Picture this: It’s a Tuesday morning. Your alarm goes off, you hit snooze. You sleep for 10 minutes, your alarm goes off again, but this time you have to get up. You have school. You brush your teeth, get dressed, and eat cereal for breakfast. Your brother is talking way too loud this early in the morning, so you snap at him to shut up. Now your mom is mad. You grab your books and leave. You get to school and talk to the same 3 people that you talk to every day. You gossip about the latest drama, complain about your teachers, zone out in class, and count down the minutes till you can go home. The final bell rings, you go straight home or you go to practice or that club your friends made you join. When you get home you lock yourself in your room and watch tik tok or play video games til dinner. At dinner you don’t talk much. As soon as dinner is over you go back to your room. You do your homework and spend the rest of the night scrolling or playing video games or daydreaming about that cute boy/girl at school. Before you know it it’s Wednesday morning and your alarm goes off. The cycle starts again.
I have a feeling that I just described a typical day for most of the generation today. And it’s pretty boring. There was nothing new or particularly exciting on that day. There wasn’t really any room for growing or improving yourself as a person. No time spent with Jesus. No real effort or intentionality, just going through the motions. If we are honest we are all very familiar with this kind of life. It’s normal, right? But what if that didn’t have to be the norm for your life.
What if you could change those habits and start living a life that isn't so mundane. What if you could live life to the fullest? That’s what Jesus wants for you
In John 10:10 Jesus says, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
Because of what Jesus did on the cross, we have something worth living for. We have a reason not to waste our days away. Someone loves us enough to die for us so that we could live and be free from sin. If that’s the case shouldn’t we do everything we can to live a life worth living?
Shouldn’t we stop doing the things that are hurting us, slowing us down, and wasting our time? Shouldn’t we start doing the things that build us up, build others up, and help us become the person God created us to be? Shouldn’t we look for every opportunity to grow, make a difference, and enjoy life?
2023 is just around the corner and we have a choice. We can change up some of our habits and start really living. Or we can keep going through the motions. Wasting these years we will never get back. If you are like me and you want to create a life that you are proud of, a life worth living that makes a difference in the world. I want to help you. But in order to do that we have to change up the way we live our lives.
There are 4 simple changes or additions that if we make in our life, we will see great change over the next year. And they are a little different for everyone. But generally we have to commit to these 4 things. You need to
Let’s start with the first two. The reality is we all have habits that we need to quit and habits we need to build. But how do we know what to start and stop?
Well we call ourselves Christians aka followers of Jesus, meaning we have committed to living our lives like Jesus lives. 1 John 2 teaches,
If someone claims, “I know God,” but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth. But those who obey God’s word truly show how completely they love him. That is how we know we are living in him. Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did.
If you are a Christian you’re supposed to be becoming like Jesus. If you want to become like Jesus you have to start living like Jesus. Which means you have to build habits that Jesus had. You have to obey God like Jesus did. So how did Jesus live? Maybe he had some habits that are worth implementing in our lives. Maybe His life will give us an idea on how to live ours. Let’s look at a few things Jesus was known for.
He had an active relationship with God
Luke 6:12 says:“One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.”
And Mark 6:46 reminds us: “After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray.”
These verses and many others show us that time with God was always a priority for Jesus. He spent time studying Scripture and praying to God and it prepared Him for His ministry and all that He would do. Secondly:
He had deep friendships.
When we look at Jesus and His Disciples we see that they were living life together. They went through the good and bad times together. They prayed and worshiped together. They served God together. They ate meals together. They enjoyed each other’s company. Jesus challenged the disciples and helped them to grow and they helped each other do the same thing. Jesus really cared about them and was intentional about building them up. They didn't just hang out but they built something together. They got to be part of Jesus changing the world. Lastly:
He lived selflessly.
Now we have already talked about the most selfless act that Jesus performed when He died on the cross to set us free from our sins. Obviously we can’t really mimic that. But what about his day to day life. Everywhere Jesus went he made an impact. Whether it was healing the sick, taking care of the poor and needy, or just being kind and compassionate to the outcasts of that day. He loved and cared for people and changed their lives in the process. He put others before himself in every aspect of his life and ministry up until the day He died.
Now we could go on and on about the way Jesus lived but I think even from these three aspects of His life we can come up with some changes to make in our own lives.
So what do you need to do? Looking at the way Jesus lived, what habits did he have that you are missing?
Just based on what we see here there are so many habits that we could build to become more like Him.
There are also so many things we can stop to become more like Jesus.
Look at those character traits of Jesus. Then look at your life and evaluate which habits don’t match up. Ask yourself these questions
If you do this right and evaluate your life with honesty, you will probably find a lot of things in your life that need to be different. We all would. Don’t try to change all of it all at once. I want you to pick one thing to start doing this year and one thing you are going to stop doing.
Listen, this process of starting new habits and ending old ones takes time. It doesn’t happen overnight. So don’t expect yourself to completely change your life in a few days. Don’t expect to be able to change all these habits at once. Pick one habit you need to stop and one habit you need to start. Commit to those two things and watch God transform you in those areas of your life. You won’t regret it.
Now in order to really commit to making a change in your life, you need to be able to answer some questions for yourself and for anyone who is helping hold you accountable.
What?First you have to decide what you are going to do. What habit are you going to start and what are you going to stop? What change are you going to make?
Why? Why do you want to change that habit? If you don’t have a reason behind what you are doing, you will not stick with it for very long. If your reason is just “My student pastor told me I should do this.” You are not going to stick with it. You need to decide why changing these habits is important to you.
Then we have these last three questions which lead to details on really how to accomplish this. When? Where?How?
And answering these questions might look like this.
Finally in order to really make a difference in these habits. You need to pray.
Pray
This is about more than just living a better life. Our goal is to become more like Christ. To be even more obedient and even closer to God. That doesn’t happen without prayer. You can be a professional habit fixer, but if you haven’t sought the Lord’s will on these things it won’t matter. You can have the most organized and productive life. But if you don’t have the Holy Spirit working inside of you, you will continue to feel empty. You will continue to feel overwhelmed and struggle with living the life you were meant to live.
So don’t leave Christ out of this. Whatever habits you decide to change I would encourage you to pray about it every single day. Ask God to help you fight that old routine. Thank Him for the ability to change it. Ask Him to help you live a life that brings great honor to Him. Every day I would encourage you to talk to God about how you did. If you did well, thank God for helping you and ask Him to help you again the next day. If you didn’t do well, ask God to forgive you and help you do better the next day.
Grab a piece of paper and answer all those questions we just talked about. I want you to sit somewhere in a quiet place and take a minute to decide what habit you want to start and what you want to stop. After that I want you to fill out the answers to those questions and when you're done, pray over it. Do one better, ask a friend, a leader, your student pastor to pray for it too.
©2024 Sagebrush Church
