After spending 3½ years with the innovative Jesus, who never spoke a word of Jewish nationalism, the eleven disciples remained obsessed with Jewish dominance of the nations Acts 1:6. That’s the power of habit over an entire culture.
The disciples waited only 10 days after Christ’s ascension before God entirely changed their perspective. The Holy Spirit subsumed the disciple-turned-apostles in his presence. (That’s a hint of the modification every believer will experience when Jesus returns and transforms our old bodies into his new one. Nothing of the old will remain.) Our personal habits may not be that easily and quickly altered. For now our bad habits, more domineering than we like, less quickly surrender to alteration. And always at greater cost. The giant RMS Titanic shuddered, but kept moving, when hitting the iceberg at 22 knots April 15, 1912. When Captain Smith ordered the ship’s giant propellers stopped, forward motion continued for a short time after its locomotion source vanished. Human behavior resembles nationalism and a vessel deprived of its power-source. It continues in our life after a decision to stop it has been made. By force of previous habit the behavior remains until a new habit, activated by the decision, takes effect. We shouldn’t despair, then, when finding bad habits continuing in life after we decide to lose them. With persevering activation of the new decision, new habits will form. God’s Holy Spirit infuses us with his will, sometimes gradually, sometime in leaps, sometimes hardly noticed, sometimes daringly obvious. Remember always, and through all permutations, God wills his truth to triumph through us. Never fear if the habit we vowed to break remains unfazed by our decision, as if nothing has happened. More time than it takes a ship to stop may be needed to halt the habit, belief, association or relationship. Never fear. The decision to stop it is the first step to STOPPING IT. Keep the decision active long enough, with the repentance needed to prove our determination, will effect the change, perhaps incrementally, depending on how ingrained the habit has become. Remember, God wills us to succeed. No power against us can withstand the power for us! |
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