October 13, 2020 - LMA Seven Principles: Principle #6

LMA Principle #6 - Learn to Replace Bad Habits with Good Habits.

This is the "best offense is a good defense" strategy. And it works! This refers to substituting good patterns of behavior for negative actions. Meet with your sponsor/mentor instead of stopping by a bar. Go to a gym rather than visiting an old using friend. There is no end to helpful replacement activities.

• Isaiah 1:13-17 (The Message): "Quit your worship charades. I can't stand your trivial religious games: Monthly conferences, weekly Sabbaths, special meetings—meetings, meetings, meetings—I can't stand one more! Meetings for this, meetings for that. I hate them! You've worn me out! I'm sick of your religion, religion, religion, while you go right on sinning. When you put on your next prayer-performance, I'll be looking the other way. No matter how long or loud or often you pray, I'll not be listening. And do you know why? Because you've been tearing people to pieces, and your hands are bloody. Go home and wash up. Clean up your act. Sweep your lives clean of your evildoings, so I don't have to look at them any longer. Say no to wrong. Learn to do good. Work for justice. Help the down-and-out. Stand up for the homeless. Go to bat for the defenseless."

Condition yourself to live differently than the lifestyle that has caused you so much pain and misery. Stop going through the motions... BE real. Live in a new (renewed) reality. Learn to “BE!" Rest in the truth of your real (renewed) life.

• Romans 7:25 (TPT): I give all my thanks to God, for his mighty power has finally provided a way out through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One! So if left to myself, the flesh is aligned with the law of sin, but now my renewed mind is fixed on and submitted to God's righteous principles.

• Romans 7:25 (Mirror Bible): Thank God, this is exactly what he has done through Jesus Christ, our Leader; he has come to our rescue! I am finally freed from this conflict between the law of my mind and the law of sin in my body. (In the Incarnation, in a human body exactly like ours, Jesus balanced the scales! He is the true measure of the life of our design - he revealed and redeemed the image and likeness of God in us as in a mirror! See Rom 1:16,17 and 3:24 and 27.)

Live in the reality of your renewed mind, which is fixed on God and His way of life.

Enough said.

Blessings All Around,

Rannie Childress

Senior Pastor, Trinitarian Grace International