How Do I Get Rid of Bad Habits?
God, in His great love for you, has provided deliverance for every area of your life—spirit, soul and body.
The Bible tells us that we have been delivered from the power (authority) of darkness (Satan) and translated into the kingdom of God’s dear Son (Colossians 1:13). This is not something we are going to be someday—we are now. Romans 8:2 says, “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” Satan’s authority over your life has been destroyed! When this revelation becomes a reality in your life, the habits of the old man will disappear.
Receiving what Jesus did for you takes away Satan’s right to keep you in bondage. Satan cannot pressure you with anything that you cannot overcome with God’s Word (1 Corinthians 10:13). When a thought contrary to your decision comes, immediately cast it down and make it subject to the work Jesus Christ has done for you (2 Corinthians 10:4-5). Any thought other than what you have willed to think in this situation has been placed there by Satan to deceive you. Resist him and he will flee (James 4:7). He cannot stay around while you are continually speaking the Word.
Create new habits—reprogram your mind and inner man with the Word of God. As you speak God’s Word concerning your redemption, the life residing in the Word will make you free. Honour the work that has been done for you by making a quality decision to do everything to the glory and honour of the Father. Everything you do in word or deed, do in the Name of the Lord Jesus (Colossians 3:17). Speak the Word today and pray this prayer of deliverance:
Father, I believe that my faith becomes effectual—divinely energised—by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in me in Christ Jesus. Through my union with Christ, I am a new creature, old things are passed away and all things have become new.
I was crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me. I was buried with Him in baptism, and raised together with Him by the power of the Holy Spirit so that I might habitually live and behave in newness of life. My old, unrenewed self was nailed to the Cross with Him in order that my body, which is the instrument of sin, might be made ineffective and inactive for evil and that I might no longer be the slave of sin.
Just as death no longer has power over Jesus Christ, neither does sin have dominion over me through my union with Him. I consider myself dead to sin and my relation to it broken. I am alive only to God, living in unbroken fellowship with Him, in Christ Jesus.
I have been delivered from the control and dominion of _________ and transferred into the kingdom of light. I have been raised together with Him, far above principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this world and wicked spirits in high places. Sin shall no longer exert dominion over me, but I have dominion over sin. It is under my feet, in the Name of Jesus. Amen.
Scripture References: Philemon 6; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 2:20; Romans 6:4, 6, 10-11; Colossians 1:13; Ephesians 2:6, 1:21, 6:12; Romans 6:14