Daily Devotional
Word of the Day
Lifestyle Changes Take Time
Pastor Scott
Thursday, March 24, 2005
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"Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart."
(2 Timothy 2:22)
Come out from among them, follow righteousness, and flee youthful lusts. It's all about direction. A fellow had gotten into sin and his pastor told me, "We heard that he's really making some preparations to repent and be restored." You don't make preparation to repent. Repentance is the initiation of the whole process. You don't prepare to repent; you repent to prepare. You change the course, then you repair the damages. Then you prepare yourself not to sin again, and you discipline yourself. Repentance is the volition, that choice that you are now going to go this direction.
"Once I get everything ready, then I'm going to repent and I'm going to really get serious with God."
It doesn't work that way. Your heart is convicted when you know the truth. What is God saying to you right now? What choices are you going to make right now? What areas are out of order right now? What do you know needs to be done right now? You make the choice, then you make the preparation to obey.
Be patient; it's a life process! So many of us say, "Oh man, I just haven't been praying enough, so bless God starting tomorrow I'm praying eight hours a day! I'm going to fast and..." It doesn't work that way.
"You know, the problem I have is that I watch too much television. So I'm going home tonight and throw the television out in the back yard."
About one o'clock in the morning you will be hauling it back in the house. Just habitually turn it off thirty minutes earlier. Fast your favorite movie or your favorite program. If it's not television, fast your hobby. Cut one of the Saturdays out of the month of running around to the yard sales and get involved in evangelism. Start, repent, change the course. Begin with something you can do and repeat it. Make it a habit as part of your life, then you can add something else on. Some of us can multitask, doing more than one thing at a time. But what normally happens is we get overwhelmed. We see the mess we're in and we want to deal with it right now.
Dieting is one of the greatest things! There's some new fad, so I'm eating six hundred calories a day. I don't have any energy and mad at everybody, but I'm losing this weight. Finally I've reached my goal I've lost fifty pounds. I keep it off for a whole ninety days, and the next thing you know I've gained five pounds. Next thing you know you turn around a year later you weigh ten more pounds. Why? It's not about loosing weight; it's about changing your lifestyle. If your lifestyle doesn't change, you will be back under the power of that thing. Lifestyle changes take time. They're not done with fads and crash attempts. They're done consistently and patiently to where you think differently and act differently. That's the same process it will take in the spirit.
Why don't you just give God a chance? You gave the other folks that occupy your life a chance and you've liked them. Why don't you give God a chance? Find out what it's like.
"Well, I'm a natural being, and I can just relate more to the physical."
It's like the little kid praying during the thunderstorm. Mom came in and said, "Don't worry, honey. The angels are here and the Lord is here." The little girl said, "I know Mommy, but I'd prefer somebody with skin!" We do prefer people with skin, don't we? We can relate to that. Then let's start there; be a companion of those who fear God and keep His precepts.