” Says the apostle, “We are sold under sin.”--W. L. WATKINSON, “The Transfigured Sackcloth.”
Habits become automatic responses, continuing even without original stimuli.
See ROUTINE.
HABIT AUTOMATIC
If a sleeping-plant is placed in a dark room after it has gone to sleep at night, it will be found next morning in the light-position, and will again assume the nocturnal position as evening comes. We have, in fact, what seems to be a habit built by the alternation of day and night. The plant normally drops its leaves at the stimulus of darkness and raises them at the stimulus of light. But here we see the leaves rising and falling in the absence of the accustomed stimulation. This is the characteristic par excellence of habit. When a series of actions are compelled to follow each other by applying a series of stimuli they become organically tied together, or associated, and follow each other automatically, even when the whole series of stimuli are not acting.--_The Scientific American._
To overcome a habit, one must completely discard it, not just partially change it.
A story is told of an English minister who offered a prize to the boy who would write the best composition in five minutes on “How to Overcome a Habit.”
At the expiration of five minutes the compositions were read. The prize went to a lad of nine years. The following is his essay:
“Well, sir, habit is hard to overcome. If you take off the first letter, it does not change ‘a bit.’ If you take off another, you still have a ‘bit’ left. If you take off still another the whole of ‘it’ remains. If you take off another, it is wholly used up; all of which goes to show that if you want to get rid of habit you must throw it off altogether.”
Mark Twain's strong work habits showed his preference for comfort and leisure in work.
All his life Mark Twain was an inveterate smoker, and one of the most leisurely men in the world. An old pressman, who was once printer’s devil in an office where Mark was editorial writer, tells this anecdote of his habits of work. “One of my duties was to sweep the room where editors worked. Every day Mark would give me a nickel to get away from him. He would rather die in the dust than uncross his legs. One day he gave me a nickel to dot an ‘i’ in his copy for him. He certainly did enjoy life, that man did.”--New York _Evening Post_.
Lack of use causes physical atrophy, showing habit's power over body function.
The following bit of information is from _La Nature_:
Men of a singular race have been discovered in New Guinea, and the governor, it seems, has promised to send some specimens to London. Living as they do in the marshes, these men have no need to walk. On the other hand, the marshes are covered with a growth that prevents navigation in canoes. The men have built huts in trees, and as organs of prehension alone are useful to them, their lower limbs have almost atrophied. These natives have only feeble and withered legs and feet, while the chest and arms are of normal development. They can scarcely stand upright, and they walk like large apes. They thus give the impression of cripples who have been deprived of the use of their lower extremities.
Persistent practice enables overcoming initial difficulty and mastering new habits.
Samuel Adjai Crowther, an African slave-boy who became a bishop, delighted to tell to his children the story of how he put on his first shoes. In “The Black Bishop” Jesse Page gives the story in the bishop’s own words. Four of the pupils in the missionary’s school had been promoted to the position of monitors. This was at Fourah Bay College, under Rev. Charles Haensel:
To give effect to our position, we were allowed to wear shoes. Strong, stout shoes, with very thick soles, were procured and given to us; they were called “Blucher shoes.”
On a Saturday afternoon we were called, received a pair each, and were told to wear them every Sunday to church at St. George’s Cathedral, a distance of about three miles.
Never having had shoes on before, we began practising in our dormitory that evening. None of us could move a step after lacing up on our feet the unwieldy articles, and consequently we were objects of laughter to our pupils.
An idea struck me which I at once put into execution. Crawling to a corner of the room, I first knelt down, then holding on to the wall for support, I stood up, and still being supported by the wall, I stept round the room many times, the others following my example, till we were able to leave the wall, stand alone, or move about without support.
You can well imagine what a burden this was to us, and after losing sight of the college, we sat on the grass, took off the shoes, walked barefoot, and put them on only at the porch of the church. We did the same on returning to college. After some months’ practise we were able to move better in them, but complained how they hurt our feet, and would rather be without them. But after some months we invested in the purchase of boots ourselves, and were always careful to buy those that made noise and creaked as we walked, to our great delight and the admiration of our pupils.--_The Youth’s Companion._
Long-term dedication and hard work develop strong habits that lead to success.
* * * * *
Helen M. Winslow declares that it was her intention from childhood to become a writer, and that she early obtained a position on the staff of a city newspaper. During a period covering several years she had charge of twenty-eight columns a week, on three papers, all of which she filled without help from subordinates. She worked eight hours a day in a dark, dingy office, and six more in her “den” at home every night, going to theaters from twice to five times a week, and working all day Sunday to bring up the ends. She edited news-columns, fashion, health, dramatic, hotel, book-review, railroad, bicycle, fancy-work, kitchen, woman’s club, society, palmistry and correspondence departments, and withal kept up an editorial column for eight years. Then she started a journal of her own. She worked like a slave for seven years more, wrote articles, editorials, read manuscripts and books, kept up an enormous correspondence, solicited most of her advertisements, and went to the printing-office every issue to attend personally to the details of “make-up” and proof-reading.
“But you have had your day,” a younger woman said to her, “why grumble now?” “Because it was not the day I wanted, and I only meant to make it the stepping-stone to something better. I did not want to be a newspaper woman and nothing more; and now that I have leisure for something more, I find my mental faculties, instead of being sharpened for further use, dulled. I have done desultory work so long I can not take up anything more thorough. I have been a ‘hack’ too many years. I can not be a race-horse now.” (Text.)
Most responsible men regret youthful tobacco use, showing the impact of early habits.
See GENIUS DISCOUNTED; SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS; TACT.
TOBACCO HABIT
Rev. W. F. Crafts is authority for the statement that four-fifths of the men who now fill positions of large responsibility in our land did not use tobacco before they were sixteen years of age, and even those who did, with three exceptions, mention the fact with regret.
"Sow a thought, reap an action.
Sow an action, reap a habit.
Sow a habit, reap a character.
Sow a character, reap a destiny."
Quote from Talmadge.
Dr. Carl Lundquist saw five variations in personal prayer:
1. Covenant Prayer. Begins each day, places ourselves in God's hands.
2. Trysting Prayer. Regular appointment with God. Bill Syrios states that
the basic reason Christians don't do a lot of
praying is that it is hard work, so we need to
become creatures of habit. "You will be most likely
to pray if it is part of your schedule."
3. Living Prayer. Flash prayers or prayers for specific needs that come
up during a day.
4. Centering Prayer. Too much prayer is vocal. Centering prayer calls us
to quietness - "just as we can enjoy the presence of
the loved one by our side without saying anything."
5. Meditative Prayer. Requires a longer period of time, perhaps a couple of
hours, or a full day, or a weekend, or even longer.
"It is the essence of a retreat."
Article on prayer in the New Testament.
1. Habit of Prayer.
a. Early believers prayed about everything
b. Early Christians prayed everywhere
2. Humility in Prayer.
a. Only humble will pray
b. Only the humble who can pray
3. The Spirit of Prayer.
a. Prayer is the first evidence of spiritual life in the soul
4. Miracles by Prayer.
a. Faith must be tied to prayer
b. No prayer - no miracle
5. Direction in Prayer. There is a PATHWAY TO POWER: (fourfold)
a. A renunciation of all known sin.
b. A sorrowful confession of personal failure and satisfaction with the
status quo.
c. An earnest seeking of God's face - not His Hand or just His power -
but His face.
d. Personal unfolding of God's Word to our hearts.
A wise old tutor was once taking a stroll through a forest with a curious youth by his side. The tutor suddenly stopped and pointed to four plants close at hand. The first was a tiny sprout, just coming out of the earth. The second had rooted itself quite firmly in the fertile soil. The third was a small shrub. The fourth had grown into a well-developed tree.
The teacher said to his youthful companion, “Pull up this first plant.” The youth pulled it up easily with his fingers. “Now pull up the second.” The boy obeyed, and with slight effort the plant came up, root and all. “And now the third.” The boy pulled with one hand, then the other, but it would not come. Then he took both hands, and the plant yielded to all his strength.
“And now,” said the master, “try the fourth.” The youth grasped the trunk with all his might, but hardly a leaf shook. “I cannot move it,” he exclaimed. ”Just so, my son,” said the teacher, “with all our bad habits. When they are young and small, we can cast them out, but when they are full grown, they cannot be uprooted.”
On the Western slopes of the Rocky Mountains, a giant Sequoia lies rotting. It was a growing sapling when Christ walked the shores of Galilee. When Columbus discovered America, it was reaching maturity and it looked down from lofty heights during the American Civil War. It seemed destined to live many more centuries.
Then, a few years ago, a tiny beetle started to burrow into its bark and lay eggs that would produce other beetles. It seemed like an unequal battle at first, but the few beetles multiplied into hundreds, then into thousands, and finally into millions. First they attacked the bark, then they worked deeper into the trunk, and finally, they were eating the very heart and strength of that magnificent forest giant. Then one day, after withstanding the elements for centuries, the rain came, the winds blew, the lightning flashed, and the giant tree fell. Not because of the elements, but because of the weakening effects of those tiny beetles.
Bad habits do the same thing to people. They slowly take a toll until the day comes when the man or woman fall like that giant tree.
________
Zig Ziglar
*
A farmer removed an old beech-tree which grew on his land. The wood-cutter noticed on the bark some curious marks which looked like the letters J.L., roughly cut and below them some ornamental design. After the tree was cut and was being divided into lengths, he was startled to find of the hard dry wood at the core of the tree, the clearly cut letters J.L. on a dark background, and below them an anchor.
Upon inquiries, it was found that the letters were the initials of a sailor named John Leland. There were 37 rings between the letters and the bark of the tree. He inferred that the letters must have been cut in 1853, and his belief was confirmed when he learned that it was in that year that the sailor had spent some time in the area. The inscription had not only remained in the place where it was cut at the first, but as each year added to the growth of the tree, the letters still appeared on the surface, scarcely legible there, it is true, but perfectly clear at the core.
The same thing is true with human character. Many an old man, in spite of the rough usage of the world and the scar of time and trouble, bears upon his walk and manner of life the marks which were put there in childhood.
*
People come into this world like a blank video cassette in a camcorder. Clean & fresh -- ready for input. Francis Xavier, great Catholic educator: “Give me a child until he is 7 and anyone else can have him for life.” Old proverb: “As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.”
________
Alternate version: "Give me the child until he is seven and I’ll give you the man." (It is also attributed to Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits).
The Eagle And The Wolf
There's a battle between the eagle and the wolf.
The eagle inside of me represents everything that is
good and pure.
And even though it soars through the valleys,
it still lays its eggs on the mountain tops.
There's a wolf inside of me.
And the wolf preys upon my weaknesses
and justifies itself in the presence of the pack.
Who will win the war between the eagle and the wolf?
There was a big space and then these words: "The one that you feed." I'll never forget the power of thse words scrawled on that wall. Who wins the battle for your mind? The one you choose to feed. Who wins the battle for your life? The one you choose to build on. Who wins the battle between right and wrong? The one you choose to feed.
What thoughts are you feeding? Are you filling your life with God's truth, or are you feeding it a steady diet of TV, materialism, and out-of-control habits. It's easy to become desenitized and conformed to this world. But God calls us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, to take every thought captive, and to be doers of the Word.
By David Edwards
From the book "One Step Closer"
WORDS OF WISDOM
Carefully watch your thoughts
for they become your words
Manage and watch your words
for they will become your actions
Consider and judge your actions
for they will become your habits
Acknowledge and watch your habits
for they shall become your character
Understand and embrace your character
for it becomes your destiny and
your dreams
--unknown
Can a man chew tobacco and go to heaven? was a question put to Mr D. L. Moody. His reply, though not elegant and a bit jolting, about covers the situation. "Yes," he answered, "but he'd have to go to hell to spit!"
"A single bad habit will mar an otherwise faultless character, as an ink-drop soileth the pure white page."
-- Hosea Ballou, Instant Quotation Dictionary, p. 152.
“Habit is overcome by habit.”
-- Thomas A Kempis
"Habit, if not resisted, soon becomes necessity."
-- St. Augustine, Instant Quotation Dictionary, p. 152.
"Do something every day that you don't want to do; this is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain."
-- Mark Twain, Instant Quotation Dictionary, p. 107.
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."
-- Aristotle, Daily Bits 12/9/99
"The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken."
-- Samuel Johnson, English writer, Crrent Thoughts & Trends, 10/99, p. 4
"The unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones."
-- W. Somerset Maugham, Instant Quotation Dictionary, p. 152.
"Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going."
-- Jim Ryun, distance Runner, quoted by Tima Smith In "Woman's World", 2/92
"Good habits result from resisting temptation."
-- (unknown)
The Christian must know how to “pray without ceasing.” (1 Th. 5:17)
Stonewall Jackson, asked about praying without ceasing, said: “I never raise a glass of water to my lips without asking God's blessing, nor seal a letter without putting a word of prayer under the seal, nor take a letter from the post without a brief sending of my thought heavenward, nor change my classes without a minute's petition on the cadets who come in.”
“Don't you sometimes forget to do this?”
“I scarcely can say that I do. The habit has become as fixed as breathing.”
*
“When I was a little boy,” remarked an old man, “somebody gave me a cucumber in a bottle. The neck of the bottle was small and the cucumber so large it wasn't possible for it to pass through, and I wondered how it got there. But out in the garden one day I came to a bottle slipped over a little green fellow, and then I understood. The cucumber had grown in the bottle. And now I often see men with habits that I wonder any strong, sensible man could form, and then I think that most likely they grew into them when they were young, and cannot slip out of them now. They are like the cucumber.
_________
H. F. Sayles
*
A few years ago, I was living in a suburban town about twelve miles west of St. Louis, Missouri. One night I ran to catch a train to take me there, and just managed to swing up on the back platform of the last car as it was pulling out. Feeling lucky that I had just caught it, I settled down for a nap, till I reached my station. After about twenty minutes, I looked out of the window to see where I was, and found the train was running right by the station at which I wished to get off. So, I hurriedly found the conductor and told him I wanted to get off.
He looked at me in surprise and said: “Why what do you think you are on anyhow? You didn't get the right train. The local was on the next track. This is the through express, and doesn't stop until it gets to Jefferson City, one hundred and fifty miles from here.” So, I went on to Jefferson City and stayed all night.
A great many men have waked up to find themselves in something of the same fix I was in that night. They have started in with some habit without thinking very much about it, supposing they could stop whenever they wanted to, and then have discovered that they were on a “through” train -- a force that was carrying them farther than they ever meant to go.
_________
H. E. Luccock
*
”Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” – 2 Peter 3:18
Do you ever read footnotes? I usually don’t take the time to read the small print. But when I did, I was bothered by what I read.
I was in chapter 2 of The Discipline of Grace by Jerry Bridges (Navpress). I noticed a footnote number and flipped to the back. After reading that note, I looked at other comments. Then I read one that stopped me in my tracks. I’m going to quote it for you.
Bridges wrote, “This book is addressed primarily to the committed Christian. I am aware that a vast number of professing Christians display little or no commitment to spiritual growth or discipleship, and for them the Christian life is no more than the mere formalities of attending church and avoiding scandalous behavior.”
What do you think? Do you agree with him? Are you led to assess your own degree of passion for spiritual growth and discipleship? I know I am.
Are we coasting through life without examining our attitudes and actions in the light of God’s Word? Do we view ourselves as pretty decent individuals who don’t do any of the “big” sins that get people tossed into jail or out of churches?
It’s easy (speaking from personal experience) to begin to coast spiritually. After all, growth requires hard work. It means sacrificing some short-range “wants” for some long-range “need to do’s” that will honor the Lord.
The apostle Peter spotlighted priorities that should direct our lives. He said, “Make every effort to be found spotless, blameless, and at peace with Him” (2 Peter 3:14). He later added, “Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (v.18).
How about you? Are you growing or coasting? — KD
REFLECTION
• When did I trust Christ as my Savior? How much have I changed since then?
• If I could graph my spiritual growth over the past year, how would I describe it? Going steadily up? Flat? A roller coaster?
• What will happen to me or others if I merely coast through life? What if I am growing like crazy?
• Spiritual activity is either a formality or a reality.
Kevin Holder's rap sheet is 43 pages long, dating back to 1980, and he just got another entry ---his 226th arrest.
Lincoln, Nebraska, Police say they caught him Sunday morning after a brief chase and found burglar tools in his possession.
“He's very well-known to Lincoln police officers,” Police Chief Tom Casady said.
Holder's convictions include criminal mischief, marijuana possession, violation of protection order, assault, resisting arrest, assault on an officer, possession of cocaine. Many were misdemeanors, but he also has been sentenced to at least three prison terms for felonies, including a four-year stretch starting in 1996.
“Your average Nebraskan thinks after a prisoner has committed a certain number of crimes (he) will be put away for a long period of time. That doesn't happen,” Casady said.
Lancaster County Attorney Gary Lacey said Holder was charged Tuesday with felony possession of burglar tools and prosecutors will urge a judge to treat Holder as a habitual criminal. With another felony conviction, that could result in a sentence of up to 60 years. Holder remained behind bars Tuesday afternoon.
Holder's list of arrests doesn't come close to setting a record for Lincoln-Lancaster County. He's No. 40, police spokeswoman Katherine Finnell said Tuesday.
A number of people have more than 500 arrests in the city of 226,000 people. The record was held by Edward Rooks, who died in 2004, with 652 arrests.
Article on prayer in the New Testament.
1. Habit of Prayer.
a. Early believers prayed about everything
b. Early Christians prayed everywhere
2. Humility in Prayer.
a. Only humble will pray
b. Only the humble who can pray
3. The Spirit of Prayer.
a. Prayer is the first evidence of spiritual life in the soul
4. Miracles by Prayer.
a. Faith must be tied to prayer
b. No prayer - no miracle
5. Direction in Prayer. There is a PATHWAY TO POWER: (fourfold)
a. A renunciation of all known sin.
b. A sorrowful confession of personal failure and satisfaction with the
status quo.
c. An earnest seeking of God's face - not His Hand or just His power -
but His face.
d. Personal unfolding of God's Word to our hearts.
The Christian must know how to “pray without ceasing.” (1 Th. 5:17)
Stonewall Jackson, asked about praying without ceasing, said: “I never raise a glass of water to my lips without asking God's blessing, nor seal a letter without putting a word of prayer under the seal, nor take a letter from the post without a brief sending of my thought heavenward, nor change my classes without a minute's petition on the cadets who come in.”
“Don't you sometimes forget to do this?”
“I scarcely can say that I do. The habit has become as fixed as breathing.”
*
Small sins grow gradually, strangling character like ivy killing a tree.
In the gardens of Hampton Court you will see many trees entirely vanquished and well nigh strangled by huge coils of ivy, which are wound about them like the snakes around the unhappy Laocoon: there is no untwisting the folds, they are too giant-like, and fast fixed, and every hour the rootlets of the climber are sucking the life out of the unhappy tree. Yet there was a day when the ivy was a tiny aspirant, only asking a little aid in climbing; had it been denied then, the tree had never become its victim, but by degrees the humble weakling grew in strength and arrogance, and at last it assumed the mastery, and the tall tree became the prey of the creeping, insinuating destroyer. The moral is too obvious. Sorrowfully do we remember many noble characters which have been ruined little and little by insinuating habits. Drink has been the ivy in many cases. Reader, see to it, lest some slowly advancing sin overpower you: men who are murdered by slow poisoning die just as surely as those who take arsenic.
Article on prayer in the New Testament.
1. Habit of Prayer.
a. Early believers prayed about everything
b. Early Christians prayed everywhere
2. Humility in Prayer.
a. Only humble will pray
b. Only the humble who can pray
3. The Spirit of Prayer.
a. Prayer is the first evidence of spiritual life in the soul
4. Miracles by Prayer.
a. Faith must be tied to prayer
b. No prayer - no miracle
5. Direction in Prayer. There is a PATHWAY TO POWER: (fourfold)
a. A renunciation of all known sin.
b. A sorrowful confession of personal failure and satisfaction with the
status quo.
c. An earnest seeking of God's face - not His Hand or just His power -
but His face.
d. Personal unfolding of God's Word to our hearts.
A wise old tutor was once taking a stroll through a forest with a curious youth by his side. The tutor suddenly stopped and pointed to four plants close at hand. The first was a tiny sprout, just coming out of the earth. The second had rooted itself quite firmly in the fertile soil. The third was a small shrub. The fourth had grown into a well-developed tree.
The teacher said to his youthful companion, “Pull up this first plant.” The youth pulled it up easily with his fingers. “Now pull up the second.” The boy obeyed, and with slight effort the plant came up, root and all. “And now the third.” The boy pulled with one hand, then the other, but it would not come. Then he took both hands, and the plant yielded to all his strength.
“And now,” said the master, “try the fourth.” The youth grasped the trunk with all his might, but hardly a leaf shook. “I cannot move it,” he exclaimed. ”Just so, my son,” said the teacher, “with all our bad habits. When they are young and small, we can cast them out, but when they are full grown, they cannot be uprooted.”
On the Western slopes of the Rocky Mountains, a giant Sequoia lies rotting. It was a growing sapling when Christ walked the shores of Galilee. When Columbus discovered America, it was reaching maturity and it looked down from lofty heights during the American Civil War. It seemed destined to live many more centuries.
Then, a few years ago, a tiny beetle started to burrow into its bark and lay eggs that would produce other beetles. It seemed like an unequal battle at first, but the few beetles multiplied into hundreds, then into thousands, and finally into millions. First they attacked the bark, then they worked deeper into the trunk, and finally, they were eating the very heart and strength of that magnificent forest giant. Then one day, after withstanding the elements for centuries, the rain came, the winds blew, the lightning flashed, and the giant tree fell. Not because of the elements, but because of the weakening effects of those tiny beetles.
Bad habits do the same thing to people. They slowly take a toll until the day comes when the man or woman fall like that giant tree.
________
Zig Ziglar
*
A farmer removed an old beech-tree which grew on his land. The wood-cutter noticed on the bark some curious marks which looked like the letters J.L., roughly cut and below them some ornamental design. After the tree was cut and was being divided into lengths, he was startled to find of the hard dry wood at the core of the tree, the clearly cut letters J.L. on a dark background, and below them an anchor.
Upon inquiries, it was found that the letters were the initials of a sailor named John Leland. There were 37 rings between the letters and the bark of the tree. He inferred that the letters must have been cut in 1853, and his belief was confirmed when he learned that it was in that year that the sailor had spent some time in the area. The inscription had not only remained in the place where it was cut at the first, but as each year added to the growth of the tree, the letters still appeared on the surface, scarcely legible there, it is true, but perfectly clear at the core.
The same thing is true with human character. Many an old man, in spite of the rough usage of the world and the scar of time and trouble, bears upon his walk and manner of life the marks which were put there in childhood.
*
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