Slow Contamination
1 Corinthians 6:12 - All things are lawful to me, but all things are not advantageous: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.
I heard a story once of a man who worked for the Snake Park and he decided to try and build up strong snake venom antibodies in himself. So what he used to do was daily inject a minute amount of snake venom into himself so that his blood would begin to build up a protection against. To me it was a pretty futile thing to do, when the antidote was available right there in case he needed it. Daily he was putting a drop of poison into his body, and daily his body was having to fight to remain at peak efficiency. He was simply not living with all the fullness of health that he could have been.
As Christians we often do the very same thing in our spiritual lives! We slowly contaminate our spirits until our spiritual life is not running at peak efficiency. The Lord showed me this very clearly once when I noticed that for some time my spiritual life appeared to be sadly lacking. No amount of praying for it to be restored and no amount of effort that I put in to counteract it seemed to be working. I simply couldn't understand what was going on. I continually fought to get victory over the awful blah feeling I had all the time, and I often felt as though I was running on a treadmill or rowing the wrong way up a river. I just never seemed to get anywhere.
Then the Lord used someone to show me what the problem was - and what a revelation it was! Daily I was receiving emails in my inbox that seemed innocent, but yet they nevertheless still originated in the world and were written by people who could have been very much in the world.
I thought at the time, "What is wrong with getting a funny story in my inbox each day? It makes me smile and feel good. What is wrong with getting a daily dictionary defination of a word or some cooking tips? They're helping me to learn new things."
That's true - and I could have continued to receive them daily, but the point is I was picking up what was in the spirit of the writers, and it was not edifying my spirit. It was a slow, minute amount of poison that was daily affecting my spirit, and as a result I had to fight so much harder to get the victory in my spiritual life.
After that I took action! I unsubscribed from everything and began to increase the amount of time I spent praying and reading the Word. Wow, what a change took place - immediately! It wasn't my imagination that I can assure you. It was very clear to see and was the best move I could have made. On looking back I discovered that the slow downward spiral started to take place after I had subscribed to all those things.
Now as a believer you are free to do all things and the Lord won't ever condemn you. You can spend all your spare time reading worldly novels or watching movies, even watching the news or reading the newspaper if you want to, and nobody can stop you. But do you know how you are slowly poisoning your spirit with the spirit of the world and with negative things that make it hard for you to be victorious in your spiritual life? Sometimes you need to have a purge or a springcleaning session and take a good look at those things that could be pulling you slowly downhill.
Take a look at your spiritual life as it stands now and ask yourself, "Am I being successful in it, or does it feel as though I'm going nowhere all the time?"
If you are having problems and victory seems to be a continual battle, check out your poison level and see if you have been slowly poisoning your spiritual life with things of the world and making it unproductive. If this is the case then take some action and have a springclean! See if you can cut down on those things that are not edifying to you and increase a little more to those things that feed your spirit with life and victory. Make a move in the right direction, even if it's a small move for now. If you find it too hard to cut out something completely, then begin by at least cutting it down and doing it less than before. Even the smallest move towards the positive will be greatly rewarding!
As you start making those small changes in your life and you begin swinging the balance towards victory, the Lord will reward you! He will rejoice and bless you, and you will feel a surge of new life and power flowing through you. It will be such a good experience that you will want to continue doing it all the time! Then you will begin to truly experience abundant spiritual life and blessing on everything that you do!
I heard a story once of a man who worked for the Snake Park and he decided to try and build up strong snake venom antibodies in himself. So what he used to do was daily inject a minute amount of snake venom into himself so that his blood would begin to build up a protection against. To me it was a pretty futile thing to do, when the antidote was available right there in case he needed it. Daily he was putting a drop of poison into his body, and daily his body was having to fight to remain at peak efficiency. He was simply not living with all the fullness of health that he could have been.
As Christians we often do the very same thing in our spiritual lives! We slowly contaminate our spirits until our spiritual life is not running at peak efficiency. The Lord showed me this very clearly once when I noticed that for some time my spiritual life appeared to be sadly lacking. No amount of praying for it to be restored and no amount of effort that I put in to counteract it seemed to be working. I simply couldn't understand what was going on. I continually fought to get victory over the awful blah feeling I had all the time, and I often felt as though I was running on a treadmill or rowing the wrong way up a river. I just never seemed to get anywhere.
Then the Lord used someone to show me what the problem was - and what a revelation it was! Daily I was receiving emails in my inbox that seemed innocent, but yet they nevertheless still originated in the world and were written by people who could have been very much in the world.
I thought at the time, "What is wrong with getting a funny story in my inbox each day? It makes me smile and feel good. What is wrong with getting a daily dictionary defination of a word or some cooking tips? They're helping me to learn new things."
That's true - and I could have continued to receive them daily, but the point is I was picking up what was in the spirit of the writers, and it was not edifying my spirit. It was a slow, minute amount of poison that was daily affecting my spirit, and as a result I had to fight so much harder to get the victory in my spiritual life.
After that I took action! I unsubscribed from everything and began to increase the amount of time I spent praying and reading the Word. Wow, what a change took place - immediately! It wasn't my imagination that I can assure you. It was very clear to see and was the best move I could have made. On looking back I discovered that the slow downward spiral started to take place after I had subscribed to all those things.
Now as a believer you are free to do all things and the Lord won't ever condemn you. You can spend all your spare time reading worldly novels or watching movies, even watching the news or reading the newspaper if you want to, and nobody can stop you. But do you know how you are slowly poisoning your spirit with the spirit of the world and with negative things that make it hard for you to be victorious in your spiritual life? Sometimes you need to have a purge or a springcleaning session and take a good look at those things that could be pulling you slowly downhill.
Take a look at your spiritual life as it stands now and ask yourself, "Am I being successful in it, or does it feel as though I'm going nowhere all the time?"
If you are having problems and victory seems to be a continual battle, check out your poison level and see if you have been slowly poisoning your spiritual life with things of the world and making it unproductive. If this is the case then take some action and have a springclean! See if you can cut down on those things that are not edifying to you and increase a little more to those things that feed your spirit with life and victory. Make a move in the right direction, even if it's a small move for now. If you find it too hard to cut out something completely, then begin by at least cutting it down and doing it less than before. Even the smallest move towards the positive will be greatly rewarding!
As you start making those small changes in your life and you begin swinging the balance towards victory, the Lord will reward you! He will rejoice and bless you, and you will feel a surge of new life and power flowing through you. It will be such a good experience that you will want to continue doing it all the time! Then you will begin to truly experience abundant spiritual life and blessing on everything that you do!
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