Old Habits Die Hard
Old Habits Die Hard
When I was hospitalized as a teenager I met a man hampered by a severe limp. I’d see him every morning, hobbling down the hallway on his lame joints with the aid of a walker. All of us on the floor were looking forward to the day when radical surgery would correct his disability.
That day finally came. The surgeons opened him up and replaced several diseased joints. His lameness was cured.
Yet for nearly a year after that successful surgery, the man continued to limp. I remember greeting him when he came back to the hospital for a visit. There he was, using his cane and walking with a limp.
“That’s a shame his surgery didn’t take,” I commented to a doctor one day.
The surgeon shook his head. “Oh, but it did take,” he told me. “You see, that man limps out of nothing more than habit.”
The dear man had developed strong habit patterns over his years as a disabled person. And even though he was physically free from limping, he still tended to slip back into the old ways.
In a similar manner, we Christians tend to sin … mainly out of habit. We know that in Christ we have died to sin and its rule over us. Sin no longer has power over us because we have been freed through the death and resurrection of Christ. We are completely free to live a life pleasing to the Lord. Read your emancipation proclamation in passages like Romans 6-8, Galatians 2:20, I Peter 2:24, and 2 Peter 1:3-4.
But old habits die hard. For lame men. And yes, for Christians. When we become Christians, we are spiritually free from the grip of sinful thoughts and actions. But unfortunately, as unbelievers we develop strong habit patterns over the years. Often we find ourselves slipping back into old ways—the ways of disobedience and death.
It’s habit to look out for ourselves instead of others.
It’s habit to retaliate when someone hurts us.
It’s habit to indulge our appetites.
It’s habit to live for ourselves and not for God.
When we become Christians, it’s like having radical surgery—a heart transplant, if you will. Yet it’s a struggle to drop all those old habits overnight. In fact, you and I will spend the rest of our lives putting off these filthy old garments, and putting on new habits of holiness.
I like the way Paul put it in Romans 13:14:
Rather, clothe yourselves with the LORD Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.
You know what old, sinful habits you’re leaning on today. They die hard, don’t they? Whether it’s shading the truth, forcing your own opinions on others, a little lustful fantasizing, whatever.
Today, quit leaning on those rotten old crutches. You are free from the power of those dark habits, so start acting like it. Join Paul in declaring these bright words of freedom:
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me (Galatians 2:20).
Your radical surgery was a complete success.