Inside Out

Today God taught me a lesson. I guess you could say He reminded me of something I already knew. What I put into my spirit has to come out eventually.

It's just like my physical body. If I eat healthy food and exercise, my body is most likely going to run well. But if I eat junk food and lay around my body will eventually begin to malfunction.

I can't watch hours and hours of TV and not learn. I'm absorbing what I'm watching. I'm told how to behave or how to dress. I'm taught what's cool and what's acceptable.

It's going somewhere. It's clogging up my spirit. Why do I think it's okay?

"If we don't deal with our own souls we'll turn moments of ministry into moments of anger."
-Paul Tripp

How many times have I done that with teaching? My students test me and I don't pass the test. I get angry.

I've got to teach/remind my soul of how it really ought to be! I've got to continually fight my sin nature. The world is constantly trying to tell me that it knows best. Why do I believe it?

Talking about a wise man:

But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
And in His law he meditates day and night.
Psalm 1:2

And then in the book of Joshua we are told how to be successful. Not the way the world thinks of success, but success in God's eyes. Really He's the only one who matters.

This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.
Joshua 1:8

The word of God can also tell us what we should do. It can guide us. It is our help and our how-to manual on life.

Your testimonies also are my delight
And my counselors.
Psalm 119:24

Your word is a lamp to my feet
And a light to my path.
Psalm 119:105

I want to follow and use this word as my guide all the days of my life. I don't want to waste my life filling my soul with junk. As it says in one of my favorite hymns:

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love;
Here's my hear, Lord, take and seal it,
Seal it for thy courts above.

This is so often my prayer. Since I know that what goes inside eventually comes out, may I only chose that which helps bind my heart to God.