There Are Good Habits You Know.

We are all creatures of habit.  Agreed? Agreed. Think about this for a minute.  You and I do the exact same things every day, day in and day out. We never, or should I say, seldom change the way we do things. If you do something a certain way, we may always do it the same way. That is until either you can’t do it any more, or someone will convince you it can be done easier, better, or in less time than the way you do it now.  Believe it or not, this does not always stand up in the court of your own minds. Tomorrow morning take notice of which shoe you put on first. Personally, it’s my left shoe. Then the next morning, just try to put the other shoe on first… Feels weird doesn’t it?

It’s the same with most of what we do. Driving to work, you most often take the same route and only change due to some accident you have to drive around. How about the way you walk around the grocery store.  By the way, these stored have it down to a science on how to design a store and where to place items. And most of it gets you to buy certain items.

You might think I’m going to now talk about having good habits, wonderful habits for Jesus like reading your bible and praying every day. Maybe even developing the habit of a quiet time with Jesus sometime every day. These may be great and I would encourage you to seek them out. But, no, I want you to know that Jesus had habits as well.

Jesus was also a creature of habit doing some things over and over. And like us, that is a good thing.  Take for instance His way of communicating that was very effective. We first talked about this in a small group study years ago. Someone asked if Jesus always spoke to people by using questions? The short answer is no, not all the time. But He was a great one to use questions that usually were dependant on who he was talking to and the outcome He expected from the conversation.  Remember the women that had a problem and He asked, “Who touched me?” As Steve Brown would say, “That would have scared the spit right out of me.” Jesus also asked the blind man from birth, “What do you want?” In John 5 he asks the lame man, “Do you want to get well?”

There were other times when Jesus, thirty times in John’s gospel to be exact, Jesus began speaking by saying, “I tell you the truth”. As if we would ever think that He wouldn’t tell the truth. Try looking those up and see what He said. These were two great ways He used to communicate. It might have been His habit, but it didn’t happen all the time. Case in point comes in Matt. 5. when He starts in verse 3 with these words, “Blessed are. . .” Break from your habit today. After reading this, forget everything else you were going to do and sit down beside Matthew and hear Jesus words. As Matthew and all the other disciples did, find yourself in the words you hear echoing in your mind as Jesus says them to you, maybe for the first time.

Something to think about.

Rob