Develop Christlike Habits

In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices.

─ Colossians 3:7–9 ESV

Without Christ, we are helpless and hopeless. We live in a fallen world, and our nature without the influence of the Holy Spirit leaves us terribly messed up. We experience hurt in many ways, and out of our hurt, we often hurt others. We are often misunderstood, mistreated and mistrusted. We come to God, more times than not, with wounds and grieving.

Once we come to Christ, we have a new spirit, a new hope and a new outlook on life, but our past habits, experiences and hurts can still weigh in. If we aren’t intentional about it, the mess of our past tries to sneak in and sour our new life.

We can have a new heart but continue to wear our same old self on top of it. We can receive forgiveness, but still hold on to our old personality and habits. Colossians 3:7–9 encourages us not to take the familiar path, not to act the way we once acted. Begin new habits – thinking and acting like Christ. That means getting rid of all the things that are not Christlike: anger, rage, malice, slander, and abusive, filthy and vulgar language from our mouths.

None of us are perfect. We all have things we can work on to reflect Christ’s heart in us.

But our hope is in Christ and we can choose to live like Christ each day.

Today’s One Thing

What habits do you still carry from your old life, or what things would you like to change that would help you to be a better witness for Christ? Commit to doing one thing differently every day this week. Ask God to help you create a new habit this week.

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