Overcoming Bad Habits

To know what constitutes purity of mind, soul, and body is an important part of education.
When the character is lacking in purity, when sin has become a part of the character, it has a bewitching power that is equal to the intoxicating glass of liquor. The power of self-control and reason is overborne by practices that defile the whole being; and if these sinful practices are continued, the brain is enfeebled and diseased, and loses its balance. Such ones are a curse to themselves and to all who have any connection with them. . . .
Bad habits are more easily formed than good habits, and the bad habits are given up with more difficulty. The natural depravity of the heart accounts for this well-known fact–that it takes far less labor to demoralize the youth, to corrupt their ideas of moral and religious character, than to engraft upon their character the enduring, pure, and uncorrupted habits of righteousness and truth. Self-indulgence, love of pleasure, enmity, pride, self-esteem, envy, jealousy, will grow spontaneously, without example and teaching. In our present fallen state all that is needed is to give up the mind and character to its natural tendencies. In the natural world, give up a field to itself and you will see it covered with briers and thorns; but if it yields precious grain or beautiful flowers, care and unremitting labor must be applied.
Now we present before you the necessity of constant resistance to evil. All heaven is interested in men and women whom God has valued so much as to give His beloved Son to die to redeem them. No other creature that God has made is capable of such improvement, such refinement, such nobility as man. Then when men become blunted by their own debasing passions, sunken in vice, what a specimen for God to look upon! Man cannot conceive what he may be and what he may become. Through the grace of Christ he is capable of constant mental progress. Let the light of truth shine into his mind and the love of God be shed abroad in his heart and he may, through the grace Christ has died to impart to him, be a man of power–a child of earth but an heir of immortality.

Maranatha p. 229
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Prayer Requests
—–long time friends of mine lost their son in a severe one car collision yesterday. He was only 21. Please take a moment to pray for them and her the family, that they get through this. Jimmy
——update—Made it to our destination safely. Thank you for the prayers. Meredith
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Dear Friends,

When I was pregnant for Ronnie Jay, Eileen who was seven at the time, and I were in a store looking at baby clothes. A clerk came over to see if we needed any help. Smiling, she said to Eileen, “It looks like you will soon be a big sister! Isn’t that wonderful?”

Eileen exclaimed, “Yes! I prayed and prayed for a baby and finally Jesus said, ‘Oh, all right! You can have one.” Both the clerk and I had a difficult time keeping from bursting out laughing. The clerk said something like, “How nice.” and walked away. I was terribly embarrassed.

On the way home, we talked about answers to prayer. I explained to my little girl that God didn’t answer her prayer with exasperation because she had asked so much. He had answered her prayer because He saw that it was best for us to have a baby at that time. I stated that God answers our prayers even when they seem to go unanswered. He knows what is best for us. Jesus said, “your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.” Matt 6:8

Our Dear Heavenly Father longs to answer our prayers, but there are conditions for answers to prayer. “Behold, the LORD’S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.” Isa 59:1,2 He yearns to fill us with the Holy Spirit that we may be powerful Christians. “If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” Luke 11:11-15

Our dear Saviour assures us, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” John 15:7 This does not mean that we will get just what we ask for. James explains, “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.” James 4:3 If we abide in Him and ask according to His will, our request will be granted. “And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.” 1 John 5:14,15 What a wonderful Father we have! He listens to our prayers and weighs each request. Then He answers them in the very way that we would want if we could see the end from the beginning.

Let us have confidence that He hears and gives us our requests according to His great knowledge and understanding. Let us trust Him to take complete control of our lives, allowing Him to guide us in every aspect. Let us reach out and grasp His outstretched hand and let Him lead us to His Heavenly Kingdom is my prayer.

Rose