Breaking Bad Habits 3 - Theory to Practice

This week we continued our series on breaking bad habits. We returned again to our key passage Ephesians 4:17-32 where we see each time a behaviour/habit to be changed was listed a new positive behaviour was listed. In practice:
Don’t just try to get rid of a bad habit, replace it with a good habit! (Instead) Just trying to reform to be better does not work, we need to be transformed by God.  
The reality is that behaviours happen to meet needs and we will find ways to have our needs met. We need our thinking transformed so that through God we have positive needs met in a positive manner. In this we need to work with God and be led by God:
 
God will transform your thinking as you allow Him to work in you. God will lead you not make it happen. God will empower you but it takes movement and choice on your part.  I must decide to follow God’s lead and choose to walk in His path.  
To better understand this we look at King David seeing how he had the tendency to complain and how he worked with God and his thinking was transformed. Time and time again we see David down and defeated then he begins to worship and he is set free:
 

 
We need to open ourselves to God and pray Psalm 139:23-24,
Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
 
God bless
Pastor Greg