You can be overtaken by a bad habit before you even know it.

"That's the way I am. That's just the way I am. I'm always angry. I'm always negative. I'm always lacking faith. It's just me. It's the way I was born. It's the way I am. It's the way I've always done things."

It is easy to carry on the same ways of doing things, the same habits. It’s easy to get into a rut in your life and basically say, "Well, that's just the way I am."

"The chains of habit are too light to feel until they're too heavy to break." You can get into a rut in your life and "the chains of habit are too light to feel until they're too heavy to break."

You can be overtaken by a bad habit before you even know it. It takes seven times of repeating something to develop a habit. But it takes thirty times of not doing it to unbreak that habit. It's easier to get into a rut; it's easier to begin and start a habit than it is to get out of it, and so you can ride in those same ruts very easy.

What about the excuse? "I tried to change, but it doesn't work." It didn't work, "I tried to change, but it didn't work." That can be discouraging when you pray about something, when you recognize it and you want to, you wish it were different but it just doesn't seem to change. It's easy to get into a habit, or get into a way of thinking that, "Well, I'm going to fail if I try and change that because I've tried to change it before."

Sometimes sins can be like ball and chain. You learn to live with it because you've occasionally tried to break away but it didn't work and you begin to have that attitude, "I've tried to change but it just didn't work."

Ask yourself, "How much effort, have you really put into it?" Praying about a problem is very important, but is that all there is in your spiritual arsenal? Is that all the strength and muscle you can put behind it? Oh, no - there's a whole lot more. There are very practical things you can do in your life. Stay away from temptation; fasting, doing a study on the issue, there's a lot of spiritual strength that can be put into changing. So it's important to ask yourself, are you really putting everything that's in your spiritual arsenal to deal with it?

Sometimes you don't see the urgency to change. Sometimes you just don't see the urgency to change and it's important in your life as a overcomer to recognize there is an urgency to it and not put it off.

"Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous person their thoughts..." So, you're to forsake not only what you do that's wrong but the way you think that's not in line with God. He says, " Return to the Lord, and He will have mercy on you.