I can’t believe it is already February. Today we read Leviticus 11-13.
Clean living
How many of you start the year off with dietary goals or resolutions? I try to avoid doing that to myself, because by February I have already failed to keep them.
These chapters detail the dietary rules God imposed on the Hebrew people. This was important in those times because there was no way to refrigerate and treat the meat to avoid salmonella and other more dangerous food based toxins.
Jesus declared all food clean in Mark 7:19. It is not what goes into us that defiles us, but what comes out of us.
As I read the rules for being clean or unclean, my focus was on what is defiling us today?
For some, it is what we look at.
Fifty-eight percent of people watch pornography online.
When I was growing up, we had a clubhouse that we would hang out in. There were a few old Playboy or Penthouse magazines that we hid under the mattress so that no one other than the club members would see them.
We didn’t want our parents to know we were looking at that sort of thing.
My step-dad had stacks of much more disgusting magazines piled up on the back of the toilet in my parents’ bathroom. The sixties were all about sexual freedom.
When I watch old sit-coms, they joke about watching porn.
Back in those days, you might spend a small amount of time partaking in such unwholesome activity. Today, the average person spends over six and a half hours online every day.
The mainstream television shows have gotten much worse over the years. When I was young, they would have restricted what we now watch as family entertainment.
Personally, I think all of that sexual content ruins the real thing when you fall in love, get married and discover what God had meant for good. Sadly, people have twisted it into something evil.
My bigger concern is with the amount of hatred and violence we consume. When we saw gunfights and war scenes, we knew the people were getting hurt. We didn’t need to see blood splatter across our screens.
Multisensory participation
Visual input is one way we defile ourselves.
Another way is what we listen to. Music used to be love songs and maybe some protest songs. Now it is as violent as the shows we watch.
That is all static. Now we have ways to step into the action.
We play games that let our minds contemplate perpetuating harm to someone else. They may be images on a monitor, but can our minds separate those things? Can our hearts?
There are many ways we allow unclean thoughts and images to enter our minds. But the Bible says what comes out of a man defiles him. (Mat 15:11).
During the seventies and eighties, I enjoyed Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy’s comedic shock value. Since I worked in garages, the language wasn’t new to me, but the delivery and use made it funny.
For three years, I attempted to be a stand-up comedian. The stories I told would be funny, but when they weren’t getting a laugh, I knew that if I threw in some vulgarity. It would get the crowds going.
Coarse jokes and foul language show what is inside a person. You let those filthy words fly when you can’t think of a more intelligent way to get your point across.
It starts deeper
What comes out of a person indicates what is in a person. What defiles us is our thoughts.
When we lust after someone, especially when we don’t even attempt to stop ourselves, that defiles us. To covet what belongs to others, while ignoring God’s bounty, is to defile ourselves.
When we hate others, hold on to grudges, and refuse to forgive. Evil forms and from there it flows out through our language and our actions.
Today, I try to avoid what I allow into my mind. When I see images, I turn away. I’m repulsed that half the inquiries I get on social media are people wanting to show me these inappropriate things. I delete, block, mute, etc. but I can’t unsee what I have already seen.
I know to refocus my thoughts when my mind fixates on someone or something that I know violates God’s will for me.
It takes discipline, but if each of us tries to redirect our attention; I believe we will take our society to a better place.
Perhaps others will see this difference in us and want to know how to have that themselves and we explain how Jesus can give you that control.
