If you’re joining us in reading through Psalms and Proverbs today’s reading is Proverbs chapter 4. And the devotion is taken from verses 23-27. “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. Keep your mouth free of perversity; keep corrupt talk far from your lips. Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you. Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways. Do not turn to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil.” How well do you protect your heart? Do you guard it so that nothing that is unwholesome goes in or out of it? Are those things that you read, see on TV, or in the movies ones that you wouldn’t mind seeing if Jesus was standing next to you? We tend to justify what we see and do by blaming society as a whole. We make comments like, “well everybody does it,” or “you just can’t get away from it, it’s all around us.” As long as we don’t take responsibility and can blame somebody else we feel good about ourselves. I’m reminded of the story of the deacon who receives his copy of Sports Illustrated in early February. When his wife asked him what he is doing he simply tells her “reading Sports Illustrated.” What he fails to tell her is that it is the swimsuit issue. He could easily live without that copy of Sports Illustrated but doesn’t because “all it is is some girls in swimsuits and we can see that on the beach or public swimming pool can’t we?” We need to learn how to protect ourselves. What comes into us will eventually come out of us and what comes out of us is a reflection of our walk with Jesus. The simple statement “garbage in garbage out” rings true. What we see and put in our lives is ultimately going to reflect on our lives. So how do we keep our paths straight? How do we maintain that purity that is necessary for a walk with Jesus? The answer is simple but the application is difficult. We walk by the power of the spirit. When we see something we shouldn’t we should simply stop and ask Christ to cause us to forget that memory. When we are placed in a situation that could possibly compromise our walk with Christ we should find the quickest way out of that situation. Until we are removed out of this world we will not be removed from the experiences of this world. But we need to focus on Christ and put our blinders on so that we do not become part of the world.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 10:00:01 +0000