Forget the Channel

flickr: adrigu

If you insist to a friend that the ‘real meaning of Christmas’ is the birth of Jesus Christ, there are two kinds of response you’re likely to get.

If your friend is a traditionalist, they’ll probably agree with you. They might bemoan with you the fact that Christmas is becoming so commercial, and long for the good old days when the centre of nativity scenes was Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus rather than elves and Santa Claus. In that case, the traditions surrounding Christmas might give you a great opportunity to speak about the stunning implications of God becoming human in the person of Jesus.

But it’s also possible that your friend will disagree with you. They might tell you, for example, that what we now call ‘Christmas’ was originally a pagan midwinter festival which was ‘Christianised’ by the medieval catholic church. Or they might reply that they prefer to think of Christmas as a time of celebration, family, generosity and peace, and they don’t particularly need the religious element. If this is your friend’s response, then your claim that Christ is the ‘real meaning of Christmas’ might just seem to them like an out-of-touch religious traditionalism from a bygone era. Should you keep insisting on it?

Well, you’ve got to admit that the Bible won’t back you up. There’s no commandment in the Bible, “Thou shalt celebrate the incarnation on December 25th.” Nor does the Bible tell us the date of Jesus’ birthday; some people have even cheekily pointed out that midwinter is the least likely time for Jesus to be born, because there were shepherds in the fields at night. Anyway, the Bible warns us against making a big deal about festivals and seasons. An unhealthy obsession with seasons is, in fact, a sign that we’ve moved away from Christ himself (e.g. Gal 4:9-10, Col 2:16-17).

It’s also a bit hypocritical to argue that the word ‘Christmas’ is derived from ‘Christ’. After all, the word ‘Easter’ is derived from the pagan fertility goddess Ēostre, but we don’t insist that the ‘real meaning of Easter’ is an idolatrous fertility cult.

It’s not very easy to argue from history, either. Christmas has meant different things to different people at different times in history. In 17th century Cromwellian England, for example, Christmas was generally regarded as an excuse for drunkenness, greed and sexual abandon. This was one of the reasons that the ‘godly’ parliament of the time tried to clamp down on Christmas! In fact, historians point out that the modern Anglo-American obsession with Christmas as the most celebrated holiday festival of the year probably owes more to the likes of Charles Dickens and Prince Albert than to a long-standing church tradition.

So if you ever feel that you have to argue that Christ is the ‘real meaning of Christmas’, you’ve already lost the argument. Why not, instead, concentrate on Christ himself? Invite your friend to consider why, from your point of view, the birth of Jesus Christ is stupendously amazing, and why Christians continue to take the time each year to celebrate it. Christ’s coming into the world actually changes things for the better. When we take an honest look at the world around us, we can see that Christmas isn’t actually a time of celebration, family, generosity and peace. Without Christ, these are just hollow ideals. In reality, Christmas without Christ is a time of drunken office parties, stress, family bickering and rampant consumerism. What better time of the year, then, to celebrate the coming of God into our world? Jesus’ birth tells us that God has not abandoned us to our crazy messed-up lives. God himself has come to us. Through Jesus’ life and death, God has brought forgiveness, a relationship with God himself, transformation of our relationships with one another, and the hope of everlasting life and peace.

After all, we don’t just want to win people for Christmas. We want to win them for Christ.

I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings. (1 Corinthians 9:22-23)

This is an appendix to a series about gospel speech. Read parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8.

On my previous article about gospel speech, Craig made some comments and suggestions that I thought were so good they were worth a whole new post.

Craig was responding to my suggestion about gifted gospel speakers:

Secondly, treat them as role-models. Learn to imitiate specially gifted gospel speakers wherever you can.

Craig raised the issue that often the most encouraging gospel-speaking role models are the ‘lay’ people, not the full-time ministers:

As a layman, what encourages me in evangelism, more than anything else, is hearing about other laymen doing it. For example, a while ago I heard a mate at church describe how he was planning to witness to the bloke in the next cubicle. That did more to encourage me than 10 sermons on evangelism would have done.

But there’s a problem: we don’t always get many opportunities to hear stories like this or to be encouraged by particularly gifted ‘evangelists’ in the congregation. So Craig had a suggestion for what pastors could do about this:

My completely untested suggestion would be for you to find the 2 or 3 laypeople in your church who are naturally good at gospelling and give them many opportunities to share their stories, either from the the front or through the chuch newspaper, or whatever. Real people, really doing it.

The other thing I’d do is get those 2 or 3 people together into some kind of lay evangelists society, and make it a priority to meet up with that group every month, and coach and develop it. I reckon you’d see that group grow, and it would leaven the whole church.

This kind of structure is a great idea. As Craig suggested, we might have a very ‘flat’ model of evangelism, where we simply assume that everybody is an ‘evangelist’ and so we pitch all of our encouragement to the people who aren’t doing any evangelism at all. On the other hand, we might have a very ‘static’ model of evangelism, where we assume that some people are gifted evangelists and others simply aren’t gifted at evangelism and so there’s not much point encouraging people to do something they’re not very good at. Craig’s suggested structure, on the other hand, is a way of getting a more dynamic thing happening. The idea is that pastors identify people who are particularly gifted ‘evangelists’, encourage them personally, and ask them to encourage other people in the congregation who aren’t so gifted.

As I was reflecting on Craig’s ‘untested’ suggestion, I realised that I have actually had a go at testing something like this in the past. Unfortunately, my test failed. I reflected on the reasons why the idea didn’t get off the ground in my own case. Here are two hurdles that I encountered:

1. True evangelists are often the kind of people who are so busy speaking the gospel that they see structured meetings as an annoying distraction from the real task of personal evangelism. So they said they didn’t have time to meet.
2. True evangelists often can’t understand why other people find evangelism hard. They reckon the task is straightforward, and so everybody should just be ‘getting on with it’. So they didn’t see the point.

I didn’t really deal with these hurdles myself. But I reckon I could have done it better. Here are two things I think I should have done:

1. I should have spent more time showing the ‘evangelists’ why they are different from other people, and how they can use their special gifts for the good of the whole congregation. I was thinking about this kind of thing when I wrote Jedi Masters and the Body of Christ and compared specially gifted people to Star Wars Jedis:
   

   In other words, we needed the Jedis to become Yodas. Yoda was more than just a Jedi. He was a Jedi master. He knew that other people didn’t share his natural intuition. He reflected long and hard about his own innate Jedi skills. He was patient and kind. He shared his Jedi powers with Luke, in simple steps, so that Luke could understand and learn.

2. I should have spent more time personally with the evangelists. Instead, I delegated the task of organising the group to our ministry apprentice. The ministry apprentice in question was a godly, faithful, gifted evangelist himself, and he did a brilliant job. But what the evangelists really needed was some encouragement from a more ‘senior’ person, to make them realise how important this whole thing was. As Craig says:
   

   My leadership texts tell me that the most valuable thing I can give my subordinates at work is my time. Same is true for a pastor. As soon as you are in a position of authority, people will value your time. Investing your time in the lay evangelists group every month (fortnight?) sends a very powerful message.

Pastors and others, what do you reckon? Have you tried something like this? Is it worth it? Are there other hurdles you’ve encountered? Do you have any other ideas about how to overcome these hurdles?

This is the seventh post in a series about gospel speech. Read parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

“I’m more comfortable speaking the gospel to insiders rather than outsiders.”

Maybe you think that you’re not the kind of person to speak the gospel to outsiders because you’re more comfortable speaking to insiders. But gospel-speech doesn’t work that way. The gospel, by its very nature, breaks through distinctions between ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’. And so does gospel speech.

This is a staggering truth. Even the great apostle Peter had problems grasping its implications. Peter, like Paul, was Jewish; that means he had the great privilege of growing up knowing God’s law. The law revealed God’s will to his people. The job of lawkeepers was to honour God by obeying him and to remain pure by avoiding evil influences. So they did what was right, and avoided the ‘sinners’ all around them, who threatened to corrupt them and move them away from pure devotion to God. Classic lawkeepers, therefore, made a big deal out of the distinction between ‘insiders’ (lawkeepers) and ‘outsiders’ (sinners). Peter had previously come to know and trust Jesus, and had stopped insisting on this distinction. But later, he reverted to his former way of life because he was afraid of other classic law-keepers:

For before certain men came from James, he [Peter] was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. (Galatians 2:12)

The probem with Peter’s behaviour wasn’t simply that it was cowardly, exclusivist, elitist, racist, or anything-in-particular-ist. The problem went much deeper. When Peter separated from outsiders so publically, he undermined the truth of the gospel itself (Gal 2:14). The gospel declares that everybody, whether insider or outsider, has the same problem and needs exactly the same solution. We’re all sinners, and we all need to be justified by God through trusting in Jesus. Whether we’re an insider or an outsider, whatever our history or status or reputation, makes no difference. When the gospel is spoken and believed, lawkeepers are shown to be sinners, and ‘sinners’ are given access to salvation through trusting Christ Jesus (Gal 2:15-17). At its core, the gospel says the same thing to the people sitting in your church as it does to the people walking down your street.

Of course, there will be differences about the way we speak the gospel to different people. When we speak the gospel to outsiders, it’s usually harder. It takes longer to speak with outsiders, because they don’t have our shared experiences which make communication easy and efficient. We have to try to avoid or explain jargon that only makes sense to insiders; we need to be more aware of the possibility of being misunderstood. More significantly, the risks of rejection are much higher when we speak the gospel to outsiders. They don’t necessarily agree with us, and they might be very upset. Speaking the gospel to outsiders isn’t necessarily going to be comfortable. But our comfort isn’t a factor, according to the Bible. In fact, the places where the Bible talks most explicitly about speaking up for Jesus are places where opposition is clearly in view (e.g. Phil 1:27-30; Col 4:2-6; 1 Pet 3:14-16). Speaking the gospel to outsiders is more important than our individual comfort levels.

The gospel is the great equaliser; it breaks down distinctions between insiders and outsiders. The gospel message is ultimately the same for everybody. If you can speak the gospel to insiders, you can speak the gospel to outsiders too.

This is the seventh post in a series about gospel speech. In the next post,
we’ll think about a final objection: “I can’t do what they’re doing.”

This is the fifth post in a series about gospel speech. Read parts 1, 2, 3, and 4.

“I can promote the gospel better by my good works.”

Maybe you think that you’re not the kind of person to speak the gospel to others because your particular role in gospel proclamation is to do good works.

Good works, of course, are something that all Christians are called to do. Doing good works is a responsibility, a privilege, a joy, a struggle, and a way of life (e.g. Ephesians 2:10, Titus 2:14, Hebrews 10:24). Good works are the fruit of the gospel, they accompany the gospel, and they adorn the gospel. This is true for every individual Christian person and every Christian group. The Bible never phrases the command “love your neighbour” as if it’s an optional role for a select group of specially gifted Christians. We all have different means and opportunities to do good works, but we’re all supposed to do good works.

Maybe you’ve discovered that you’re much better at doing good works than you are at speaking the gospel. And maybe you’ve also noticed how doing good works can be a great advertisement for God’s power to transform lives and communities. You’ve seen that when individual Christians or Christian groups devote themselves to performing good works, the world often sits up and takes notice. The world begins to see that it’s good to be one of God’s people, because God’s people are good people.

So why not, you may ask, let other people do the talking? Don’t your works contribute something important to the proclamation of the gospel all by themselves? People can learn by your good works that God’s people are good people; and then somebody else can come along later and fill in the key detail: it’s all because of Jesus. And then they’ll want to be one of God’s people too.

But that is the precise problem. Good works without gospel-speech do indeed send a message to the world, all by themselves. They tell the world that God’s people are good people. Unfortunately, however, that particular message is the precise opposite of the gospel.

In the previous post, we looked at the first half of Romans 10. We saw that there’s a huge difference between salvation by works of law and salvation by the gospel of Jesus Christ. We’re not saved by ‘doing’ the works of the law. Instead, we’re saved by believing and speaking: believing in a specific person, Jesus, and confessing that he is the Lord, and calling on his name (Rom 10:9, 13). This is why gospel-speech is at the core of what it means to be a Christian.

But of course, this isn’t just true for you and me. It’s true for everyone. Paul is emphatic about this:

For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” (Romans 10:11)

For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10:13)

And that means: everyone needs to hear, explicitly, the name of the Lord:

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed?
And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?
And how are they to hear without someone preaching?
And how are they to preach unless they are sent?
As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” (Romans 10:14-15)

So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. (Romans 10:17)

I’m convinced that Paul is talking here about his own gentile mission.¹ Paul is a ‘preacher’ (see Rom 10:8) and a ‘sent one’ (this is what the word ‘apostle’ means, see Rom 1:1, 5; 11:13)—that’s why he talks about the need for ‘preachers’ who are ‘sent’.

Paul’s gospel shapes Paul’s mission. Since people are saved by responding to a message, they need to hear this message. Paul had been sent to preach this very message. That was his mission. Other people in Paul’s day believed that their mission was to promote God’s law (see Romans 2:17-24; 10:2-5). Since works are at the core of God’s law, doing good works was at the heart of promoting the law. Paul did, of course, believe that doing good works was incredibly important, for a wide variety of reasons (see e.g. Romans 12-13). But doing good works wasn’t his mission. Paul’s mission was to promote the gospel, not the law. That meant that speech, not works, was the essential, non-negotiable factor at the heart of gospel proclamation.

It’s true that Paul’s speaking role was special. Not everybody is Paul. Not everybody is an apostle. Not everybody is sent to preach, either. Different people speak the gospel in different ways (more of that later). On the other hand, the basic logic of Romans 10 is something we all need to hear, again and again. People aren’t saved by doing good works. People aren’t saved by seeing good works, either. People are saved by hearing and speaking a message: “Jesus is Lord”. If people were saved by doing good works, then your good works would be an excellent way to directly illustrate and promote what salvation is all about. But because people are saved by hearing and speaking a message, then the only way to proclaim what salvation is all about is by speaking the message.

Do you, like me, believe that good works are not an optional extra for our Christian lives? Do you, like me, believe that every individual Christian should do acts of loving service? Then do them. You don’t have to justify your loving actions by using the words ‘gospel proclamation’ or ‘mission’. Just love people, deeply and sacrificially.

But do you also, like me, feel the need for speech? Do you believe that you have been saved, not by doing good works, but by hearing and speaking a message: “Jesus is Lord”? Do you believe that others are also saved by hearing and speaking that message? Then keep going the way you started. Keep saying “Jesus is Lord”, to yourself and to others.

Do good. But don’t stop speaking the gospel.

This is the fifth post in a series about gospel speech. In the next post, we’ll think about another objection: “I’m not the mouth in Christ’s body.”

¹ If you need to be convinced further about the fact that Romans 10:14-18 is all about the gentile mission, check out the arguments in:

• N. T. Wright, “The Letter to the Romans,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes (NIB; ed. Leander E. Keck; 12 vols.; vol. 10; Nashville: Abingdon, 2002), p. 667.
• Francis Watson, Paul, Judaism and the Gentiles: Beyond the New Perspective (Rev. and expanded ed.; Grand Rapids / Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2007), p. 331.
• See also John Calvin, Commentaries on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans (trans. John Owen; Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, c. 1847), pp. 396, 404.

“I really should be more disciplined…”

How often do you experience that gaping chasm between ‘should be’ and ‘is’ in your regular daily habits? Most of us can think of good habits we’d really like to develop, but somehow have never got around to it. If you’re a Christian, some of those habits you wish to develop possibly include things like regular prayer and Bible reading; intentional care for others; disciplined consumption; not spending too much time online, etc. You may have heard countless times that these things are important; you’ve probably nodded sagely in agreement; you may even have spoken about them many times out loud in sentences that begin, “I really should…”. But you’ve just never got around to turning them into lasting habits. Maybe that’s because your desire to develop these habits has never been anything more than a vague wish. Or maybe you don’t know where to start. Or maybe you’ve tried repeatedly to develop these habits and failed miserably.

“Oh no,” you might be thinking, “not another article telling me to read the Bible and pray more!” No, that’s not what this article is about. What would be the point? You already know you should read the Bible and pray more. If you’re like me, your problem isn’t knowing it, it’s doing it. And that’s a real problem, isn’t it? So this is an article to help you understand yourself a bit more, and to give you a few ideas about how to go about actually getting into these habits. You might object, “But I don’t have a disciplined personality, this isn’t going to work for me.” If that’s you, let me ask you a simple question: do you brush your teeth every day? If you answered “yes”, then this article is for you.¹ Personality has nothing to do with it. If you brush your teeth every day, you’ve already proved that you have the ability to develop good, lasting habits. And if you can do it with teeth-brushing, you can do it in other areas too.

We all develop habits, because we are creatures. That common expression, ‘creatures of habit’, points to an important truth. Habits are an aspect of the way God has made us, as creatures who live in his good creation. God has created us from the ‘dust of the ground’ (Gen 2:7). He’s placed us in time and in space. He’s given us minds and bodies that are suited to this world; we respond to familiarity, regularity, cycles and seasons. Because of this, we’re all constantly forming habits—often without even realising it. Our habits are a key part of our character, of who we are; and so they are closely bound up with our decisions and our desires. Even our seemingly spontaneous decisions are highly influenced by our character and habits. Neuroscientists have noticed the way that repetition creates physical ‘pathways’ in our brain, which in turn shape our desires. It’s true to our experience, isn’t it? The more we do something, the more we want to do it. Fast food outlets, supermarket chains and social networking sites know this only too well: in fact, they employ teams of people to shape our habits, and thus influence our desires and our ‘free’ decisions. That’s why we need to take control of our habits—especially in the really important areas of godly living—to ensure that we are being conformed to the things of God. Otherwise, we will continue to be manipulated by the desires of the world.

Of course, there’s an important difference between the mundane habit of brushing your teeth and the kind of important Christian habits I mentioned above. Unlike teeth-brushing, these Christian habits are directly involved in our daily spiritual warfare. On the one hand, that means they are ultimately God’s work; we can’t do them in our own strength, and they’ll never be perfect this side of the new creation. On the other hand, they will be particularly challenging for us to develop. They are habits that battle against the enemy—our own sinfulness, Satan, and the whole world opposed to God. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t seek to develop them in the same way we develop other habits. In war (I’ve been told), very little time is spent waging glorious battles and smiting the enemy. Most of the time, warfare is about training, preparing and honing skills. The effectiveness of a soldier is only as good as his habits: his reflexive reactions developed through constant, repetitive training. The same applies to spiritual warfare. Our main task in spiritual warfare is to get prepared: to put on the “armour” of truth, righteousness, the readiness of the gospel of peace, faith, salvation and the word of God through prayer (Eph 6:10-18). Putting on this armour is, in large part, about developing good habits.

Here, then, are some tips for developing habits. I’m going to concentrate mostly on personal prayer and Bible reading because it’s so important, but a lot of the tips can be applied to developing other good habits too.² Most of these tips I’ve heard from other people; some of them have come from my own experience of failures and even occasional successes. Remember, of course, that they’re tips, not commandments or sure-fire recipes. Ponder them, weigh them up, and decide if they’ll work for you.

1. Motivate yourself by preaching to yourself the gospel of grace. Why do you want to develop the habit in the first place? Are you just gritting your teeth and “doing the right thing”? Are you trying to conform to the expectations of others? Are you trying to make yourself closer to God through your efforts? I hope you agree, these are all terrible motivations. Instead, preach the gospel to yourself: remind yourself that you want to develop the habit because the Spirit of God is at work in you; the Spirit who has brought you as close to God as you could possibly be through his son Jesus and who has changed the entire orientation of your life, making you want to serve him and grow in your knowledge and service of him. Keep coming back to God’s grace over and over again.
2. The ultimate goal in developing a particular habit is coming to the point where you love to do it. You know you’ve truly got a good, lasting habit when it’s an essential part of your life, and it feels right. In fact, you feel bad not doing it. This is even true of uninspiring things like brushing your teeth. When you don’t brush your teeth, you feel yuck all day. How much more should this be true of daily prayer, the amazing privilege of speaking to the creator of the universe?
3. Realise, though, that the goal I mentioned in the previous point (to love what you’re doing) will probably take a very long time to develop. In the case of daily prayer, it will probably take months or years to even get a small way towards that goal, and will continue to be a struggle until Jesus returns.
4. Don’t be a hero—you’ll only set yourself up for failure. If you’re not reading the Bible at all, for example, don’t jump in with a plan like, “I will read the Bible for an hour every day”. Sure, it sounds like a noble goal. But then, when you read the Bible for 30 minutes one day, you’ve failed. Instead of rejoicing in God’s word to you, you’ll just give yourself needlessly negative vibes because you don’t measure up to your own arbitrary standard. You won’t love what you’re doing if you feel like you’re failing all the time. It’ll feel like you have to climb a mountain every day. And you’ll end up fearing and hating it. You might recognise this scenario as the ‘New Year’s Resolution’ syndrome. Don’t fall into the trap.
5. The flipside of the previous point is to start small. In fact, make deliberately small plans at the start. Set yourself the goal of reading the Bible for 5 minutes each day, for example. And each day, leave yourself wanting more. Leave yourself with the feeling, “I liked that, I want more”. Then, the next day, you’ll be motivated to do it again.
6. Start now. Just do it. This is linked to the previous points. If you have a gigantic heroic plan, you won’t be motivated to start until the conditions are perfect. But if you plan to start small, you can start straight away.
7. Think creatively about ways to fit your habits into your life circumstances. Think in terms of people, time and space. What are your relationships? What are your commitments? What’s your daily routine? What times of the day do you enjoy the most? Where do you enjoy to be? If you can, try to practice your habits in the times and places that you love to be, rather than in the downtimes or the uncomfortable places. Spiritual warfare is hard enough without making it harder on yourself.
8. Learn from the habits of others, but don’t follow them slavishly. I was once inspired by a godly Christian father I knew who often urged us younger dads to lead regular times of family prayer and Bible reading ‘at the breakfast table’. I thought that was a great idea, except for the word ‘breakfast’. The thought of trying to do anything constructive with that bleary-eyed half-conscious Weetbix-encrusted crew that is our family at the breakfast table was not a happy one. There was no point following his advice to the letter (and he wasn’t expecting us to anyway). We had a go at doing it at the dinner table, which works far better for our family.
9. When it comes to habits, simple regularity is much better than sporadic brilliance. Don’t expect your Bible reading to be constantly wonderful and filled with awe-inspiring insights. If you have a spectacular, life-changing quiet time one day and then don’t pick up the Bible for a month, you’re not going to get very far. It’s much better to have simple expectations, and to rejoice each time you open God’s word, even if you learned something that seems small and insignificant at the time.
10. Make your habit-developing plans simple (e.g. “I’ll read the Bible for 10 minutes a day”), not complex (e.g. “I have a Microsoft spreadsheet setting out my Bible reading plan every day for the next 10 years”). Simple plans are more flexible than complex plans; they’re easy to adapt to changing circumstances. Life is full of unexpected events: we make plans, but God has his own ideas about how life is going to turn out (Prov 16:9). We have to deal with sickness and emergencies (in fact, when I first sat down to write this article, my wife called to say the car had broken down on the way to school and my plans went out the window!). If you have a complex plan, and then an unexpected interruption comes which throws it all into disarray, you might be tempted to get frustrated or angry or just to give up. If you have a simple plan, you can adapt it.
11. Develop the super-habit of regularly reviewing your habits! This is especially important because your circumstances will change over the course of your life. Since habits are integrated with your life circumstances, whenever there’s a change in your life circumstances, your habits will suffer. That’s normal. Sometimes you might have to go back to square one and completely reassess your habits. When we had very young children, we found that our daily ‘routine’ was changing every few weeks, as the kids’ sleeping and feeding patterns changed. When this happens, don’t (as I sometimes did) use it as an excuse to give up on your habits. Rather, adapt your expectations to your circumstances. Then start again. And when you do start again, start small, and don’t be a hero (see above).
12. Use the relatively good or easy times in your life to work hard at developing your habits. When the hard times come, and/or when life changes, you’ll have spiritual resources to use.
13. I said it at the start of the list, and I’ll say it again at the end: keep coming back to God’s grace.

What do you think? Is there anything you have found particularly helpful in developing godly habits?