Why you are aren't free & stuck in the same habits

What's the secret to breaking completely free? I'll tell you.

Why do people get stuck in the same bad habits?

Why are YOU stuck in the same bad habits?

Whether it's an addiction, a broken mindset, a poor way of thinking…if you notice the things that truly keep people away from their calling, it's usually the same thing. It's not 10 different things. It's one thing.

How do you, as a man/woman of God ensure that you aren't stuck in the same habits over and over again?

There are many things to say about training the mind (Romans 12), but allow me to share one common denominator that I've observed that makes a world of difference.

This is a really really important principle:

To walk in freedom from bad habits, you have to be with people who walk in that freedom.

Let me explain from a biblical story that conveys this truth: Moses.

As you remember, when Moses delivers Israel from slavery, he clashes with them over and over again. When the Egyptian army is about to chase them down, they complain in Exodus 14 something to the effect of: "Man Moses, just leave us alone, we rather go back into slavery!"

Can you believe it? I know many of us have read this and go, “Stupid Israelites.”

So here we have two groups:

• Group 1: Israelites who God wants to set free, but their mindset wants to remain in slavery.

• Group 2: Then you have Moses, who rolls his eyes at the Israelites and won't let them succumb to their broken way of thinking.

So many of us are like the Israelites. We just go back to our broken way of thinking. Yet Moses is the one who can see clearly. This begs the question:

What's the difference between Moses and the stubborn Israelites?

Is there something special about Moses' genes? Something hidden talent? Some anointing from God that the people don't have?

Nope! I'll tell you the secret right now.

There's something really important about Moses' upbringing that people need to remember: For most of Moses's adult life, he wasn't in Egypt where his people were in slavery. 

In other words, slavery wasn't normal in his life.

Moses wasn’t used to the chains, the whips, the brick making. He was in the wilderness living his best and freest life! He knew the air of freedom. He could smell it. He lived a life without a master. Freedom is all Moses knew!

The key is that freedom was normal for Moses.

And God used this mentality to break through to Israel. You see, when brokenness is your normalcy, that's all you'll see. That's all you're used to. That's all you know.

Why are people stuck in the same broken habits and thinking over and over and over and over again? Simple–it's because that's all they know.

Ask anyone stuck why they aren’t free. Their most likely answer? “I don’t know”. They don’t know because they don’t know anything better.

So what's the secret to breaking out of it?

Also simple! BE WITH A MOSES IN YOUR LIFE.

In other words, to break out of our habits, you must be with people who walk in the freedom you wish you had. 

If you're a drunkard, you don't hang around with drunkards. Sure you'll get empathy. Sure you'll get company. But you won't get victory.

Be with people whose mindsets are so different than yours that it forces you to reckon with your sense of normalcy. I assure you that when that happens, you will begin to experience breakthrough.

After all, breakthrough first starts with our mind. (Hence why Paul so strongly encourages us to "transform our mind" in Romans 12).

How about you? Do you notice this important detail in experiencing breakthrough? Let me know in the comments below or reply to this email!

You were made for greatness,
Phil