Matthew 5:13  “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.”

Do you have any bad habits?  If so, how many and how bad?  What if we don’t know if we have any bad habits?  What if we erroneously think everything is fine, when it’s not?  How do we know if a habit is bad or not?

One of my more embarrassing bad habits occurred early in my business career.  Even worse it was brought to my attention twice!  I first had a co-worker confront me and then later my boss took me aside and told me that I had body odor and it was noticeable!  I remember the co-worker was one of our top sales people and he was mortified at having to tell me this but he respected me and the work I did.  His discomfort at telling me was not as bad as listening to others ridiculing me.

What about being impatient?  Curt?  Difficult to work with?  Prone to anger?  Selfish?  Prideful?  Overly talkative?  Rude?  Always insisting on our own way?  The list can just go on and on.  Habits are involved in every area of our lives.  They are the things we normally do or how we respond and they impact those around us.

Jesus tells us that Christians are to be salt and light.  The question then becomes how “salty” are we.  This is where our habits define us.  Fortunately,one of the major things that God does in responding to prayer is to make us aware of our own shortcomings – our sins – our bad habits.  Sometimes through His word and sometimes using family or friends.  We then get the opportunity to respond.

When we recognize, confess and repent of these things, we are forgiven – and God is so generous with His mercy.  But we must recognize that the long lasting requirement of our faith is that these habits MUST disappear from our lives.  Such habits are the very nature of ‘unsaltiness’.  They can effectively undermine and negate any of the good that we do.

Sometimes God’s response is to simply and wonderfully remove a bad habit from us and we just don’t do it anymore.  Praise God for those times.  But often He allows it to be a project in our lives where we must continually look to Him and walk in a disciplined way by His Spirit to avoid it.  Think of all the sexual impurity on TV, in magazines, in movies and on the Internet.  He can free us from it – and keep us free!

Thank God that His grace and power are sufficient to enable us to walk free of any sinful behavior (bad habit).  As we pray and seek Him, let us be grateful for the continuing wonder of His work in our lives.  Let our hearts cry for Him to make us the salty followers of Jesus that will draw others to Him.