The first step to getting rid of bad habits is to realize that they exist.
You know, we have to identify the bad habit.
And that's where confession comes in.
The Bible talks about the fact that we need to confess our sins to God.
Number one, it says, you know, if we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive
us our sins and to cleanse us from all our righteousness.
But He also says, "Confess your faults one to another and pray one to another, or pray
one for another that you may be healed."
But He says, "Confess your faults one to another and pray one for another that you may be healed."
So we need to identify that we have sin in our life, and we need to identify what are
bad habits that we should try to correct and get rid of.
Then we have to stop and ask ourself, what is it that's triggering that bad habit?
What is it that caused me?
So let's just use smoking, for example, because smoking is a pretty common bad habit.
And you know, I don't know of anybody in this room who smokes.
I'm telling the truth right now.
I do not know, but I promise you there are people in this room who smoke, because I've
been pastoring long enough to realize that.
And even though I do not, I could not name any specific person in here that smokes, I
promise you, I can smell it.
No, I can't, I honestly can't smell, I have a horrible, I have a horrible sense of smell.
But I guarantee you, because I remember one time, even when I first started pastoring
and the church was much smaller, I preached a sermon on smoking and four people, four
people thought that sermon was directed just at me.
He found out that I smoked.
And I did not know that anyone was smoking.
I was shocked.
Whoa, you know, people are smoking.
And there were four people, even when the church was small, that were smoking.
Because usually people are pretty good at hiding that.
You know, they know how to pop in a breath mint or whatever.
But I guarantee you there are people here who smoke, even though I don't know of any.
I'd be shocked if there aren't, just because of the experiences I've had, okay?
Raise your hand if you smoked.
I'm just kidding.
No, no, no, don't do that.
But what I'm saying is, with smoking, there's something that's triggering you to keep smoking.
You know, there's something that's triggering that, you know, maybe it's, you wake up in
the morning, maybe you go on a break, maybe you step out the front door, you know, maybe
you get in the car, or whatever.
You need to figure out what it is that's triggering that habit, and then you need to find something
to replace that habit with.
And tell yourself, okay, every time X happens, you know, every time this trigger happens,
I'm going to do this instead.
And I've talked to a lot of people, what they did is they, let's say they carry their cigarettes
right here as a habit in their shirt pocket.
They replaced it with a pocket New Testament.
So then they have a habit of always reaching in their pocket and pulling out a cigarette.
Well every time they reach for the cigarette, what do they find?
The New Testament.
That's not what they expected.
But then they pull it out.
But it's a habit.
So they're going to, I mean, it's hard to just say, okay, I'm not going to smoke anymore.
So what's better is replace the cigarettes with the New Testament and then reach in that
pocket and there's the New Testament, right?
Pull out the New Testament and read a few verses, you know, and maybe even have it marked
up to certain scriptures that are helpful.
Then just pull it out and read a chapter and, you know, reading a chapter is probably going
to take the same amount of time as smoking a cigarette.
Read the chapter, put it back.
Now that's not going to give you the same satisfaction as smoking a cigarette, but it's
going to give you a different type of satisfaction.
It's going to give you a spiritual satisfaction of, "Hey, I learned something from the Bible.
Hey, I'm reading a lot of Bible."
If you do that, you'll read 20 chapters a day.
Read a pack a day.
That's my new motto.