For a few moments today I would like to challenge your thinking. Fulton John Sheen made this very strong statement, “No one would allow garbage at his table, but many allow it served into their minds”.
What would you expect of someone who constantly fed on fast food and sugary snacks? Can you envision a healthy body for them? How about a long life? No, because physical health is largely a product of physical intake. What we eat will help determine our physical condition. Do you think it is any different in the spiritual realm?
The culture we live in today is saturated with unhealthy spiritual food. Too many people feed on their ego and pride, while others feed off of their fleshly desires. So many people are fed from the elaborate and deceptive worldviews and philosophies that are prevalent all around us. Hundreds of television channels, dozens of newspapers and magazines, unlimited cyberspace images and a number of media compete for our attention every week. And we let many of them win our attention. And much of what we feed on is unhealthy. It doesn’t feed and nourish our spirits. It doesn’t help us center in on Jesus. In fact it has a way of helping us drift away from spiritual growth. It’s a “slow fade” as one recent song talks about.
Is it unreasonable to think that hours of digesting unhealthy material will result in healthy minds and spirits? “You are what you eat” applies not only in the physical world, but also in the spiritual. Consuming all the wrong things will have all the wrong results. As in the computer world, “Garbage in results in garbage out”, so it will happen if you load your mind with the garbage of this world. There is no way to take in junk without becoming junky. And most of us don’t even realize how junky we are.
Paul, in his letter to the church at Philippi says, “Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” [Philippians 4:8] God calls us to watch our diet. God calls us to intentionally seek good spiritual food and to focus our thoughts on excellent things.
It pleases the Lord when we care for His temple, our bodies. But I believe it pleases Him much more when we care for our minds. Our thought life is where His Spirit most prefers to work. He loves to impart wisdom to uncluttered minds. But the mind is also the playground of Satan. He is an expert in filling our minds with junk that clog the pathways so God is not able to do His work. And our choices of what we watch, listen to, and focus our attention on, often give our enemy more ways to saturate our minds with harmful junk.
Is your mind cluttered with the junk that drains you spiritually or are you consciously choosing to feed on spiritual food – God’s Word daily ingested, godly music, worthwhile television, and inspirational literature?
When I was a child many of those decisions were made for me…and I made them for my boys for a while. But now those are decisions I must make every day for me. I have a choice about what I will put into my mind. I can fill it with gossip, with worldly programs and music, with bad humor, with pornography, and with pride, Should I do so, there is only one result – slow death to my spiritual life and to my godly influence on others. Is that what I really want? Is that what you really want? If it’s not then take control from this moment forward of what you feed your mind! Stop making excuses. Stop procrastinating. Stop lying to yourself that it’s not hurting you or anyone else. WRONG! It’s doing tremendous damage. God paid a great price for you and you don’t belong to you anymore. Your mind now belongs to Jesus. So honor Him with what you fill His mind with. A child of His has no business being junky. We need to be holy!!!!!!
Watching carefully what I feed my mind,
Pastor Steve