Most people have uphill hopes and downhill habits.
(Romans 12:2 MSG) Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
Habit #1 – Come close to God.
If you will draw close to God, He will draw close to you.
We kicked off our time of 21 Days of Prayer and Fasting.
What I starve dies.
What I feed thrives.
Habit #2
Control my thoughts.
I will never change my life until I change the way I think.
Change does not begin in the doing; it begins in the thinking.
(Romans 12:2 NLT) Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think…
(Theological principles about thinking:)
✓ Everything begins with a thought.
(Ecclesiastes 10:2 MSG) Wise thinking leads to right living; Stupid thinking leads to wrong living.
Every habit and every action that we do always begins with a thought. What are you beginning your day with? What you are starting your thought-life off with in the day?
✓ What we think determines how we feel.
(Philippians 4:8-9 NIV) Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things. …And the God of peace will be with you.
What if we went a week without media in our lives and replaced it with worship music, etc.?
✓ Our thoughts determine our destiny.
Your thoughts will determine where you will be this time next year.
Sow a thought, reap an action.
Sow an action, reap a habit.
Sow a habit, reap a lifestyle.
Sow a lifestyle, reap your destiny.
You are today, what you thought about yesterday.
If you don’t like where you are headed, change your thoughts!
(Romans 8:5-6 NLT) Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit. (6) So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace.
Mastering the Habit
- Find a plan to control my thoughts.
Cut off the sources of wrong thinking and replace it with sources for right thinking.
Read the Bible.
(Hebrews 4:12 NLT) For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.
Don’t just read the Bible, let the Bible read you!
- Find a place to think your thoughts.
At some point in your day, turn down the volume of the world and place your focus on God.
Just talk to God!
(Isaiah 26:3 NLT) You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in You, all whose thoughts are fixed on You!
(Colossians 3:2 NLT) Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth.
- Find a person to stretch my thoughts.
Get around people who are thinking the way God wants you to think. Get involved in one of our group ministries: men, ladies, marriage, etc.
(Hebrews 10:24-25 NLT) Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. (25) And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of His return is drawing near.
- Find a purpose to land my thoughts.
The healthiest thoughts you can have are ones about your God-given purpose.
The conversation that God wants to have with every one of us is, “Let’s settle yesterday and let’s talk about your future.”
(Romans 12:2 BBE) And let not your behaviour be like that of this world, but be changed and made new in mind, so that by experience you may have knowledge of the good and pleasing and complete purpose of God.
- Find a power to fuel my thoughts.
Open your life to the power of the Holy Spirit.
(Isaiah 55:9 NIV) “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
He wants you to have His thoughts and not yours.
(Ephesians 3:20 NKJV) Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us,