What We Watch and Read Matters

via TJC

For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. 1 John 2:16

Long after you eat garbage food (and forget that you’ve done so), a number of things happen. For example, in the first 20 minutes after you drink a can of coke, your blood sugar spikes. 40 minutes later, your pupils are dilated, your blood pressure rises putting stress on your heart, and your poor liver is dumping more sugar into your bloodstream. After 60 minutes, you will crash. You may feel sluggish. By then, you’ve dehydrated yourself of water containing valuable nutrients that your body could have used for other things. You’ve stressed and weakened your body systems, making them susceptible to illness.

Long after you take into your mind the garbage of the world, a number of things happen in your spirit: violent or lustful images, entertaining but anti-christian media, gossipy or petty conversation. What we watch and read opens gateways to our soul. In the Bible, gateways symbolize access points to the spirit. The sky is a gateway to heaven and Christ is the gateway to God. Your soul is a gateway, a divinely created thing allowing access to the Holy Spirit of God.

What passes through those gateways as what you watch, hear, speak and read is your choice, but once it passes through those gateways the evil attached to it passes as well.

As for the earth…. the Bible is clear. The earth is the gateway to hell. The ways of the earth are pathways away from God. Isaiah writes that “Death expands its jaws, opening wide its mouth; into it will descend their nobles and masses with all their brawlers and revelers.” (5:14). In Revelation 9, Satan opens a gateway to the bottomless pit out of which masses an army of locusts. (Rev 9:1-3).

1 John 2:16 (above) warns us that all these images swirling around us and all the messages that we’re receiving on our phones, our social media, through the news, that new series you are binge watching, pornography, un-Christian speech….Our father meant none of this for us. These are the messages and the images that we wrestle with, everyday. As Kingdom Men, it is our task to cover ourselves and our families with the holy spirit. We’ll never do it alone, so let us remember our prayers every day.

Jesus Christ is going to come again. We can bet on it. When he comes, he will shake everything that can be shaken. That which cannot be shaken will stand. Hebrews 12:26-27.

So choose that which cannot be shaken. Choose Jesus Christ, the sheep’s gate, the only gate….in your home and with your words, into your eyes and your ears and out of your mouths so that the Shepherd will know to whom you belong.

DAILY BATTLE ORDER:

Clean up the graffiti on those gateways! What are you putting into your mind? What are you reading? What conversations are you participating in? Are you paying attention to your gateways?