In July, 2024, Tim had the opportunity to join GFA's Medical Mission Team to Zambia in order to assist in evangelistic outreach. Under the leadership of Todd Beaman (GFA Missionary to Zambia) and Jack Mitchell (GFA Medical Mission Team Director), a much-needed medical clinic was held in the village of Muma, about an hour's drive from the city of Chipata, a city about 30 minutes from the Malawi border.

The clinic treated approximately 1,100 patients over the course of seven days, and the team attempted to give the Gospel to each patient multiple times during the day they visited the clinic. Every morning began with a gospel presentation for the large crowd of people waiting to see a medical professional. Throughout the day, while patients were being attended to, Tim and others would then seek opportunities to give the gospel again, either in groups or individualized conversations.

Illiteracy is widespread, and opportunities for advanced education in the village are limited. Many cannot read. For this reason, object lessons are ideal for sharing the gospel. GFA missionary Todd Beaman is especially adept at this! Tim borrowed one of his rubber snakes one day in order to speak on the lifting up of the bronze serpent. On another occasion, Tim borrowed a nearby wooden ladder and leaned it against an outbuilding in order to illustrate the bringing of the paralytic whose sins Christ had the authority to forgive.

Most Zambians would profess to be Christian--in 1996, Zambia's president declared the country a Christian nation--but the majority attend church only sporadically and are members of churches that teach a works-oriented gospel. In addition, beneath the Christian veneer is a healthy respect for and trust in the local witch doctor, whose help seems more immediate and more accessible than a God who cannot be seen! In spite of this, the openness of people to hearing the gospel is moving. Virtually no one refuses a gospel tract. In fact, once they realize "papers" (as they call them) are being distributed, they are eager to acquire them. The literate will often stop where they are and read it immediately.
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Meeting both the physical and spiritual needs of these 1,100 villagers brought to the mind Matthew 11:5: "The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them" (NKJV).

More laborers for Zambia's Eastern province are needed. The people are willing to listen. The government is willing to let missionaries in. Who will go and lend a hand? Who will pray for laborers for this needy harvest field?

Discover GFA's Medical Mission Teams and upcoming trips.

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​How shall they hear without a preacher? These words reverberated in my heart and mind as I recently visited Cape Town, South Africa, and the work of GFA missionary church planter Tony Payne. He is planting a church in Delft, a township with the highest murder rate in all of the Cape Town area. The township stretches for blocks, with tightly packed shacks housing who knows how many thousands of inhabitants. And this is just one of countless areas across our globe where the gospel must be proclaimed, and where the good news of righteousness available by faith alone is so needed.

Has God burdened you to be one of God’s preachers who has the privilege of sharing this good news with some who may otherwise never hear?
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​It was my privilege to speak at an overnight multi-church men’s retreat while I was there. Our theme was “Til the Whole World Knows.” My son James went with me to assist with music for the retreat. He was joined by Joe Steinbart, who flew over with us. Joe has a master’s degree in viola and provided solid musical leadership at the retreat and in various church services. His sister, Melody, is currently doing an internship with the Paynes, working to build up their church’s young musicians. Would you pray that God would raise up a keyboardist who could regularly accompany the services at the Paynes’ church plant? Currently, they have no one to provide music.
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As you watch these videos, would you ask God what part He wants you to play in the cause of worldwide missions? As the GFA slogan puts it, “Where will you go?” Don’t think that just because you are not a gifted preacher that God cannot use you in missions. I know missionaries who teach trade skills, repair machinery in primitive, inaccessible locations, help with administrative details and ministry projects, teach children’s clubs, and provide musical training. If you will lay your unique skill set at the feet of your Lord, there is no telling how He might use you.
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Below is a link to one of GFA's new missions posters. You are welcome to print this poster and display it in a place where it will catch your eye and stir your burden for souls.

When our pastor (my husband Frank Jones) challenged our church to consider reading the Bible in 40 days, I thought, “Sure, why not? This is a win-win!”

I always read the Bible through each year. However, to read it in such large volumes at such a quick pace seemed daunting. Excuses flooded my mind, including my slow reading skills.

But as I thought about it, I realized that even if it took me longer than 40 days, and I did not meet the challenge goal, I was still reading my Bible. Pastor sweetened the challenge when he promised each participant the book by Dr. Timothy Berrey, 40 Days Through the Bible.  I signed up, as did eight others in our church.

The first day of the new year was the start date and we began this journey. Pastor set up a text thread so we could encourage each other, post spiritual thoughts or nuggets we gleaned, share issues we were having, or get validation and help from the group.

But the first week of January, I became ill. I did not have a high fever, but my sickness sent me to the couch. During this down time, when I was awake, I read. Within about 72 hours, I had returned to health. But now I was ahead of schedule. I thought being ahead was important because I did not know what might derail some of my reading in the upcoming weeks. Sundays would be difficult for me to read such large portions of Scripture because the day is so packed. Thus, being ahead would allow me to finish on schedule.

Around 14 days into the reading, I found myself significantly ahead of the 40-day goal. My husband commented that it seemed like I was on pace for the 25-day challenge. When I checked the 25 Day Bible Reading Schedule in Dr. Berrey’s book, I realized I was even two days ahead of that one! I immediately switched plans and finished the reading in 20 days.


How did the Lord enable me to accomplish this?

1. I identified activities I could postpone.

Through the advice of two other people who have read the Bible in less than a year, I began looking at where I spend my time, and I quickly identified areas that could be set aside temporarily. Forty days is essentially 6 weeks. I knew I could catch up on those other things later.

2. I read and listened to the Bible.
I had a reading Bible and an audio Bible set in different books. This made it easy to mark my place in each and kept me from getting confused. I listened via the audio Bible to the majority of the OT, most of the gospels, and a few other NT books.  The other books I read in my reading Bible. Taking turns between reading and listening to someone else read provided a variety that I appreciated. Between reading and listening, I was saturated with the Scriptures all day. It was transforming.

3. I multitasked whenever I could.
I listened while doing mundane duties of life like dressing, cooking, dishes, laundry, ironing, house chores, cleaning, exercising, and driving. The saturation of Scripture that was going on in my mind made these tasks more enjoyable.


How did the Lord bless me through this?

This was a challenge I will not forget. I thoroughly enjoyed it and learned much.

I was illumined to a larger view of the Lord’s work. Patterns, repeated verses, and many of the Lord’s attributes and care were so much more evident.

Reading in large volumes is like a fly-over survey of the Scriptures versus a hike through the woods.

I have never read Joseph’s life and his bones returning to Canaan in the same reading section before. Reading books like Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther in one sitting brought a more complete picture of that time in Israel’s history. Reading all of Isaiah in one day was amazing!

This challenge was not a hard task and stimulated my growth in a unique way.

I would encourage anyone to take this challenge. It does not have to begin with the new year. You can even complete it in 20, 35, 40, or 60 days because Blessed is he that readeth… Rev 1:3a.

Contact us directly for a discounted price if you plan to purchase multiple copies of 40 Days Through the Bible for your ministry.

Our family is currently under a two-week self-quarantine in our personal effort to flatten the curve. Although we feel perfectly healthy, we recently traveled from Asia back to the States and are thus uncertain of what we picked up on the way. 

Even if we weren't under quarantine, however, we would still be--like most people right now--under some form of lockdown. 

Life under lockdown can be full of blessings, if you use it profitably. It allows you to

• spend extra time with your family
• spend extra time with the Lord
• experience the deliverance and provision of the Lord in unusual ways
• rethink your priorities

For this reason, we want to share the 40 Day Bible Reading Plan with you.

On this page you can access the daily Bible readings, along with a link to a helpful summary of the passage with themes and things to look for while you read.

The Word of God has the power to change our lives. We often complain of a lack of time to spend truly mining the Scripture, but right now many of us have time on our hands as we wait out our lockdown. Perhaps God wants you to spend this time in this way?

Whatever the case, may God richly bless you and your family during this time and give you peace in the midst of this storm. 

Over Christmas break, I read the entire Bible in 25 days. The closest I have come to doing this in the past was reading the New Testament over a similar length of time. Reading the entire Bible in 25 days may seem like an unattainable goal, but there are some who have read the Bible in one week. However, it marked a major milestone for me, and here are some things I learned from the experience.
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1. It is very doable.
First, it is eminently doable. In one of my Bibles, it amounts to an average of 58 pages per day. If you think about it, that’s not an impossible task. An adult with an average level of education can read 58-60 pages in two to three hours. Many can even read faster than that. If spending about two hours daily reading Scripture seems burdensome, think of how blithely many Christians will watch a two-hour video or spend two hours of internet surfing in order to relax after a day at work. The psalmist prayed that the Lord would turn his eyes from looking at things that are worthless (Psalm 119:37). Perhaps if God answered a prayer like that for us, it would give us more time to read His words.

2. The longest books can be read in one sitting.
Second, even the longest books of the Bible are readable in one day, even in one sitting. For example, in sheer number of words, Jeremiah is the longest book of the Bible with about 33,000; Genesis is second, and Psalms, third. On previous occasions, I have read Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel each in one sitting. It took me just under two hours to read Isaiah, just over two hours to read Ezekiel, and about two and a half hours to read Jeremiah. Admittedly, you will not capture or understand every detail of the book but that is not your goal in reading the entire book in one sitting. (More about that later.) But my point is this: if even reading Jeremiah or Ezekiel in one sitting is possible, how much more so the Gospel of Matthew, or any one of the four Gospels. In fact, after reading Jeremiah in one day, reading the Gospel of Matthew in a day seemed easy by comparison. And yet, how often have we been put off by the length of the Gospel of Matthew, convincing ourselves that due to its lengthiness we could never sit down and read it at one time or in one day in its entirety?

3. Reading a book in its entirety is incredibly valuable.
Third, I was struck by the overwhelming value of reading an entire book of the Bible at one time. I can’t use enough adjectives for this experience: invaluable, fantastic, necessary, indispensable, important, life-changing, and all-encompassing. Many of our interpretational problems would be solved by reading an entire book of the Bible before weighing in on one of its verses. Persuasive, but deceived, religious figures have used verses in Isaiah to point to themselves—the “man from the east,” for example (Isa. 41:2)—when a full reading of Isaiah, or even just fully reading Isaiah 40-48, would make clear that the man in view is Cyrus the Great, the Persian world leader of the sixth century BC.

4. You make important Scriptural connections that would otherwise go unnoticed.
In addition, reading an entire book allows you to see connections you might otherwise miss. I am thankful for a Bible with chapters and verses. Imagine trying to point people to your text in Jeremiah without these.
But the truth is that sometimes these chapter divisions keep us from noticing the larger unfolding story or sequence of connected thoughts in a given book. This is partly due to the way we often base our Bible reading on chapter divisions. A daily Bible reader typically reads a certain number of chapters a day. He might, for example, read Genesis 37-40. Or he might be reading in multiple parts of the Bible every day and thus read Genesis 37, Psalm 5, Proverbs 6, and Matthew 7. There is nothing inherently wrong with such an approach. I spent much of 2019 reading 10 chapters a day, each chapter coming from a different book of the Bible, and it was a great blessing to be reading all over the Bible every day. But allow me to play devil’s advocate a little bit here. Think of a person who reads Genesis 37-40 for his daily Bible reading, shuts his Bible, and goes on his way. What he may not realize is that he was on the cusp of Joseph’s story arc transition from his downward spiral to his incredible exaltation. I think it is safe to say that the author (and Author) of Genesis did not mean for the reader to pause lengthily after reading 40:23. The suspense of the story itself ought to carry the reader into the next chapter. How much more so is this true if that same reader then continues the next day by reading Genesis 41-44! Four chapters of daily Bible reading is great—and more than many Christians accomplish—but the grand revelation of Joseph to his brothers takes place in Genesis 45:1. Everything in Genesis 44 (and the chapters preceding) has built up to this stunning moment when Joseph’s brothers find themselves unexpectedly and terrifyingly in the presence of the brother they sold into slavery. Furthermore, what you may also miss by not reading the story as a whole is the growing “Judah theme” in the Joseph story. God is working in and through Joseph in Genesis 37-50, but He is also working on Judah, making him into the leader from whom the Davidic Messiah will ultimately emerge. The Judah theme is most easily seen if you read the entire story.
These examples come from Genesis, but Revelation, the last book of the Bible, affords similar examples of missed connections that can occur when we read isolated chapters. A good example is Revelation 5. A fascinating drama in and of itself as the Lamb takes the scroll with the seven seals, it is tightly connected with the vision of God’s heavenly throne room in Revelation 4. Revelation 6 is similarly connected. Too often, we refer to Revelation 6 as the “seal judgments,” as if they are a stand-alone phenomenon. Actually, the Lamb who received the scroll with the seven seals in chapter 5 (from the hand of the One seated on the throne in chapter 4) is the One opening the seven seals one at a time. Allow me one more example. Revelation 13 begins with the emergence of the Beast and ends with the mark of the beast on the hand or forehead of his followers. But if you keep reading into Revelation 14, you find that the followers of the Lamb have a mark (the Father’s name) on their foreheads too. The juxtaposition of these two chapters (or two sets of followers) is literarily intentional and so easily missed if we do not take in the entire book of Revelation as a whole. Both sets of followers are identifiable to their respective leaders. (By the way, Revelation may have 22 chapters but it is actually less than 10,000 words in length. That’s about the length of a 20-page book, which is very readable in one sitting.)
Limits on our time demand that for most of us we read a certain number of chapters a day. We, most likely, cannot read the entire book of Genesis every time we come to it. But let’s be sensitive to the material in the book more than to the chapter divisions of the book, and attempt to pause in our reading at natural pauses in a book’s storyline. And, at least once in a while, shoot to read the book in its entirety.

5. Your day becomes filled with the reading of Scripture.
Another thing I discovered is this: I found myself reading Scripture at odd moments of the day when I would no doubt have been doing something else. I am not saying that I would have been doing things of no value, but I would not have been reading Scripture. Why? Because I would have gotten my Scripture intake that morning, spent time in prayer, and then moved on into my day. But when you have a goal of reading the entire Bible in a short amount of time, you do not always finish in the morning. So at odd moments of the day, while standing in line or waiting for others to get ready for a family errand, you find yourself reading Scripture.
I take away from this that I would read more Scripture if I had a goal of reading more Scripture. One of the best ways to be productive or to do productive things is to have the pressure of a goal. No one likes pressure but the truth is that reasonable pressure is good for us. Pressure is what motivates us to do things we know we should do but are too lazy or unmotivated to do unless under the constraints of a goal (or a boss or a deadline). Those who shoot at nothing are sure to hit it!

6. Learning to concentrate and read quickly becomes a necessity.
Reading large amounts of Scripture is also a good way to learn to read more quickly or to remind yourself that there is a place for reading more quickly. When you sit down on a given morning with only two hours to read the entire book of Ezekiel, you push yourself to read more quickly, perhaps even more quickly than you thought possible. You make yourself concentrate, which is frankly a skill increasingly rare in our distracting modern world.
Obviously, not all reading of Scripture should be fast. The Puritans distinguished between plow-work and deeper spade-work. We need both types of Bible study. I have to admit I prefer reading less Scripture in order to be able to do more spade-work. One year when I started my Bible reading at Genesis, I planned to read several chapters, and only made my way through the first three verses of Genesis 1. Forty-five minutes later, I came up satiated with all the truths I had seen in just those three verses. On the other hand, I am convinced that laziness or complacency in my Bible reading has led me to feel satisfied with reading a few chapters a day, knowing that I am on pace to read through the whole Bible within the calendar year, when the truth is I could have very easily upped the amount of what I was reading.
What I am trying to say is this: under the guise of pursuing “deeper Bible study,” I have excused away hours of time in which I could have been reading far larger quantities of Scripture. In the future, I want to make sure that I do both (plow-work and spade-work).
In truth, plow-work leads to spade-work. As I read quickly—taking in, for example, in a single day the entire Lucan corpus (his Gospel plus the book of Acts)—I came across things that I wanted to come back to for future study. On occasions like that, I would sometimes put a question mark or a brief comment in the margin to jog my memory in the future.

7. Planning to read more Bible during down times is best.
One last observation is this: reading the Bible in a short amount of time works best during a down-time in your daily schedule. It is doable, as I observed above, by reading two to three hours per day. But some days are better “reading” days than others. All of us over a 25- or 30-day period will have days when our minds are more distracted than on other days (which will slow down our reading) or days in which our time to read is shorter or punctuated by interruptions.
Planning to read a large portion of the Bible works best during vacation, or some other down-time in your daily routine, when you know you will have more time to read because your schedule is more under your control. There is an additional benefit: vacation often becomes a time when we spend less time with the Lord than normal. Too often, unintentionally, we end up vacationing away from the Lord. We can even feel that “vacation” provides an excuse to indulge our more carnal side a little. So we binge on social media, gaming, or movie-watching. Consequently, we come up dripping at the end of our vacation from the pool of the world’s delights, having temporarily satisfied some of our baser lusts but feeling (and knowing!) we are more distant from the Lord and more deadened to His voice than we ought (or meant) to be.
Having a goal of reading large portions of Scripture during vacation mitigates that tendency. It does not mean you can have no fun on vacation. My wife (who joined me in the 25-day Bible reading challenge) and I both found ourselves spiritually refreshed after vacation. We had enjoyed a change of pace from our regular work week. We had vacationed in a beautiful place in the mountains. We had enjoyed time with family. We had played games and even watched some videos. But we had not vacationed away from our Lord. We had instead enjoyed many precious moments feasting on His Word. What a welcome change it was from walking in the counsel of the ungodly, standing in the way of sinners, and sitting at the seat of the scornful—the typical fare served on social media and most of twenty-first century entertainment!

Want to do your own Bible Reading Challenge?
Below are links for both a 25 Day Bible Reading Plan and a 40 Day Bible Reading Plan.​
Also, read this excellent article on binge-reading the Bible by Joel Arnold.
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Our family has a basket on a shelf near our dining room table. It is filled with prayer cards that we've picked up from missionaries over the last decade or two. (Yes, a decade or two…) It also has some pictures of pastors that support us and family members or close friends who loved us enough to send us their Christmas card photos.

(Basically, if you send us your photo, you end up in our prayer basket. After writing this, I'm hoping for a new onslaught of Christmas photos from you all this year!)

But here's the problem with collecting these pictures and prayer cards over the course of almost two decades: we've lost touch with some of these people. Some of them we never knew to begin with, admittedly, because we attend a lot of churches and at each one, my children faithfully pick up prayer cards from all the missionaries they can. (And I have six children. And, like I said, we attend a lot of churches.) Also, some of their families have changed. They've added another child or two. They've retired. Some have had spouses pass away. Several that we know of have changed mission fields. Possibly, all of the above.

So how can we pray specifically for them if we don't know their specific prayer requests? If we don't even know their family that well? Or if we don't know where they are currently ministering?

THREE IDEAS…

1. Look them up online. 
Social media is one possibility. But many missionaries also have a website these days. You are reading ours. It's getting easier all the time to set one up online, and you don't even need much in the way of technical skills. (If being techy was a requirement, our family wouldn't have one.) When you look them up, you can at least find out how many children they have and where they are currently located. Most missionaries don't post personal prayer requests online, for obvious reasons. But it's a good start.

2. Sign up for their prayer letter.
Often their prayer card has an email address on it. Depending on how old it is, it may or may not be current. But if it isn't, you can also run your request through their mission board, which is probably also on their prayer card. Missionaries won't put all of their prayer requests into their prayer letters, but you will at least get a feel for their publicly-stated needs.

But even if you never do either of those things, here is another possibility:

3. Pray Paul's 7 Scripture-based prayer requests for them.
Paul, in his NT epistles, gives seven specific prayer requests he wants the churches receiving his letters to pray for. These are exactly what missionaries, pastors, and your loved ones need prayer for too. In fact, these are often the basis of the prayer requests that missionaries won't feel comfortable sharing in detail. Missionaries have to be careful about sharing names of those they minister to, or specific details about their ministry. But these seven prayer requests will cover many of those details.

Download a printable poster of these Seven Gospel-Centric Prayer Requests.

We should all be praying for our fellow believers, whether they are our neighbors, church members, loved ones, or friends. We should also be praying for our pastor, our missionaries, and others who are on the front lines of ministry. 

If you don't have your own prayer basket for your family, start filling one today. Begin by praying for your family members and pastoral staff. Slowly add other people you are burdened for. Consider printing the list of Paul's seven prayer requests and using it to pray specifically for other believers.

"Brethren, pray for us" isn't a cliché. It's a heart-felt plea. 
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We need to take it seriously.

The first section in this notebook is about GOD. Fill in the title at the top with a characteristic or action of God. Some ideas are

• MY GOD controls nature
• MY GOD loves me
• MY GOD desires the salvation of people

Print the lined sheet front and back on printer paper. Write in verses with their references as God reveals Himself to you through your devotional time. 
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The second section is all about what God wants from you. At the top of this page, fill in the title with something that you read in your devotional time in the Word that God wants you to be. On these lined pages, record verses that you have read in your devotional time that refer to that. Some examples are:

• MY GOD WANTS ME TO be kind
• MY GOD WANTS ME TO be a good steward of my money
• MY GOD WANTS ME TO redeem my time
• MY GOD WANTS ME TO spend time with Him daily.

Start with just a few pages in each category. As God teaches you about Himself, add pages for new categories of things you are learning about your God or about what He wants from you. As you collect verses on these topics, you will have a resource for times when you need to study that topic or when a friend or one of your children is struggling and needs some encouragement. 

The goal of your devotional time is to learn about God. To come to know Him. 

Hebrews 11:6 tells us that God is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. 
Jeremiah 9:23-24 tells us that instead of glorying in our wisdom, might, or riches, we should glory in this: that we understand and know God. That is what God takes delight in!

How well do you know your God? How diligently are you seeking Him?

Download this free devotional journal to help you learn more about God every day.

​I was sitting at my desk, reading my Bible in the early dawn when my husband walked into the room. "I hate it," he muttered. He must have noticed my raised eyebrows, because he smiled and clarified for me. "I hate the disciplined life." Then he pulled on his jogging clothes and went for a run.

He had to. He has preached about self-control in our college chapel. So, yeah. He couldn't just blow it off.

The message he preached from Titus 2 was really convicting for me because I have so many pockets of laziness in my life, so many examples of a failure to exhibit self-control. It is something I have been working on and meditating on lately.  

A few weeks ago I picked up a thought-provoking book and ended up reading it all the way through. The ONE Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan suggests focusing our life and our efforts of self-discipline on the area most effective for attaining our goals. I always try to analyze what I read in the light of Scripture, so there were a number of things I found myself thinking about after I finished the book, and one of them was the interesting argument that will power is a myth.

They call it a myth because we often make plans with the assumption that when we are dropped into that challenging place of decision or temptation in our lives, our will power will be there to bolster us up. The stark reality, they argue, is that when we lean on our own will power, we often find it has mysteriously gone AWOL.

We probably find this true in our lives. For instance:

• A father knows he needs to come home from work and spend some quality time with his kids. But he is tired at the end of the day. The Lazy Boy looks really cushy. The football game is on. The kids will still be there tomorrow.  
• A homemaker knows she needs to do laundry. The piles of dirty clothes in the house attest to that. The bathroom is lined with wet towels. And the sheets haven't been changed in a while. But she just heard that ding from her cell phone, and that means that one of her 1,537 friends on Facebook messaged her. The laundry will be there tomorrow.
• The college student knows that he has homework to do in order to be prepared for class tomorrow, but his buddies are crowding into the dorm room, getting ready to play a video game. The schoolbooks will be there tomorrow.
• The busy mother knows she needs time with the Lord. She knows that the one needful thing in her life is to sit at the feet of Jesus. But she woke up late, and there are kids to feed and a shirt to iron for her husband. Jesus will be there tomorrow.

In the moment of temptation, we often fail the will-power test.

But self-control is NOT a myth. It is commanded by God. Titus 2 actually spells out all the categories of people who are supposed to exercise self-control: old men (vs. 2), old women and young women (vs. 5), and young men (vs. 6). That pretty much means everyone on planet earth, right? And if we aren't clear on that, verses 11-12 mention again that "the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us. . .to live self-controlled."

That means me. My husband. You.

But how can we do this? Here are eight suggestions for specific actions we can take today.

1. Analyze your life.  Where are you failing to exercise self-control? If this is a habit, what is the trigger for that habit? Why is this habit so detrimental to your life and the glory of God? What are your besetting sins and the weights that hold you back?  (Hebrews 12:1)
2. Renew your mind. What should your life look like in that moment of temptation (when you face the trigger)? Why should you exercise self-control with regard to that particular temptation? What is at stake when you fail? What will your life look like in ten years if you continue to fail? What example are you setting for the watching world? What are some verses that can help you to overcome that bad habit, and where can you post them for quick reference, or how fast can you memorize them so that they can begin to bring victory? (Eph. 4:23)
3. Form new habits. Habits are the building blocks of a self-controlled life. Habits are powerful. You know this, because you know how powerful your bad habits are. So imagine the power a good habit can have. Read about habits and study how they work. (This is a fascinating book.) Conscientiously work on establishing new habits that can overcome your old habits. This is the put off/put on principle we find in Ephesians 4:22-24.
4. Practice radical amputation. (Matthew 18:8-9) What do you need to jettison from your life in order to maintain self-discipline? Is there a friend that constantly tears you down? A road you shouldn't take because of a billboard? A buffet restaurant you should stay away from? A time of day when your Wi-fi should be turned off? A TV to give away? A computer to take outside and smash to smithereens?
5. Erect barriers of protection. Even a flimsy barrier is better than none. Brushing your teeth after dinner can provide a barrier between you and a late-night snack. Not buying sweets at the grocery store can protect you from unhealthy eating at home. And having your devotional time far from your computer and cell phone can deliver you from the distractions of the online world so you can focus on the Lord.
6. Measure yourself. Don't compare yourself to others, compare yourself to yourself. Each day you successfully put off the bad habit and put on the new one, mark your calendar. Aim for an unbroken string of days. "You can't improve what you don't measure" is a remarkably spot-on adage.
7. If needed, find accountability. Do you have a friend who struggles with the same issue, or even a different issue? Can you hold each other accountable? When trying to begin a new habit, I have found great help from an accountability partner or group.
8. Pray. You might lack will power, but the Holy Spirit has the ability to help you establish self-control in your life. Ask God for help in the areas in which you struggle. Then clothe yourself in the full armor of God and head back into the war.

These are eight things that I have found extremely helpful in my own battle for self-discipline. It's a battle I'm constantly fighting.

How about you? 

It's easy to get discouraged when we know we have failed so often in the past, but God has commanded self-control. Let's take action today to obey this important, life-altering command.