11 Habits from the Bible that Changed My Life

In the age of self-help, everyone's trying to tell you what you should add to your life. The routines, the rhythms, the habits that you need to incorporate into your life right now because they will drastically improve your life. Or will they? In light of all the habits that people on social media are desperately pleading for me to incorporate into my life, I've wanted to look at like what does the Bible actually say that is beneficial and fruitful for our life, like practically speaking that we should incorporate into our life. And what that led me to was a list of 11 biblical habits. And this is by no means exhaustive. Some of these things I've only recently incorporated into my life, so I want to tell you the backstory of where I was before and how they've changed where I'm at now. Habit number one is unfollow immodest women on social media. I would also add to that, block them as well. Now, some guys might come with the critique of saying, "Isaac, you're going way too far. This is almost purity culture. Like, you're afraid of seeing a woman in a bikini or a low cut top. like you really have that little belief in your self-control. But it's not about that. It really isn't. I'm all for training yourself and not just continually, you know, pushing your eyes away and being scared of the female form. I'm I'm with that because you need to train yourself and there's going to be environments where you're exposed to things and you need to guard your eyes and guard your heart. But there are other opportunities where you're just being dumb and you're just being unwise by letting these images flood across your screen because you do have a level of control of what you're going to be exposed to as a man. Especially as a married man, my commitment and my fidelity is to my wife. Regardless if you're married or not, this is what Proverbs 6:27 says. Can a man carry fire next to his chest and his clothes not be burned? Or can one walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched? It's a rhetorical question because the answer is obvious. The biblical author here is asking us like you can put can you put fire to your chest and not be burned? Obviously the answer is no. So the question would be for you can you be on social media and be following women even Christian women that say they're Christian or even trades on social media. You would not believe how many Christian influencer women on social media that I have come across that I have had to unfollow because they of the things that they post because they're posting themselves in revealing clothing or whatever even with a biblical caption around it. That's not something I'm interested in. That's not something that I want my heart to be thinking about. And I'm not trying to call people out here, but there are big Christian influencers that are talking a big game about what it means to be a biblical wife and that kind of thing. And yet they post in outfits that I think are inappropriate and like would I feel uncomfortable if that that image came up and my wife looked over my shoulder to see what I was looking at my phone? I feel like yeah. So I don't even want to put that image in my brain or even a potential temptation in front of me because it's about being wise. It's about honoring not only my spouse but God. Habit number two is a monthly marriage check-in with my wife. Now, when I first proposed this idea, and I think it was kind of a mutual proposal, we were talking about like what we were going to call this thing originally, I was going to call it like a a monthly strategic marriage meeting of, you know, goals and ideas and vision or something like that. And my wife, who's very different than me, she's a lot more fun, as you can [laughter] imagine. Um, she's like, "Well, no, let's just call it something more relaxed. cuz I don't want it to be this like stressful thing where we're like really trying to grind on like what we're building towards in the future that feels like too much. So, let's just call it like vibes assessment or something like that. And so, that's what we call it. It's just kind of a fun time where we get together and we evaluate how our month is going and we do a couple different exercises each time and see how we've kind of changed. And I don't know, this is one of the things that we have done to invest in our marriage that has been really, really helpful. One of the reasons that we do this is the Bible talks about this marriage being a one flesh union. So if we're going to be one flesh and body and soul and mind, then we want to be on the same page. And so that takes intentional time of communication. And hopefully that happens more than once a month. But this is one of the times that we've set aside particularly to really break down anything that's been going on or going unsaid. Another place of scripture that has been convicting to me personally is in Proverbs 27. Proverbs 27:23 says, "Know well the condition of your flock and give attention to your herd." Now, in context here in Proverbs, this is talking about stewarding what you have wisely, but I also believe that it can apply to stewarding your family well. And so, if you want to steward this herd well, the flock well, you need to know the condition of it. And so, if you have kids, you want to know the condition of how your kids are doing emotionally, spiritually. I don't have kids yet. And so, what that means is, well, my flock, my herd consists of my wife. She is the one that I'm leading and guiding emotionally, spiritually. I am the leader. Habit number three is cutting phone time. I've been pretty honest on this channel about my addiction to my phone over the years, and I've tried to get a hold of it, and I've been better about it more recently, but I just been convicted more and more, and I'm sure you guys kind of maybe in the same mindset, too, is that it is such a time waster. It really just steals our time from us, our ability to be productive and to focus on what really matters, like building for the eternal, and allows us to just kind of numb out. I find one of the poles of doing that is like having uncomfortable feelings and just like negative feelings in my heart, not wanting to deal with them. And so, it's easy to just go to a distraction instead of giving those feelings to God. 1 Corinthians 6:12 says, "All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful." All things are lawful for me, but I will not be dominated by anything. This is the question that I have for you, and it's the same question that I have for myself is like, are you being dominated by your phone addiction or by your need for constant stimulus and entertainment? Habit number four is actually studying the Bible. I think people take for granted that that people know how to study the Bible, like genuinely. And the reason that I I know a lot of people that say they know about Jesus or talk about Jesus even a lot and yet don't know how to study the Bible is because I was one of those people. Is that I would know a lot about what the Bible says because I'm paring a lot of other preachers and teachers and influencers. But if you were to ask me like where a particular thing is or to break down a particular piece of scripture, man, there was years of my life that I would have an extremely hard time with that. And even now I'm just I feel like I'm in the beginning process of really being able to get deep. But it takes time and it takes practice and commitment to actually studying and not just like paring the stuff that we're hearing from other people or relying on other pastors to just tell us what to think about a passage. So what I do is I like to highlight different things, people, places, key ideas, things that I want to essentially stand out like about the passage. I'll highlight those things and I'll have some sort of like color code. Green is places, blue is references to God, purple is just things I really want to remember. I'll try to draw arrows and stuff, the things that I think are connected, like connecting ideas. And I try to capture as many key ideas as I can. I do this in the margin here of my Bible, but if you don't have room for that, you can use a separate notebook. And what I would say is like take more time than you think. Don't be hasty with it. Even this morning, like I read this passage in 2 Corinthians so many times and I I felt like the need to just like roll through it and then get to the next one and read more and read more and read more because I'm like I've read this before. But the habit is really like allow yourself to sit with it. Really think through it and just tell yourself like this is all I'm going to read today. Maybe I have 15 more minutes of the time that I've decided I'm going to spend on this. So just think about it and roll through each word. try to create more connections, more key ideas, even if they're basic for you, because that process is going to begin to cement those things in your brain. And that's what the Bible talks about, meditating on these things day and night. For those of you interested in this Bible, this is called the journaling New Testament inductive edition. Habit number five is reach out first. You got to swallow your pride. And I'm talking about friends particularly. I think we've all been a in a state of life where maybe with a particular friend we're like, well, they don't really reach out to me, so why am I putting in so much effort with them? And I'm not saying that there's not a time in a friendship where you just really need to evaluate, does this person care about this friendship at all? You know, do they even want to be friends with me? That's a fine thing to figure out. But I'm saying with those friends that, you know, okay, you know, we enjoy our time when we're together and we build each other up and it's a good friendship, but maybe they're busy or they just don't think of it. Like the idea here and I've really tried to take this on because I have found myself to be lonely and to just be like I don't have that many friends. I don't have that many connections. I work for myself. So there's not like a lot of people I'm connecting with on a daily basis. I've just resolved to be the one to reach out first. Now obviously you'd love for your friends to be reaching out to you all the time to be like, "Hey Isaac, you know, you want to go do this or you want to go do that or you want to go do this?" Like that would make you feel special. Absolutely. But sometimes that's just not life. Jonathan, Saul's son, rose and went to David at Horsesh and strengthened his hand in God. And he said to him, "Do not fear, for the hand of Saul, my father, shall not find you. You shall be king over Israel, and I shall be next to you. Saul, my father, also knows this." Against all odds, Jonathan is pursuing David and encouraging him. And obviously we're not in that kind of dramatic scenario, but I just think about that beautiful friendship and how so many people we want those friendships and yet we're unwilling to put in the effort and reach out first and really pursue the friend. Habit number six is the open phone policy. I think I watched some podcast a while ago. It was like a relationship podcast and they were debating about like whether you should let your spouse know your, you know, phone password or laptop password or if that was like crossing a boundary. I'm just going to be totally real with you. I would be extremely suspicious of a husband, especially a, you know, Christian husband who says, "No, my wife cannot touch my phone under any circumstances." That's a major red flag. Jesus said in chapter 3 20, "For everyone who does wicked things hates a light and does not come to the light, lest his works be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God." If you're doing wicked things behind the scenes in secret, you're going to gravitate towards the darkness, towards not exposing any of those things, obviously. But if you have nothing to hide and you want to walk in truth, the first step is exposing your works. Not only does that give you an avenue to confess where you have sinned, but it also gives you further accountability when you do things in the future along those lines. In a world where we have constant access to pornography pretty much anytime, anywhere that we want, that is the reality of our modern day, so many people feel in bondage to it because maybe they started watching it at an early age or they just have found themselves to be in the cycle of sin that they can't get out of. Accountability in this process is an essential step. And that's why I want to tell you about Covenant Eyes. Covenant Eyes is an accountability software that takes a report of your monthly internet usage and sends it to your accountability partner, someone in your life that can help keep you accountable. Covenant Eyes is an absolute no-brainer for those who want to break free from pornography. And if you click the link in my description, you can get 30 days free. Covenant Eyes is an affiliate partner, so by signing up, you're also helping out the ministry. Thanks so much, guys. Now, let's get back into it. Next page. Biblical habit number seven is wake up early. And no, this is not telling you to wake up at 3:00 a.m. in the morning and get 2 hours of sleep and hustle and grind because, you know, rise and grind. Now, what I'm not proposing is that you dedicate that extra time to just work more, right? Or optimize more. That's not what I'm saying here. What I'm saying is you can commit that time to the Lord to be with him to read his word to like we were talking about actually begin to study the word of God by waking up just like 30 minutes earlier. You can give yourself that space and honestly that internal rest of not being at panicked when you wake up in the morning and feeling like I got to fit in all these things. You give yourself a little bit of leeway to ease into the morning. This actually takes after the example of Jesus in Mark 1:35. It says, "And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place where he prayed." Habit number eight is work with your hands. To be totally honest with you, I'm not naturally gifted at that. Like, my dad wasn't that way. He wasn't super handy. And so, he didn't really pass those skills down to me. And it's only more recently that I've gotten married. And my father-in-law, who's very handy and very into that kind of thing, that I'm learning a little bit, like doing learning to do some car repairs and stuff like that. I built some shelves. I can put IKEA furniture together. Like maybe it's a kind of a sorry list, but at least I'm trying. This brings us to First Thessalonians and the Church of the Thessalonians where Paul is ministering. And this church has largely disregarded the importance of work and especially manual labor. Seeing it as something for the lower class and maybe even like not even important because after all, we're Christians and we're more about the spiritual stuff. Because of this, they're starting to kind of get a bad name in the community as those who aren't willing to pull their own weight. This is what Paul encourages them towards. This is starting mid-sentence here, but you'll get the idea. And to aspire to live quietly and to mind your own affairs and to work with your hands as we have instructed you so that you may walk properly before the outsiders and be dependent on no one. Habit number nine is cutting out alcohol. Now, to be honest with you, this was only supposed to be like a temporary thing. We've been looking to start a family and so we want our baby and our family to be healthy and so we cut out alcohol for you know over a year and we just haven't gone back to it and we're still kind of on that path of looking to start a family so we we still haven't brought it back into our life but for me I'm even thinking about it and I I know some people have some strong strong opinions about this and being like Jesus you know turned water into wine and so we're good to drink as much as we want except you shouldn't be drunk and then there's other people that are like yeah you you can do it but you have to be wise. And then there's other people that are like, "It's totally a sin to drink alcohol." And those people who were, you know, the one that Jesus turned the water into was totally different. Here's my my opinion generally, and this is just totally honest, okay? Um I think and for me, I I think it's okay to have a drink every once in a while. That's just what I believe theologically. But the thing is to me, and I think this means cutting out alcohol more and more and more, is that I just don't think it's good for my body. I I the more I see about it, it's kind of poisoned. There's also verses that talk about wine as a mocker and a brawler. I'm not saying I'm totally against alcohol because I imagine I'll have some in the future and I don't have that hard a stance on it, but just from a wisdom perspective, I don't see any drawbacks to minimizing my consumption of it. Habit 10 is radical tenacity with work. What I'm seeing a lot on social media these days, there's young men that are very motivated for success, for money, and they work very hard. They optimize their lives. They're very strict with their productivity and their health. You know, some of those things are not bad. Obviously, it's good to be productive and it's good to manage your health well and optimize those things. But their goal is all wrong. It's for wealth. It's for riches. And the Bible says that the person, the man that is hastened, that hastens for riches, that is working for riches, will not go unpunished. But it's the faithful man that has the blessings. So, what's the difference? It's what we're striving towards. Am I striving to work really hard to have that tenacity to be rich to gain more? Or am I going for it? Am I really working hard? Am I, you know, being consistent? Am I being faithful because I want to honor God? Habit 11 is the G.I. Joe method. I don't know if you guys are old enough to know what a G.I. Joe is. It's essentially this action figure, this military guy. He's really cool. You know, he's got a lot of different like, you know, military kind of like equipment that goes with him. This is really popular toy back in the day. But the reason that I think of it this way, the GI Joe method, this is all about your finances, okay? And G and I stand for giving and investing. So if you want to be a cool guy like GI Joe, you want to focus on those two things. Proverbs 3:9 says, "Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of your produce. Then your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will be bursting with wine." Then we go to Proverbs 13:22. A good man leaves an inheritance to his children. Now, you might be asking me, Isaac, I can see that this is potentially like a good and biblical habit, giving to the church. I can see that. And investing, okay, you know, I could see that as well, but I don't really have that much. I'm not really making that much. Or saving that much. I don't have that ability to do that. This is what the Bible says. Wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers it little by little will increase it. So, what's the focus here? It's not just trying to get rich because then I can invest a lot and then then I can, you know, give a lot which are good things, right? It's focusing on working hard, being faithful, and gaining it little by little. And in that, God is going to multiply it. We covered an insane amount of topics today, but I want to hear from you in the comments down below. Which one of these habits stood the most out to you? And which one of these do you want me to go in even deeper? Thanks for watching and subscribing as always. I love making these videos for you guys. And until next time, God bless.