Are there certain habits in your life that you would love to get rid of? We could go into the psychological side of habits and addictions, but we will save that for another time. I will however share a story that is sad, funny, and yet unfortunately true. Anyone who knows me is aware that I am passionate about three things, my Savior, my family, and football. Obviously there are different levels of passion for all three, but they are passions nonetheless. I will sometimes desire to give friendly coaching advice to Frank Beamer and my beloved Hokies (yes I am aware that they can’t hear me nor do they care what I have to say), and sometimes I do it in a louder than necessary fashion. I realized it wasn’t a good thing, but I never thought of it as a “problem.” After all, I have seen others in my family and among my friends do the same thing. However, there was one particular fall day a year ago that I realized something has gone terribly wrong. It was when our youngest son, Caleb came into the room while a game was on, he walked towards the tv, stomped his foot, pointed his finger, and asked the question “what is that?” It was then I felt the glances (judgmental I think) of my wife boring a hole into me (any man who is married knows the look I am talking about). To my wife’s credit all she said is, “he’s your son.” That is all that she needed to say, because I knew the rest of that conversation was “is this what you want to teach your son to do?” These are problems and we are aware of these, but that isn’t what I am talking about. What I’m talking about are those habits that only you and God know about.
The truth is we all think we are more clever than we actually are. We think we are getting away with something, when in fact we really aren’t. In many circles today people go to great lengths to hide their habits from friends, family, co-workers, and even church members. We fear that if anyone knew the things that we struggle with they would judge us and look down on us. Sometimes we are so prideful that we give the excuse when we get caught, “it’s not that big of a deal.” To those who are thinking that even now can I ask a simple question, if it isn’t a big deal, then why are you trying to hide it? The truth is we know it is a big deal, but we just don’t want to deal with it. Yet there will be a day in which it will be dealt with. Jesus had been teaching for a while and a group of Pharisees were giving Him a hard time. The Pharisees were the religious teachers of Jesus’ day and they put on all sorts of shows for the people to make them think they were super spiritual people. Yet in the end of Luke 12:1 and into verse 2 it says, “Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known.” Talk about a shot fired across the bow of the proverbial ship. Jesus was looking squarely into the Pharisees eyes and saying, “You may think you are getting away with this, but there will be a day when you will be exposed for the frauds you really are.” Did Jesus hate the Pharisees and want to make them look bad? Absolutely not! He was trying to bring conviction into their life so that they could deal with the sin that was there in order for them to be forgiven. That is what the apostle John told us to do in 1 John 1:9, “if ye confess your sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Admit there is a problem, agree with God that it is a problem, and ask for help to remedy the problem. We need to deal with the habits that are in our life because there is a day in which if we don’t deal with it, God will deal with it. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:10, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.” Judgment day is coming for us all. Wouldn’t it be better to be able to say “The blood of Jesus Christ covered that sin” instead of having to try to explain why we did what we did (by the way no excuse will be valid in front of a holy God)? Let’s allow the Light of Jesus to shine into the dark corners of our life, so that we can be completely clean.
By His grace and through His strength may we live for Him
Good reminder and well worth the read. What seems normal God can convict your heart, maybe it has become normal because we cannot hear the Holy Spirit telling us differently.