How to Defeat Harmful Habits (Counseling Through the Bible Series) Read Online Free PDF Page A

past, only to consistently relapse?”
    “Have I become abnormally preoccupied with the habit?”
    “Have I continued the habit in spite of suffering negative consequences?”
    “Have I engaged in the habit more and more often over time in order to achieve the same mood-altering experience I had in the beginning?”
    “Have I practiced this habit primarily because it changes my mood or comforts me?”
    “Have I persisted in this habit even though it is harmful to me?”
    If the answer to any one of these questions is yes , you are on the way to forming an addiction. If the answer to all of them is yes , you are already wrapped up in the web of addiction and are powerless to free yourself. Your only recourse is to seek help in order to regain control of your life. When you do so, you can walk in the freedom Christ died to provide for you.
     
“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly”
    (R OMANS 5:6).
II. C HARACTERISTICS OF H ABITS AND A DDICTIONS
    “Lazy”…complacent…settle for mediocrity…“last guy in the building [for practic, team meetings, and games]…first guy out.” 15
    You’d hardly expect an athlete with these self-described habits to succeed in a game of flag football, much less catapult to the pinnacle of the National Football League. But Michael Vick’s career has been full of sad surprises.
    Endowed with spectacular innate athleticism, Vick discovered as a boy—playing pick-up football in the gang-infested housing projects of Newport News, Virginia—that athletic achievement came easy for him. Sadly, so did a later life of habitual bad choices, moral shortcuts, and eventually, serious crime.
    But the shocking truth about Vick’s character was carefully concealed from his fans. During his ensuing glory years, the NFL’s number one draft pick in 2001 earned a reputation as the most electrifying player in professional sports. And he became one of the highest paid, with a record $130 million contract. 16 As quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons, Vick led his team to the playoffs twice, ranking second among quarterbacks of all time in career rushing yards. 17
    Vick’s meteoric rise to stardom led him to believe he could live life on his own terms—immune from the baggage of bad habits and destructive choices, and unwilling to embrace the biblical instruction to

“be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil”
    (E PHESIANS 5:15-16).
A. What Is Characteristic of All Habits?
    In 2007, the hidden habits of Michael Vick exploded into public view. A police raid on Vick’s Bad Newz Kennels in rural Virginia turned up gruesome evidence of a savage dogfighting operation. Investigators alleged that for six years, Vick and friends from his childhood bought, bred, and sold pit bulls, which fought to the death in kennel matches with gambling purses as high as $26,000. 18
    Ghastly reports of barbaric cruelty began to emerge. Dogs that lost fights or didn’t perform well had been tortured mercilessly—beaten, shot, drowned, electrocuted. International media pounced on the news with the ferocity of Vick’s own vicious pit bulls. The public outcry was deafening, the revulsion palpable.
    In truth, pit bulls simply behave as they are trained. They develop learned behaviors and, consequently, can become brutal killers, or beloved pets, or brilliant service dogs for law enforcement, search and rescue teams, and therapy. 19 In the same way, a habit is a learned behavior that becomes a powerful force in your life, whether for good or bad, for virtue or vice. And, in the end, all wrong habits—whether perceived as good or bad—lead to death.

“There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death”
    (P ROVERBS 16:25).

    A LL H ABITS A RE …

    H H ABITUAL —They occur with regularity.
    A A UTOMATIC —They happen without thinking.
    B B EHAVIORAL —They