Creatures of Habit

Ephesians 4:22-24
You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.


I’m a creature of habit. I enjoy routine. It’s comfortable. It’s stable. It makes the spontaneous events that happen even more fun. I celebrate my Sabbath on Fridays, and there are two things that MUST happen on Friday mornings: isolation and routine. I start my day around 9:30 or so, waking up slowly and on my OWN terms for once. I call my puppy over and he hops into bed and snuggles with me for awhile. When I feel awake enough to climb out of the covers, I go get the coffee started. As it brews, I fire up my computer and bring up Hulu. For the next 2.5 hours, I watch all the NBC Thursday night comedies, drink coffee, and eat fruit. Then, when I’m all finished with my shows, I head to Subway for an oven-roasted chicken foot-long sub. Every. Single. Friday. If it doesn’t happen, it’s almost guaranteed that I will be grumpy and intolerable to be around by the end of the following week.


I have a routine. I enjoy it, and to a certain extent, I NEED it. It’s engrained in me. It’s a part of the rhythm of my life.


Our lives are full of habits. They can be either good or bad, but either way, we usually don’t think about them. Some of these habits can actually enable us to perform very complex, in-depth tasks without thinking extensively about it. Driving, for example, is an incredibly complex activity that, when you first start driving, takes a ton of stressful attention and awareness. However, after we’ve been driving for a few years, it becomes second nature and we go through the processes without REALLY thinking about it.


It is important that we realize that our sinfulness is not just an isolated event here or there, but it is a condition that pervades our lives. It is a habitual thought process that influences our understanding of the world, and the way we understand the world influences how we conduct ourselves as we live in this world.


We can have habits that either please or displease God. The word “habit” is derived from the Latin word habitus. A priest wears a habitus, which is a piece of clothing that represents a commitment to a holy life. In the same way, in Ephesians, we are called to “put off our old self” and to “put on the new self.”


We naturally acquire bad habits. In the next chapter of Ephesians, Paul specifically lists a few of those bad habits. Obscene language. Foolish talk. Dirty jokes. Bitterness. Quarrels. We really don’t even think about that stuff sometimes, do we? Our thinking about God and his demand for holiness has gotten warped and twisted to the point where we aren’t even convicted by the trash that we spew out of our mouths every day. Our hearts are hardened because of our ignorance to the point that we lose all sensitivity and “indulge in every kind of impurity.”


In the same way that Paul directs us in Romans to “no longer conform to the patterns of this world.” But instead to “be transformed by the renewing of our minds,” he tells us in Ephesians to “put off the old self” and “be made new in the attitudes of our minds; and to put on the new self., created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” This is a direct call to action. It requires us to personally TAKE OFF the old. We have to dig out our bad habits at the root. Clean house. We can’t live like we used to. But it doesn’t stop there. There’s another direct call to action: We also have to personally replace what we have gotten rid of and put on the new. Paul goes into depth in Colossians 3 with a list of what “clothes” we are supposed to put on. Compassion. Kindness. Gentleness. Patience. Self-control. Forgiveness. Love.


How are you actively taking off the old? What are you doing to put on the new? This isn’t something that anyone else is going to do for you. It starts internally, with the renewing of your mind, and once you have been mentally renewed, that can only affect your outward actions. Don’t sit around waiting to change. Change your clothes.