How to Break the Power of Bad Habits

You know what the Lord told me to tell you

out of that. If you don't like the product, you

gotta change the pattern. And see, this is so critical

because some of us don't like what we're getting in

our life, and we don't like the way our relationships flow.

We don't like the way our bodies look, and we

don't like the way our bodies feel, and we don't

like the way that we go running around from this

thing to that thing, and we don't like the way

that our lives are constantly feeling. Empheis. That's that's the

product six sixty six. So if you don't like that product,

you can hate the product all you want, you can

stare at the product all you want. But the problem

is not the product. The problem is the pattern. Now

I'm coming after your excuses because so often and we

want to blame the tree for the fruit that's not there.

We want to blame God for the blessings that he

didn't give. We want to blame people for the opportunities

that they didn't let us have. We want to blame

circumstances for the way things are. We want to blame

genetics for the reason we're kind of fat. We got

all these problems, all these problems. But folks, might I

suggest that the problem isn't what they did to you,

what they said to you, what they didn't do for you.

The problem is the pattern of your response. It's the pattern.

Let's change the pattern. If we put one eleven one

more time, yeah, and now we got one eleven times seven.

Now we got seven seven, seven. That's a good product.

How many of you like that product better than the

six sixty six? But you can't change the product if

you don't change the pattern. You can't change your relationships.

If you don't start being kinder, you can't change the

way people respond to you. If you don't start sowing

some good seed. You can't change the way your kids act.

If you don't start sewing some behavioral discipline and some

TLC and some encouragement. Sometimes you can't change the way

your career's going if you don't start changing your work

ethic and your work habits and your inner relations You

can't change your with something unless you change your input sous,

A problem is the pattern. Tell seven people, the problem

is the pattern. The problem is the pattern. Now now,

so often what the devil will get us to do?

Since we don't perceive the pattern. Everybody perceives problems. That's easy.

I told our staff this week. Anybody can perceive problems.

That doesn't make you a leader. That's not going to

help you grow, that's not going to change your life.

Anybody can perceive problems, but the ability to perceive the

pattern beneath the problem could change everything. So the enemy

will do this, anymy will do this. You take a

pattern that's in your life, and he'll try to get

you think to think that a changeable pattern is a

permanent problem. Okay, And this is what our minds do.

This is this is this is where we mess up.

This is this is where it goes wrong. The problem

is the pattern. But let's say, let's say you make

a statement like this, I'm not a morning person. Okay,

how many of you would make a statement like that. Yeah,

me too, have been saying that all my life, and

I stand by it. Those neurons that fire to the

other neurons with the pathway something I was born with,

something that to stay up late, you know, early to bed,

early to rise makes a man healthy with whatever. Early

to rise for me makes me mean and hateful, makes

me suicidal. Homicidal. But sometimes we say something. We say something,

we say something, we make it a permanent promm. I'm

not a morning person, but for some of us, it's

the pattern that's not like a personality trait. For some

of us, I'm not a morning person. Well, my pattern

is I stay up late watching one more episode. I

stay on my electronic devices until eleven thirty PM. I

think about stressful stuff all day long. I don't ever

pray about anything. I worry about everything. I lose my

cool with the kids at nine thirty. I drink too

much water, have to get up pete three times during

the night. I'm just trying to be practical, preacher. You

can't only just be theological. In the tabernacle that was

built was not with human hand, so that you got

to talk about having too much water before you go

to bed. Help people out. I didn't lay out my

clothes the night before. Everything I wanted to wear was dirty.

I ate half a bag of popcorn. I drink caffeine

until eight thirty pm. It's all up in my system.

So I'm not a morning person. No, you have some

bad nighttime patterns. I'm preaching to myself. I feel like

a hypocrite in some ways. I just read you my list.

But let's pretend that you don't know that. Let's pretend

we're talking about you. I'm not a good student. I'm

not a good I'm just not a good student. Many

of you said that all through school. Many of you

are saying that all through school. So now it's not

just even a problem anymore. It's a personality type. I'm

a bad student, like that's an ethnicity. This is been permanent,

it's permanent. I'm a bad student. I'm just a bad

I'm just not a good student. No, you have horrible patterns.

You have patterns of procrastination. Cannot preach about this, parents

cannot preach about this. So we make big, sweeping statements

over stuff that is really systematic decisions, and we make patterns.

We make patterns very personal. But you are not your patterns.

Some of our problems are not the result of destiny,

the result of decisions, and we get destiny confused with decisions.

We think this is the way it's always supposed to be,

because this is the way it's always been. But I

came to announce somebody, if you'll change the pattern, God

can change the product. You're not stuck like this. You

don't always have to be like this. You could get

a new pattern if you couldn't, Paul, wouldn't a set.

Don't be conformed to the pattern of this world. Apparently

there's something you can do to change the pattern. Come on,

gotta change the pattern. We come to church, ask God

to change the product. He said, you changed the pattern

and the product will change. My life is hectic. No,

you're just always in a hurry. That's the pattern of

your life. So life feels hectic because you're in a hurry.

Hurry is your pattern. Hectic is your product. If you

want to now you got you gotta pay attention. I

got a lot more of those two. I'm disorganized, I

have no energy. I don't like to exercise. I can't

afford to tithe. We interpret our decisions as our destiny.

But everything changes. Everything changes the moment that the word

of God taps you up on the shoulder and says,

you know, there's a pattern. You know it's not just random.

You know it's not just fate for you to be

this way. See, in my own life, I've had to

learn and I'm still learning my own patterns. My patterns

of discouragement and defeat. Sometimes I get discouraged, and listening

to my own podcast doesn't help. It's even more discouraging.

Sometimes do I really sound like that? And I start

paying more attention lately to my patterns of defeat and

my patterns of discouragement so that I won't just interpret

it as the devil's attacking me. But this is the

number of the devil. You'll give him too much credit.

It's really just a pattern. It's really just a pattern.

It's neurons and neural pathways. There is a devil, but

this is his headquarters, and it's a pattern. It's a pattern. Personally,

I'm an achiever. I like to achieve. I'm driven. So

when I start my day off without accomplishing anything that

I feel like I can check off. If too long

goes by in the day before I can check something off,

I get discouraged. So I learned how to at least

do one thing, make up the bed, put something in

the dishwasher. I would never unload the dishwasher in the morning,

but I could put something in the dishwasher if it's

already dirty. You know, make a phone call. I need

to make send an encourage. Sometimes my patterns of discouragement

is because I'm waiting for encouragement to come to me,

and I could. I could get encouraged by encouraging somebody else.

And so when the pattern of your life, you gotta

you gotta, you gotta pay attention to your patterns. Because

I realized that sometimes when everything is all about me,

all about me, all about me, I become very discouraged

and defeated. When when I when I go do something

for somebody else, just even the smallest thing, what does

it do? It changes the pattern. It changes the pattern.

And when the pattern of my day changes, the product

of the day changes so that at the end of

the day I don't feel discouraged. I might have started discouraged.

But when I found out what was discouraging me when

I when I, when I saw the pattern, I turned

that thing around and I ended my day on top,

not on bottom. Because I recognize the pattern. When I

speak negatively about others, even in a joking way, I

noticed that that creates a pattern of negativity, a pattern

of judgment. You know where Jesus said, if you judge others,

beware or you'll be judged yourself. I always thought other

people were going to judge me if I judged others.

What I found out is if you speak judgmental words

and have judgmental thoughts, you turn on yourself and start

judging your own self because you started a pattern of

judgment in your mind, and now you're in enemy held

territory and it created a pattern of pessimism, and you'll

be your own worst enemy. And so I can catch

my pattern. Oh the reason I feel horrible is because

I just said three toxic things about people. I wondered,

what would twenty fifteen be like if I lived the

whole year like I had, but died the person I

was talking about in my pocket while I was having

a conversation about him. I'm not quite ready to take

it to that level yet, Bernie, but pray for me.

I want to go there. Patterns. You got to learn

your patterns. Pay attention to your patterns. It's good to pray, okay,

and pray and ask God to do things in your life,

but also pay attention to your own patterns. Yeah, don't

let prayer become a substitute for pattern discernment. So you

got to learn your patterns. I've learned my patterns of distraction.

So I know that when I'm doing something important that

I'm tempted to be distracted. And when I'm working on

something and I feel myself distracted about it, I realized

that my distraction is a sign that this is really

important for me. I found out that sometimes it's more

fun to talk about my sermon than to actually prepare it.

And so my pattern of distraction is I'll do anything

other than work on the thing I'm supposed to work on.

And if you learn your patterns of see if you

make it personally you say I'm a procrastinator. Again, you

don't get to just make that your personality type, not

if you're a child of God, not if you've got

royal blood flowing inside of you, out if you're changed

creation in Jesus Christ, according to Tewod Corinthians five point seventeen,

with a new heart, with new desires, you got to

learn your patterns, learn your patterns, and if you don't

like the product, change the pattern. Some of us have

patterns of self pity. You embrace the feeling of being excluded.

Patterns of self pity immediately interpreting things people say and

don't say as a personal insult to you. It's a pattern.

What is that pattern producing in your life? Do you

like it? You want to pass it on to little April?

Do you want to pass it on to Jake? Is

that going to be your legacy? Because you will have

a legacy, and it will be your pattern. Parents. This

is sobering, he said, a pattern for our kids. They

will fight with their spouse the way they saw us

interact with ours. It's a pattern. One of the best

things my dad ever did for me. And I tell

this about once a year because it was so powerful,

because he recognized the pattern. He used to tell me

when I was about Elijah's age, So around nine, this

this this course of conversation started. He would tell me.

He'd say, son, everybody in your family has been an alcoholic.

On my side, on my side of the family, everybody's

been an alcoholic. It's in your genes to be an alcoholic.

So when you go to a party in high school

and they offer you alcohol, I want you before you

do it, because you know everybody else is going to

be doing it. But I want you to understand. He

didn't use the word, but he was teaching me the

power of that pattern. He was saying, it's in your

you're predisposed to like it. But he gave me a vision.

He said, you could decide to be the first verdict

on this side, to make a decision to break the pattern,

to say I'm not passing this pattern on to another generation,

and some of us need to decide I'm not passing

I'm not passing compulsive spending on. I'm not passing this on.

I'm not passing anger and tempered. I'm not passing this pattern.

I'm changing the pattern. I'm changed. By Jesus, I'm changing.

I'm changing. You can have a good heart and horrible habits,

and your heart can't overpower your habits. You got to

change the pattern. Hey, thank you for watching. Make sure

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