Developing Spiritual Habits DNOW

Introduction

Welcome back to our last teaching time together.

Last night we dove into what the Gospel is.

This morning we talk about Embracing the Work.

And tonight I want to talk about develop some spiritual habits to help equip you for the work and to better understand the Gospel.

What is a habit?

According to Merriam-Webster, a habit is “a behavior pattern acquired by frequent repetition.”

Every part of our lives are filled with habits

Think about your morning routine:

Shower

Brush your teach

Skin care routine

Hair care routine

Deodorant

Cologne/ perfume

Get dressed

Breakfast

Leave for school

At least we hope you are doing these things.

Those things that you start to do by instinct are habits that are a part of your life.

At a certain point in your life, you have your morning routine down.

You no longer have to be reminded to do those things, they just become what you do each morning.

But you didn’t always do those things did you?

Habit take time and work and are:

1) Taught to you, usually be someone who cares about you and who is engaged in the habit themselves

2) Developed over time by prioritizing consistency

Strong habits are very frequently referenced to in Scripture as something that Christians are supposed to engage in.

What habits should Christians have?

Habit Number 1: Spend time in God’s Word

Read Psalm 1:2

Psalm 1:2 ESV

but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.

We should delight or enjoy spending time in God’s Word.

I saw a quote not to long ago that said something like, if you don’t desire to be in God’s Word and spend that time with Him, are you even in a relationship with Him?

The idea behind that is simple.

You spend time with your friends because you have a relationship them and you enjoy growing closer with them.

As Christians, you have a relationship with Jesus.

And spending time in the Word with Him is one way to build on that relationship.

When you spend that time allowing God to reveal Himself more to you, you grow closer to Him.

But I think spending time in God’s Word can happen in stages.

If you have never consistently engaged in a bible study, then spending a few minutes per day just reading God’s Word is a great place to start.

Spending a few minutes, hopefully turns into some consistency and more reading.

Then maybe throwing in some journaling and reflecting on what you learned.

And maybe you even get to the point of truly studying God’s Word and bringing in historical contexts, languages, etc.

I believe that there is progression here.

Much like we talked about the discipleship progression this morning, where do you find yourself on this progression of spending time in God’s Word?

God’s Word is powerful and spending time with it is something that you should want to do not something you are choosing to do because someone like me tell you to.

I am a big Harry Potter fan.

When I read Harry Potter books, which I’ve read the whole series multiple times, I am simply reading the books.

They are entertainment for me.

I have read them enough that I remember a lot of the characters, story lines, etc.

But as much as I love that series, there was never a time where I pulled out a highlighter or a pen and started to highlight or underline things.

At no point did I start to write notes to keep track of things or start to memorize lines in that book.

That’s because most books you will ever read are there simply for entertainment purposes.

Sure you will read some textbooks or even some non-fiction books that you will interact with, but likely, you will interact with them one time and move on, occasionally referring back to them.

But the Bible is the lifeblood for all Christians.

It’s one way God chooses to reveal Himself and to us.

It’s the playbook for life that answer all of our questions.

It’s far more than just a book of stories meant for entertainment, it’s full of dynamic life-changing words that apply uniquely every time you read them.

Thus, spending time in God’s Word is important.

And you should do it so much that it starts to sink into every area of your life, even those one you have locked away where no one else has ever been.

Spending time in God’s Word there are several ways to interact with it.

Seek Correction/ Repentance

Read 2 Timothy 3:16-17

2 Timothy 3:16–17 ESV

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Let God’s Word pour over you in gracious correction.

Know that as you read it and meditate on it, it is going to step on your toes and it should.

Let the Holy Spirit convict you and point out where you are wrong.

Woah! What?

Yes, let that happen.

The goal is not to be comfortable, the goal is to be Christlike.

If you are doing things that are not Christlike, then you should desire for the Holy Spirit to point those out to you so that we can change those actions and be more like Jesus.

As we interact with God’s Word, we should seem to memorize it and let it become a part of our DNA.

Read Psalm 119:11

Psalm 119:11 ESV

I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.

Read Colossians 3:16

Colossians 3:16 ESV

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Memorize God’s Word and let it serve as a guardrail for you in life.

If you have committed God’s Word to memory, it will be easy to recall or will be recalled for us by the Holy Spirit in times of need whether for our own actions or to help others.

And as God reveals Himself to you in His Word, it’s important to engage in one of the other most powerful ways God reveals Himself to us, prayer.

Habit Number 2: Prayer

Prayer is another way that God reveals Himself to us.

Progression:

Seek to pray daily at least one time.

Consistency is key.

If you prioritize prayer daily, you will quickly start to pray for more than one thing and maybe even more than once per day.

Seek to develop a prayer list to pray over.

Write down all the things to pray for.

Pray to God’s movement in each of them.

Seek to develop a culture of prayer in your day-to-day life.

Read 1 Thessalonians 5:17

1 Thessalonians 5:17 ESV

pray without ceasing,

Praying without ceasing doesn’t necessarily mean that you are just always praying everywhere you go without stopping, although that would be cool.

Praying without ceasing is to live in a way where you are ready to pray whenever a need arises.

When someone comes to you with a problem, pray for it.

When a situation arises, pray for it.

Pray for your lost friends as you see them throughout the day.

Even if it’s just something short, pray.

Philippians 4:6-7 tells us to pray for all things.

So do that.

Start to pray over everyone in your life.

Start to pray over all of your decisions.

Start to pray over each day, each class, each practice, etc.

But Philippians 4:6-7 also reminds us about God’s goodness in prayer.

Read Philippians 4:6-7

Philippians 4:6–7 ESV

do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

The peace of God will guard your heart and mind.

God cares about your spiritual and mental health.

As you develop these rhythms of prayer, you will start be mentally and spiritually healthier because you will be aligning yourself and your thoughts with God more than with the world.

What an incredible God we serve.

Habit Number 3: Coming to Church

You might hear your student pastor talk about plugging in to the church often.

Knowing what I know about those guys, that isn’t because they are concerned with numbers.

They understand that consistently being a part of the local church is incredibly important for many reasons:

Accountability and Encouragement

Read Hebrews 10:24-25

Hebrews 10:24–25 ESV

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

Continued teaching and fellowship

Read Acts 2:42

Acts 2:42 ESV

And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

In those moments, you are surrounded by like-minded people, who are also striving to serve the Lord well and can relate to everything you walking through.

You a fed and you are given the space to utilize the talents God has given you.

Habit Number 4: Serving

Read 1 Peter 4:10-11

1 Peter 4:10–11 ESV

As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

We are all gifted with a “particular set of skills” that help us to serve the local church and we should be using them.

Some of us are outgoing and willing to tackle anything head first, some of us are more methodical and process things before action, both of those are needed.

Some of us are prayer warriors, some can teach, some are GREAT volunteers willing to serve wherever.

Some of us are number people and some of us are creative.

No matter what you skill set is, you are needed in the local church and you are called to serve.

You might be hearing this and saying, wow that’s a lot.

And you are right, but that’s not even all the habits we are called to do as Christians.

This is why we must work on developing strong habits because there is a lot of ground to cover.

Habits need to be maintained over time, but once they become solid habits and a part of your daily rhythms, they don’t require as much focus and you can move on to the next thing that God is showing you to work on.

I’ve told you some of the “what you should do” as a Christian, but how do we go about developing these habits?

How do you develop strong Christians habits?

James Clear, in his book Atomic Habits, provides a concept called the Habit Loop.

Clear argues that habits are made up of 4 distinct parts: cue, craving, response, and reward.

The cue is what triggers you to engage in a habit.

There is food on my plate, I should eat it.

The craving is what motivates you to engage in that habit.

There is food on my plate, I should eat it.

Also, I am hungry and I need food to sustain me, I need to eat it.

The response is the actual act of doing the habit.

There is food on my plate, I should eat it.

Also, I am hungry and I need food to sustain me, I need to eat it.

I ate the food on my plate.

The reward is the feeling you get after completing the habit.

There is food on my plate, I should eat it.

Also, I am hungry and I need food to sustain me, I need to eat it.

I ate the food on my plate.

The food I ate tasted good and I am now full.

Every habit you engage in follows these 4 steps.

That is the anatomy of a habit, so how do we work to create good habits?

Step 1: Identify and Establish Your Cues

What cues you or stimulates you to engage in good Christian Habits?

It could be that you bible is sitting on your night stand or your prayer list is hanging on or is written on your mirror in your bathroom.

Whatever it is, there needs to be something in place that reminds you to engage in that good Christian habit.

But in order to create good cues, you might have to remove some bad ones.

An example for this in my own life:

I realized that I was having way to many snacks after dinner and that wasn’t really healthy for me.

And as I started to think through that, I realized that every time I made the boy’s bottles before we put them to sleep, I would grab a snack too because the stuff for the bottles were also in our snack cabinet.

So, I move the bottle stuff to another cabinet so that I was not cued to grab a snack when I grabbed that stuff.

There may be areas in your life where you need to remove a cue before you can create a positive cue.

Example:

You might need to set your bible and journal on your entertainment center and put the game controller in a drawer to you are cued to read your bible before you are cued to start playing your video game.

Choosing to rearrange some of the small details in your life can retrain your brain to create positive habits instead of engage in things that aren’t as important.

Step 2: Develop the Craving

These cravings are often tied to your perception of yourself.

If you tell yourself over and over again that you are too busy to prioritize studying your bible, then that will be true for you.

If you tell yourself that studying the Bible is too hard, then that will be true for you.

But if you start to tell yourself that you want to be a person who studies their Word and draws closer to God, that can also be true to.

If you tell yourself that God is the priority in your life, then that that is how you will start to treat Him.

However you frame God will determine how much you crave God when those cues happen.

Step 3: Develop the Habit

Once you start to change how you see these habits and you start to change how you talk about these habits, then you will be ready to successfully develop these habits.

When you are engaging in a new habit, look for 60-seconds of success at a time.

It starts with an I will statement.

“Every morning, I will sit down at the kitchen table, while I eat breakfast open my bible, and read one paragraph from the book of Matthew because I want to learn more about Jesus’ story.”

Cue:

At the table, at breakfast.

The cue will be that when you are getting ready to make your breakfast, you need to also go get your Bible.

Craving:

The craving will be that you want to learn more about Jesus’ story.

Habit:

The habit will be that you will ready one paragraph each day.

And the consistency will come because you are committing to do it every morning.

Now engage in that habit until you get it down.

What will likely happen is as you start to build consistency, you will start to develop depth in what you are doing.

That is where habit stacking comes into play.

Habit Stacking is just what it seems like. You are looking for habits that work together and you are using the previous habit as a cue for the next habit.

It looks like this:

“Every morning, I will sit down at the kitchen table, while I eat breakfast open my bible, and read one paragraph from the book of Matthew because I want to learn more about Jesus’ story, then I will open my journal and write down the things that God has shown me and the ways that I can apply that to my life.”

You developed the consistent rhythm of that bible reading time.

The cue for that was breakfast.

Then, you stacked the habits of reflecting, applying, and journaling about God’s Word.

The cue for that habit was your bible study time.

Then maybe you add prayer into that and your journaling becomes the cue for the prayer time.

Step 4: The Reward.

Choosing to approach spiritual rhythms in this way is much more encouraging and realistic.

The primary reward is drawing closer to God.

But the secondary reward is a sense of accomplishment when you have developed these rhythms and consistently engage in them in ways you may never have done them before.

Focus on 1% improvements on your spiritual habits each day.

The last two things I would encourage you with when it comes to developing spiritual habits:

Habit Tracking

There are a million ways to do this, but it can be as simple as:

Printing a month calendar and marking days off

Or you can create a habit tracker for the year

But whatever you do, make sure you track it.

It helps you self-police you habit and there is just something satisfying about completing a goal like that.

Accountability

But it also helps if you share your habit with someone else that will ask you about your progress.

You have to commit to being honest with them, but it helps a TON with someone else is walking with you through these journeys.

Conclusion

What habits do you need to change?

Where do you need to remove something and replace it with a Godly habit?

What Godly habit do you need to start with?

Take the time now to process those questions

Commit right now before God to changing something.

Pray to dismiss