Honesty about Our Habits

Moral and spiritual disaster is usually the result of a long pattern of laziness, worldliness, and neglect. Men do not go to bed faithful and focused Christians and wake up the next morning as apostates. Apostasy is incremental, slowly moving away from the standard, a series of small compromises, each one based upon the previous, until one day you wake up and wonder how you ever got so far from where you were before.

Life is like swimming in a river. You cannot simply tread water and stay in one place. You are either exerting yourself in order to swim upstream, against the current, or you are being driven downstream by the forces that surround you. We are becoming more like Christ or less like him, every day. We are resisting the flesh or relenting to it, dying to our sin or dying from it.

Take an honest assessment. Which direction are you moving in right now? If your spiritual health was measured by your habits, your friendships, your thought patterns, what would be the diagnosis? Are you becoming more like Jesus, or are you moving farther away from him by small concessions, worldly distractions, and unholy comfort?

Comfort creates complacency, and complacency kills. We know what we need to do. We know the habits that keep us healthy. We understand the discipline that is required of a disciple. But it is easier to relax our guard, to soothe ourselves with the world, to simply take a little break from the burden of being so focused on faithfulness all the time. We don’t intend to be bad; we just want a breather. Being a Christian is hard, and we don’t want to become legalistic, right?

Practice does not make perfect. Practice makes permanent. If you practice something poorly, you become skilled at doing it poorly. If you practice deliberately, disciplining yourself to improve every day, you get better at doing it well. Whatever you do repeatedly becomes a habit. This could be praying the Psalms, reading your Bible, attending weekly worship, and putting to death sinful thoughts and desires. But disobedience and spiritual neglect can also become a habit. The more often you skip your daily prayers, the easier it becomes to live your life without prayer. The less you read your Bible, the easier it becomes to be comfortable not reading your Bible. The more often you are absent from the assembly of the saints, the more comfortable you become staying away from the Church and worship. All of us are practicing. Some are practicing habits of holiness; some are practicing habits that will lead to moral and spiritual disaster. Which are you practicing right now?

I have watched friends who once appeared to love the Lord commit total apostasy, renouncing the Christ they once acknowledged as Savior and Lord. I have seen brethren gradually move away from the discipline of grace and become weak, worldly, and, eventually, wicked. “It would never happen to me! I would never do such a thing!” But all of us are capable of it. It’s easy to forsake Christ. All you have to do is practice.

We are in the midst of a spiritual war, and the Devil crouches at the door. Am I strengthening my defenses or undermining them? Am I doing the things that will help me to be morally and spiritually strong, or am I becoming comfortable and complacent in the midst of moral and spiritual dangers? Every day is an opportunity to begin anew. Deny yourself. Put to death your sin, selfishness, and laziness. Exert yourself in the disciplines of grace that God uses to recreate you in the image of his Son. Remember your baptism, renounce the Devil, and live as loyal sons and daughters enrolled in the service of our Lord Jesus Christ.