Philippians 4:8 ►
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things.
How often do we not think about what is true, noble, and right?
In our world, it is far too easy, to ponder evil and evil things; and not necessarily on purpose! Just click on the tv, and soon your thoughts will be focused on anything but noble and right.
We may not even notice at first how much this affects our heart and soul. How sick our spirit slowly becomes, when we are not taking care of it.
Without Christ, our hearts easily decay just like the rest of our body.
For example, do you happen to have dry, cracked hands? I do…or at least I used to pretty badly.
My poor father, has suffered with cracked and hurting hands for years. And it reached a peak for me, when I worked at Starbucks after I graduated from college.
At The Bucks we had to use what was called sanitizer water all the time to wipe down counters and such. Which was quite often, because making hundreds of Lattes every day can be quite messy.
But oh! Having to put your hands in cleaning water, every few minutes, in the winter, with my already dry skin; it just did a number on my poor hands!
It got to a point where I absolutely had to put a salve on every few hours or so, or my hands were going to be cracked and bleeding.
The problem was, I have a bad habit of not keeping up with good habits.
As soon as my hands were healed and in good condition, I would often stop putting the salve on for a while.
Which of course would always lead to me having cracked and hurting hands again!
It took me far too long, and far too many instances of my hands cracking open, to realize that I need to be putting on a salve or lotion at all times!
I couldn’t simply use the salve for a short time period, let my hands heal…then stop. Because it would always deteriorate again, and I would be hurting before I knew it!
It has to be everyday. That way my hands and skin stay healthy, without going through the painful, drying and cracking process.
So what about internally?
Our good habits with God, have to be taken in the exact same vain.
We have to take time with him everyday. Apply him into our life. Or slowly, but surely, our hearts will start showing the wear and tear of living in a fallen world.
Except, the reality is far more damaging than not taking care of my hands.
Ephesians 5