Tuesday, October 8, 2019
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has become a child of God. And everyone who loves the Father loves his children, too. We know we love God’s children if we love God and obey his commandments. Loving God means keeping his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome. For every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith. And who can win this battle against the world? Only those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God. 1 John 5:1-5
We know that God’s children do not make a practice of sinning, for God’s Son holds them securely, and the evil one cannot touch them. We know that we are children of God and that the world around us is under the control of the evil one. And we know that the Son of God has come, and he has given us understanding so that we can know the true God. And now we live in fellowship with the true God because we live in fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the only true God, and he is eternal life. Dear children, keep away from anything that might take God’s place in your hearts. 1 John 5:18-21
Habit determines everything.
Habitually practicing the art of
couch potato-ing can result in heart disease, or a guest appearance
on a segment of My 600-Pound Life.
Habits set the pathway of our life’s decisions. The apostle, John is giving sound spiritual
advice to the church of how forming our life around obedience to God’s commandments
is the pathway that leads to life.
On first reading many people are tempted
to imagine this obedience thing as walking a tightrope suspended over hell’s
fires; one slip and you’re toast!
However, that would be inconsistent with God’s grace and patience. God knows us and understands better than we
do that when it comes to being perfect in our obedience we
slip off a rope like that. We see that in
the apostle’s description of both sin and obedience; he points us in the
direction of habituation, making a practice of
either. A well-practiced habit becomes
our default, part of our character, who we really are. A slip-up is an aberration, a setback from
the path we really want to travel. John
is making the case that true belief in Christ, trusting Christ and relying on
His power for every need and every shortcoming, is not only possible, it is
part of God’s promise. And what it looks
like in everyday living is forming habits.
The person that wants more strength for living a life of obedience forms
the habit of meditating on God’s Word. A
person who wants greater strength resisting temptation of any kind forms the
habit of prayer, fasting, and removing themselves from the source of
temptations.
One of my mother’s favorite sayings was you
lie down with dogs; you get up with fleas. John’s whole case about being obedient to God’s
commands is that we must make the choice where we will stand, and it must be peremptory;
the first time we decide to cuddle up to the fleas of sin will be merely the
first step in setting the habitual practice.
We warn our children about taking the first pill, or drink, or tobacco
product so they will not get caught in the addictive downward spiral that
affects their health. We use parental
controls on media to monitor their internet time and what content they view to
protect them from the downward pull of pornography and violence. Should we do less for our children and
ourselves when it comes to spiritual health?
For You Today
A healthy spiritual practice
is to habitually examine our habits; look at the things we
do regularly with an eye towards answering the question: is this what God wants my life to look like?
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Title Image: Adi
Holzer via WikimediaCommons
Unless noted, Scripture used from The
New Living Translation©
