Psalm 101:3 in the new King James Version says, I will set nothing wicked before my eyes. I hate the work of those who fall away. It shall not cling to me. Wow. It shall not cling to me. The evil we watch or listen to clings to us. Every sin begins with a thought.
And I need to root out the thought that caused this sin. Repenting of the sin is good and necessary, but I need to get to the root of the sin. If I don't, the sin will pop up again in a different place. Henry David Thoreau in his book Walden wrote, "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil.
to one who is striking at the root."
The ungodly thought that began the whole process is the root of the sin. My sin began with the thought, I can watch what most people watch on tv. I know most people watch R rated movies. A lot of my Christian friends do.
I couldn't. The truth is I had compromised with evil. It felt horrible. How did I break free?
As I read the Bible, God cleaned me up. In Ephesians 5:25-26 it says, Christ also loved the church and gave himself to her that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word.
John 15:3. In the NIV, Jesus was talking to his disciples and he said, you're already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. And then Jesus prayed to God about his disciples before he left the earth. And he said to father, sanctify them, by the truth. Your word is truth. That's in John 17:17.
The word of God cleans us up. It renews our minds to God's thoughts and ways. It sanctifies us.
Activation: To make God's word active in your life, you have to do something with it. You have to apply it.
Watching that movie opened the door in my heart to let evil in. I felt the evil in what I had just seen. Even after I turned the movie off, evil got a hold of me. It got a grip on me. It made me feel unclean. And if I would continue to watch movies like that, over time, I would become desensitized to them.
I would think they were having no effect on me. But that is part of the deception. We cannot engage in evil, even if it's just watching or listening, without evil clinging to us. So make a firm decision to not allow evil in your life. Music, tv, films and social media powerfully affect our spirits and souls.
For good or for evil. Evil clings to us evil holds us in its grip. Romans 12:9 in the NIV commands us "hate what is evil, cling to what is good." Philippians 4:8 tells us to keep our thoughts on good things.
Second step: wash in God's word to be made clean. If you do slip, renew your mind and be made holy by washing in the water of the Word of God. Read God's encouragement, wisdom, and promises for you in His Word. It's hard to live as light in a culture that is growing darker and darker, and that's where we're at today.