Jay Dennis - The Jesus Habits: Exercising the Spiritual Disciplines of Jesus

Copyright 2005

by Jay Dennis

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN: 9780805431278

Published by B&H Publishing Group

Nashville, Tennessee

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible, the Lockman Foundation, 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977; used by permission. Others quoted are marked KJV, King James Version; MSG, The Message, Eugene H. Peterson, 1993, 1994, by Eugene H. Peterson, published by NavPress, Colorado Springs, Colo.; NIV, The Holy Bible, New International Version, copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society; TLB, The Living Bible, copyright Tyndale House Publishers, Wheaton, Ill., 1971, used by permission.

Dewey Decimal Classification: 248.84

Subject Heading: CHRISTIAN LIFE \

JESUS CHRISTHUMANITY

6 7 8 9 10 11 10 09 08 07

I lovingly dedicate this book
to my precious wife and best friend, Angie,
and my two wonderful children , Will and Emily;

my great and supportive dad and mom,
Bill and Donna Dennis; and my father-in-law and mother-in-law, E. W. and Millie Poe, who made possible Gods greatest gift to me outside of salvation.

Each of these has made this life a little heaven on earth.

Acknowledgments

How can one ever say thank you enough to the people who make writing a book like The Jesus Habits possible? My administrative assistant, Beth Miller, is a gift from God. Without her this work would have never survived the pressures of a busy pastor. Thank you, Beth, for thinking ahead of me and at times thinking for me.

To the great people of First Baptist Church at the Mall who love and encourage their pastor to pursue his passion to write,
I say, Thank you. You are the best congregation on earth.

Thank you, Howe Whitman and Neill Faucett, for believing in this project and encouraging me to go change the world for Christ.

Thank you, men who make up the Tuesday morning Bible study group, for allowing me to experiment with ideas that I have for Bible studies, including The Jesus Habits. John Prahl, thanks for helping me with this great group.

Thank you, men who gathered in my den one evening, for lovingly encouraging me, believing in my dreams, and offering godly counsel. Guys, I love you.

Thank you, Gwen Diaz and Karel Zelbovitz, for your incredible help in editing this book.

Thank you, Len Goss and John Landers of Broadman & Holman. These men are taking publishing to a new level.

Thank you, Lew Collier, who has become like family to me, and Rob Harper, who dreams with me of changing the world.

Thank you, Jimmy Draper, for being my pastor.

INTRODUCTION

The
Jesus Habits

The world has always been fascinated with Jesus. Whether they receive him as Savior or not, the world is interested in this man Jesus, who he was and what he did. In 2004, Mel Gibsons movie The Passion of the Christ demonstrated this fascination. Over 45 percent of Americans either have seen the movie or plan to see it. It got the whole world talking about Jesus. One of the movies directors said, You cant spend 247 with Jesus and not be influenced. His life transcends all time, geographical, racial, social, and gender boundaries. Kenneth Scott Latourette said, As the centuries pass, the evidence is accumulating that, measured by His effect on history, Jesus is the most influential life ever lived on this planet.

Napoleon Bonaparte said of Jesus:

I know men; and I tell you that Jesus Christ is not a man. Superficial minds see a resemblance between Christ and the founders of empires, and the gods of other religions. That resemblance does not exist. There is between Christianity and whatever other religions, the distance of infinity.... Everything in Christ astonishes me. His spirit overawes me, and his will confounds me. Between him and whoever else in the world there is no possible term of comparison. He is truly a being by himself. His ideas and his sentiments, the truth which he announces, his manner of convincing, are not explained either by human organization or by the nature of things.... I search in vain in history to find the
similar to Jesus Christ, or anything which can approach the gospel.

The Jesus Habits thirty-one of themare observable patterns in the life of Jesus Christ. He is the consummate example for successful living. The good news for you and me is that each of these habits can be copied; they can be put to practice in our daily lives. Many leaders throughout the centuries have been held up as worthy of emulating, but no one in history is more worthy of imitation than Jesus Christ. Jesus said, For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you (John 13:15). He further gave us the key to happiness, and it comes back to doing what he did. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them (John 13:17). Blessed means to be happy. Happiness comes through a set of habits, The Jesus Habits.

The idea for this book began when the Lord placed upon my heart to begin reading the Gospels and observe what Jesus did, not just what he taught. Now to be sure, everything he taught he practiced. But as I started making notes in my wide-margin Bible,
I went back and noticed how many times I had written the word habit beside something Jesus did. Looking back, I found thirty-one identifiable habits of Jesus. William Paley said, A large part of Christian virtue consists in right habits. When we hear the word habit, we generally think of something negative, something that could hurt us. But habits can be good. In The Jesus Habits I am asking you to exchange a bad habit for a Jesus habit. With his strength, you can. John Dryden said, We first make our habits, then our habits make us. Dr. Michael Mitchell, author of Building Strong Families, said, Approximately 90 percent of what we do every day is governed by the habits in our lives. A Princeton University study claims if you do the same thing every day for twenty-eight consecutive days it will become a habit.

I am your constant companion; I am your greatest helper or heaviest burden. I will push you onward or drag you down to failure. I am completely at your command. Half the things you do, you might just as well turn over to me, and I will be able to do them quickly and correctly. I am easily managedyou must merely be firm with me. Show me exactly how you want something done, and after a few lessons I will do it automatically. I am the servant of all great people and, alas, of all failures as well. Those who are great, I have made great. Those who are failures, I have made failures. I am not a machine, though I work with all the precisions of a machine plus the intelligence of a human. You may run me for profit or run me for ruinit makes no difference to me. Take me, train me, be firm with me, and
I will place the world at your feet. Be easy with me, and I will destroy you. Who am I? I am Habit.

Pollster George Barna, in his book, Think Like Jesus, says, Consider the range of the benefits emerging from thinking and living like Jesus. We are promised physical gain, emotional benefits, superior decision-making capacity, relational advantages, lifestyle enhancements, and spiritual health. The more we devote ourselves to emulating the thought and behavioral patterns of Jesus, the more God is able to bless us and use us for His
purposes.

The thirty-one Jesus habits will lead to your greatest days of blessing and success. You will discover that some passages are used more than once because of their multiple applications.

I want you to consider three things as you read this book:

1.The Jesus habits can become your habits, too.

2.You have to be willing to do whatever it takes to make each habit a part of your life.

3.Through Jesus Christ you have the power to stop a bad habit and begin a Jesus habit. You have prayer, the Holy Spirit, the Bible, faith, and godly people to assure your success.