I’ve heard it said that if you do something for 66 days in a row you can form a new habit. But if you were to reverse that thought, could you break a habit in 66 days? You know, if you could fight through not doing that certain thing for 66 days, would you effectually shed that habit? What if you had been doing that thing for 5,000 days? Doesn’t seem like you could dump a bad habit that you had been doing for years in only 66 days.
The point? We are creatures of habit. We do things we like and as we do, we form habits. Some good, some bad. In Steven Covey’s book ‘The 10 Habits of Highly Effective People’ he discusses how to formulate and build new habits that will promote your ability to have influence and success. Here in the 5MC I encourage the same ideal but revolving around time spent with God in His Word. In fact, the 5MC stands for the five minute challenge, a call to spend 5 minutes in God’s Word for at least 30 days in a row and hopefully build a habit. You see, being creatures of habit, we will perform these habits over and over without even thinking about it them. The goal concerning habits? To see if we can get our good productive habits to far outweigh the bad unproductive. One of my favorite quotes is from John Maxwell, “You'll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.” I love it, be a master of your daily routine and watch your life change.
The problem is the change. We don’t like it, the world doesn’t like it and well, it’s just plain hard. Breaking those bad habits take time, work, dedication and sacrifice. Not things we are a fan of. But if you do pull yourself up by your bootstraps and initiate change in your life, you’ll notice something. The world around you will probably not be a fan of your change. Sad but true, the world generally doesn’t like seeing people improve themselves. You see, basically what you’ve got is a rubber band. Your pulling in one direction, the direction of improvement, betterment and purity. But the world is pulling in the opposite direction. The world is a place of routine, continuity and even stagnancy. Change is hard on so many levels.
This morning we see God’s Word dealing with just this issue. God is calling His people to make a daily change, to break old habits and take a step towards purity in Him. But folks, the world and our old habits will not merely sit by and watch this, there will be a struggle. Recall the history of these Israelites. They had been in slavery in Egypt for 430 years, they had fully been exposed to and even adopted the local Egyptian customs. You could say they had been indoctrinated, brainwashed or had just simply adapted fully to their environment. But now they are in the wilderness camped around the tabernacle of God and He needs to break some old habits. You see if there is ever a truth in our lives, if we want to become closer to God, we have to break the habits of the world.
God commands that all animals to be slaughtered, regardless of the end use, be slaughtered at the His tabernacle. Why? Well, in Egypt there was no tabernacle of God and the Israelites would slaughter their food wherever it was convenient. And that was usually a local Egyptian temple. One that worshiped the goat God “Mendes.”
“They must no longer offer any of their sacrifices to the goat idols to whom they prostitute themselves. This is to be a lasting ordinance for them and for the generations to come.” Leviticus 17:7
There’s a fascinating story that goes along with Mendes. The goat idol Mendes and the Greek goat idol Pan were both very similar. They were both half goat and half man, had horns, cloven feet and a tail. Is this image starting to sound familiar? Medieval Christianity started identifying this image as the devil. The image then picked up a pitchfork from the Greek god Poseidon and a little later was colored red to resemble the fires of hell. But folks, this is not what the devil looks like at all. God’s Word calls him an angel of light and he was the model of perfection, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. In fact, his beauty and perfection brought him to challenge God for control of Heaven. As a result of challenging God, he was defeated and cast out of Heaven.
Back on track. So, while in Egypt the Israelites would take the animal to the local goat temple, sacrifice it and have fresh meat for dinner. But God will break this sinful habit here in Leviticus 17. God says you will now bring all animals to My tabernacle to be slaughtered. Even if it’s not a burnt or sin offering, it still comes here to Me, nowhere else.
There are great parallels here for us today. We no longer have to personally slaughter our animals and thereby would not be tempted to go to a goat temple to do so. But folks, there are still plenty of temples in our world today where we can go to bow and worship. Simply due to the complexity of our society today compared to the days Moses and the Israelites, we have much more to protect our hearts from today. Can you imagine one of the Israelites building a bigger tent than his neighbors and then bragging about it? Can you imagine an Israelite getting a bigger, better, newer donkey with a Bluetooth stereo and then looking down at neighbors that didn’t have one? Silly to think about but so real in our world today. We worship at the feet of pride, money, materialism, power and the biggest temptation, oursleves. If we could all be honest today, every single one of use have a huge golden statue of ourselves within our heart.
The answer in dealing with the temptations of the world? Go to God. Take it all to God and lay it at His feet. It all came from God and it all belongs to God, it’s His. As you do, He will look closely at your habits and more than likely ask for some changes. Break those old habits of worshipping elsewhere and worship here at my feet. You see, God doesn’t want some of your heart. Not ¼, not 2/3, not 15/16. He wants it all. And He will continue to form and shape your daily habits until they all lead to Him. The only question is, how long will you fight to keep those old habits? Old habits do indeed die hard, but with the power of the Holy Spirit, you can dump the old destructive habits and replace them with ones that will glorify the Savior, Jesus Christ. Start today.
If your reading this, your journey is being prayed for.
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