Fake It or Fix It: Week 4 - Thursday

And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you. Philippians 4:8-9

Imagine someone you know decides they want to be healthier. It isn't just a passing thought; they even stop eating sweets and desserts. Then, you find out that to make up for the missing sweets in their lives, they are eating two bags of buttered movie theater popcorn every day. You would probably tell them that, unfortunately, they have only redirected their bad habit of eating sweets to eating too much buttered popcorn. This new habit, unfortunately, just redirected your friend from one unhealthy area in their diet to another. My friend, there is a better way. You see, instead of trading one bad habit for another, if we want to pursue health in any area of our lives, then we need to choose a good habit to replace the bad habit with.

In the book of Philippians, the Apostle Paul urges followers of Christ to replace bad habits and old ways of life with good. "Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing" (verses 8-9). The part of these verses that we are going to focus on is when Paul writes, "Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing" (verse 9). Instead of living according to the world, caught up in sin and bad habits, Paul urged readers to keep putting into practice the things of God that he had taught them. He wanted them to replace their old habits with good. When this happens, our thoughts, attitudes, and habits are redirected to the things that honor and please God. After all, as much as we try to procrastinate, the truth is that we can only focus on one thing at a time really well.

Are you feeling stuck, caught up in one bad habit after another? My friend, begin replacing that habit with something better, with something good. Replace that bad habit with something that pleases and honors God. As you do this, you will begin to find freedom and healing in your fight against your bad habits.

Moving Toward Action

The challenge today is simple. What is a good habit in your life that you can pick up? Whenever you find yourself about to give in to that bad habit you have been stuck in, pick up this new habit instead. This practice will help you to focus on the new habit instead of your old bad habit, and you will find yourself living in a way that is pleasing to God.

Going Deeper

Read Philippians 4:1-9 (NLT)