Drinking Dirt
When you use our kitchen sink, you notice this little contraption
attached to the faucet. It's one of those sophisticated water
filters. Before the water arrives in your glass or container, it has
to pass through that filter. Now, I hate surprises in my H2O, I don't
know about you. I was amazed the first time that we took that filter
off to clean it. Oh, it needed lots of cleaning! It had screened out
of our drinking water this layer of dirty stuff. I didn't even want
to think about that stuff going into my body. Let's hear it for the filter!
I want to have A WORD WITH YOU today about "Drinking Dirt."
That's actually what a lot of people are doing--drinking dirt.
Mentally, that is. Just letting a lot of things that are spiritually
and morally impure pour right into their soul"un-filtered input--like
drinking dirt. And if you belong to Jesus Christ, the dirt is rushing
into what the Bible describes as the "temple of the Holy Spirit" (1
Corinthians 6:19-20). God literally lives in you through His Holy
Spirit. That's Holy Spirit. Dirty stuff should never defile His temple.
In fact, in our word for today from the Word of God, God clearly
commands us to filter what's coming in. 2 Corinthians 7:1 says,
"Let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and
spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God." A lot of times
we either don't have a spiritual filter for what we see and hear. Or
we have a pretty wide screen on that filter; one porous enough to let
in a lot that has no place in a heart or mind that is owned by Jesus
and inhabited by the Holy Spirit of God.
Sometimes it takes a child to show us "sophisticated" adults how we
should be living. The other day, the teacher was a
five-year-old; our grandson, who's watching a whole new crop of kids'
shows. Captain Kangaroo and Mister Rogers are gone; and yes, Big
Bird is still flying around Sesame Street. But now I'm learning about
Dora the Explorer, Bob the Builder, a tomato named Bob, a cucumber
named Larry. Well, our five-year-old grandson, of course, has a few
favorites he likes to watch. There's one he watches almost every
day. But the other day, he walked over to the television and did
something he does not do with this program that he likes a lot. He
turned it off in the middle of the show. The story was starting to
involve some ghost and witch stuff. When Daddy asked our grandson why
he had turned off one of his favorites, he just said, "It was a bad
one, Daddy."
The radar of a five-year-old boy in whom Jesus lives. He knew that no
matter how much he liked the show, no matter how many shows they
have where there's nothing bad, when it is bad, it isn't for him.
That's a model for a Jesus-follower of any age. But all too often,
we watch portrayed, or we read about, or we listen to something that
is part of the sin that Jesus died for.
The Bible says He carried our sins in His body on the tree "that we
might die to sins" (1 Peter 2:24). So what business do we
have letting in things that portray premarital sex, adultery, occult
practices that the Bible calls an
"abomination," violence, disrespect for God and His Son? You can't
turn on the TV or video and then turn off being a temple of the Holy
Spirit. We're most likely to let in the garbage when it's wrapped in
a package that's funny, or entertaining, or brilliant, or clever, or
popular. Satan's no dummy! He comes in under the radar, like a
Stealth Bomber, when your guard is down.
It's not to be taken lightly when God gives a command that says,
"Above all else ..." He does in Proverbs 4:23. "Above all
else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." Guard
your heart as the spiritual reservoir from which you drink all day
long. If it's a "bad one," you've got to turn it off if you're
serious about really being His man or woman. If you don't want to let
dirt into the Holy Spirit's house, filter what you let come in. You
wouldn't knowingly let your mouth drink dirt. Well, then, don't let
your soul do it!
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