Breaking the Cycle Confronting Habitual Sin

Host (0:02): Wake up. It's time to kick start your day. You are listening to Scripture Link's daily dose of inspiration. Let's go.

Unknown Speaker (0:15): Good morning, and welcome to this brand new day. This is Scripture Link's daily dose of inspiration for Monday, 04/13/2026. And today is National Gardening Day. And every year in the spring, I say I'm gonna plant a garden, and every year I never do. So maybe this will be the year.

Unknown Speaker (0:38): It's a little early here in Tennessee to to plant one just yet even though we're gonna get hot this week. But if you're in a spot that it's good to start start your garden and go out, get in the soil, and start planting that stuff that you're gonna plant this year. It also is National Pecan Day, whether you pronounce it pecan or pecan or any of them other myriad of ways to pronounce it, celebrate it with a piece of pecan pie or just taking a big okay. It's taking a handful of pecans and and eat them themselves. Today, our scripture reading is in Matthew chapter 27, and I also want to encourage you to visit our website www.scripturelinks.org and sign up for our free daily email newsletter.

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Unknown Speaker (1:59): There's a whole bunch of others out there. If you don't get it at one of them, then subscribe to it via email. That way you always make sure that you get each day's episode because you really never know if you get it with with just relying on social media. Today, I want us to focus a little bit and talk a little bit today on the subject of habitual sins. And last week, I encourage you to listen to those episodes.

Speaker 1 (2:28): Last week, we did a series looking at first Peter chapter one in verse 13, all the way to chapter two in verse number 10. And we saw, we studied about living a life that is set apart for God and why we need to do that, how we do that. And in in chapter two in verse number one of first Peter, he says, wherefore, laying aside all malice and all guile and all hypocrisies and envies and all evil speaking. I wanna stop right there because lay aside here means to actively and we we talked about this definition last week. It means to actively put away, remove, or discard sins, habits, or spiritual hindrances that is often linked to taking off filthy garments.

Speaker 1 (3:31): And if we look at Hebrews chapter 12 and verse number one, these verses kinda go hand in hand. It's kinda hard to turn the page with just using one hand here. But he says, Hebrews twelve:one, Wherefore seeing we are also compassed about what so great a cloud of witnesses, Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. Twice now in these verses, we've seen the term let us lay aside, and the word beset us in this particular chapter, means to trip us up. It means to cause us to stumble or to fall.

Speaker 1 (4:28): Those, my friends, are the habitual sins that that we all well, that that many of us struggle with. We have a there is a danger in those habitual sins. Habitual unrepentant sin is not compatible with the life of a Christian with a with a true transformed life of the Christian. And and for those that practice a lifestyle of habitual sin don't really know God. And because we well, what we'll talk about here in a minute, it's it's contrary to the Christian life.

Speaker 1 (5:23): While we can't continue to struggle with sin, continuous deliberate sinning indicates a lack of genuine salvation. You see, there's a difference between struggling in sin, struggling with sin and doing it deliberately and continuously. And that's what we're gonna talk about today. We're gonna be in first John is where we're gonna start. And point number one today is that habitual sin contradicts the life or contradicts rather salvation.

Speaker 1 (6:09): First John chapter three and verse number nine says, whosoever is born of God does not commit sin for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God. Let's break this verse down. Actually, if you look at verses four through 10, you can see the contrast here that that John is pointing out between a true believer and a false believer. And it would be good to take a look at those particular verses, you know, to kinda get this in context as well. But let's break it down because a genuine believer does not habitually or deliberately or unrepentant repentantly sin.

Speaker 1 (7:03): That's what John is teaching us here in verse nine. Whoever is born of God does not commit sin. That's that's telling us here that a person that is born of God does not have a lifestyle of sin. A continual continuous willful sinning is contrary to their identity. Somebody that is a true Christian, someone that is has a genuine salvation is not gonna go out and deliberately sin, is not gonna go out and have a habit of sinning.

Speaker 1 (7:38): Why not? Verse goes on to say, for his seed remaineth in him. That seed he's talking about there is the Holy Spirit that is given to us at that moment of salvation. And in the Gospel of John, there's a few verses in there that talks about the working of the Holy Spirit and what the Holy Spirit is doing. And the Holy Spirit is gonna be leading us in the way that we should go, leading us in the teachings of Christ.

Speaker 1 (8:08): And if you're getting ready to go and do one of your habitual sins, the sins that nobody else knows about, and you feel that like your heart all of a sudden weighs 10,000 pounds, that my friends is the working of the Holy Spirit to say, hey, wait a minute, you're going in the wrong way. You're going in the wrong path. Galatians chapter five and verse 16, Paul says, this then I say, walk in the spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. So the seed is the Holy Spirit that that guides us so that we don't go the wrong way. We don't fall into the wrong things.

Speaker 1 (8:57): Whoever is born of God don't commit sin because that's not their lifestyle anymore because this because the Holy Spirit remains in him. And the verse goes on to say, and he cannot sin because he is born of God. He no longer has the the desire for that kind of lifestyle. He no longer is under the control of that sinful lifestyle. Remember Paul said in Romans chapter six, he said, for sin shall not have dominion over you.

Speaker 1 (9:30): That's why we need to make sure that we have a genuine salvation and a genuine faith. Habitual sin contradicts salvation. Habitual sin is also a sign of a lukewarm believer. Over in Revelation, and y'all know I very rarely ever go into the book of Revelation. But there's a couple of verses here I want us to take a look at.

Speaker 1 (9:58): Revelation chapter three, verses 15 through 17. Scripture says, I know thy works that thou art neither cold nor hot. I would thou wert cold or hot. So then, because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich and increased with goods and have no need of nothing, or have need of nothing and knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.

Speaker 1 (10:37): I'm gonna stop right there because this is the message, the letter God has given to the church at Laodicea, the lukewarm church. And he's saying, I'm gonna spew you right out of my mouth because you're neither cold nor hot. It would benefit us to be hot, To be on fire for the Lord was a term that we used when I first became a Christian, when I first gave my life to Christ. And we need to do that today. We need to be a church and we need to be followers that are on fire for the Lord.

Speaker 1 (11:12): But here at this church at Laodicea, he says, I know thy works. I know you're not hot. I know you're not cold because thou sayest, I am rich and increased with goods. I mean, that practically points right to America today. We're saying, I'm rich.

Speaker 1 (11:31): I don't have no need of God anymore. That's why we kicked them out of our schools, out of our homes, out of our workplaces because we don't see a need for God no longer. And what a sad state we're gonna be in. And because of being lukewarm, because we're not on fire for the Lord, God said he's gonna spew us out right out of his mouth. What are some biblical examples of habitual sins?

Speaker 1 (12:04): Well, one of them that came to mind is Abraham. That's surprising, isn't it? Because the religious leaders and the pharisees in Jesus' day always said, we descendants of Abraham. We have Abraham as our father. But Abraham struggled and sinned sometimes and he had the habitual sin here that we see in chapters 12 and chapter 20 of the book of Genesis where Abraham lies about his wife being his sister.

Unknown Speaker (12:35): And he did that because he was fearful for his safety. This reveals a habitual sin with trusting God and trusting his protection. You know, sometimes we say, you know, it's all right to tell that little white lie. It's all right to do this little habitual thing because, you know, I wanna make sure I protect myself. I wanna make sure I'm safe.

Unknown Speaker (13:04): All the while we're not trusting in God for his protection on our life. You know, there's different times that I'll be getting ready for work And then I'll realize I forgot something in another room or maybe I dropped something and got to clean up something real quick and it gets you mad because you leave work for work a minute or two late and you're going down the road and you stumble across an accident that had just happened that was so recent that even the police and the fire department aren't there yet. And then you start thinking, would that have been me if I would have left for work on time? You know, sometimes that little setback is actually God's protection. And Abraham didn't trust in God's protection.

Unknown Speaker (13:55): Another example of habitual sins in the Bible comes with David. David committed adultery and murder in the book of first Samuel and with Bathsheba and her husband. You know the story, he adultery with Bathsheba, had sex outside of marriage, got her pregnant, so sends for her husband Uriah to come back from the battle. And he comes back and apparently he's a little more righteous than David is because he refused to sleep with his wife while the rest of Israel was out in battle. So David sends him back to the battle and gives him a note that tells the commanding officer to put him in the heat of the battle and then back away, let him die.

Speaker 1 (14:49): Adultery and murder. A lukewarm Christian that God is gonna spew out of his mouth. Other examples of habitual sins are certain attitudes that we have, like pride, anxiety, anger, or maybe it's a behavior issue with gossip and profanity. Maybe it's some kind of addiction that you have, what's a pornography or maybe drugs or sexual immorality. See, all these are examples of habitual sins that we have to get out of our lives if we wanna live the life that God wants us to live, if we wanna have that genuine faith and that genuine salvation, and we don't wanna be lukewarm anymore.

Speaker 1 (15:39): How do I overcome these habitual sins? Well, first thing we need to do is to get our mind renewed. And we see that in Romans twelve:one-two. We have to get our mind renewed so that we know what God's will is for our life, so we can walk in the paths God has for us. We need to walk in the spirit as we saw in Galatians chapter five and verse 16.

Speaker 1 (16:03): By walking in the spirit means that we're not gonna fulfill the lust of the flesh. We're not gonna fall into those habitual sins anymore. And we gotta realize what those habitual sins are as nothing more than hindrances to our spiritual growth. You know, we're not two stay babies our entire life. I often think back to my childhood and think, man, I wish I could go back to those days.

Unknown Speaker (16:36): You know, I think I was probably in one of the last, if not the last generation that played outside. I remember in the summertime when school was out going outside right after breakfast and not even coming home and checking in with anybody until the street lights came on. That was your cue to go home. We rode bikes when I was growing up. We hung out.

Speaker 1 (17:06): I grew up in Pennsylvania and one of my favorite childhood memories was the back alley. You know, we had the street that the house was on, then there was an alley, and then there was another street. So then the people on that other street and the people on our street, our houses backed up to each other and we had that back alley. And I can't tell you how many hours of jumping bicycles back there, how many hours of baseball, or how many hours of football that we played in that back alley. We had a pool.

Unknown Speaker (17:40): So in the summer, the heat of the summer days, we all hung out in the pool. We played baseball in the pool. Those are great times. I wish I could go back. But we gotta make sure that habitual sins don't cause us to lose our salvation, that habitual sins is contrary to our salvation.

Unknown Speaker (18:13): And if we have a genuine salvation, we'll not have a desire to live in those habitual sins anymore. So where are you at today? If you prayed today and asked God to reveal to you any habitual sins that you have, do you think he'd tell you any? He probably would. Why not ask him that today?

Unknown Speaker (18:35): See what he tells you. That way you can get things right and get on the right path before it's too late. Think about that as you go through the stain. Remember, get into God's word and allow God's word to get into you, and then share that word with someone today. Have a blessed day.

Speaker 2 (18:53): Calling the unknown approaching vessel. You are on a collision course with us. Please change your course 15 degrees to the south to avoid a collision.

Speaker 3 (19:01): Recommend you change your course 15 degrees to the north to avoid collision.

Speaker 4 (19:06): When we are told to change course, we have a choice to make. Do we change or continue on the same path?

Speaker 2 (19:11): We are a naval ship. This is the captain speaking. I say again, divert your course.

Speaker 3 (19:17): No. I say again, divert your course.

Speaker 4 (19:21): Jesus gave us a choice to make when he said, you are from below. I am from above. If you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins.

Unknown Speaker (19:30): Sir, we could change course here. We have the right of way. I am not changing our course. Unknown vessel, this is an aircraft carrier. We are a large warship.

Speaker 2 (19:39): Divert your course now.

Speaker 3 (19:41): This is a lighthouse. Your call.

Speaker 4 (19:44): When it comes to Jesus, what choice will you make? Another message from Lifeline Productions located on the web at lifelinepro.com.