What do you like to watch, listen to or read?
My visits to the grocery stores always entailed delicious snacks and my favorite girly gossip magazines. Every month the cover of the magazine had the “most beautiful celebrity” posted on the front and how to have the best life you can live as the main titles. I would run home and read every page from top to bottom. I indulged in the content that was garbage, useless, and junky. It had all the advice a girl needed from her teenage years to college to adulthood. The writers and top editors filled the pages with what I thought was the best advice to live by.
I remember reading it and wondering why I did not look like that or how I could look like her. I recall reading columns of relationship advice and how sex was the best once you had sex with several men. I remember conversing with my girlfriends about the latest celebrity gossip and how we had similar lifestyles minus the riches and gold.
The latest rap and R&B songs were always uploaded on my iPod, CD player, and laptop. I cannot say how many times I would sing my “opera” notes to the rap beats and look up the latest music videos that the artists and producers created for millions of dollars. I recall going dancing with girlfriends late at night after getting dressed up and “tipsy”. Now, I cannot imagine going back to it. To hear a curse word or someone swear makes me cringe and annoyed.
It did not bother me whether a movie or show had inappropriate material and/or scenes. Years ago, the more the better because that meant the plot was “good”. The swearing or nudity, pornographic material was no bother because it “was normal” to see this in movies that were rated “R” or for mature audiences. Besides, it is just a “movie or show” and I am an adult. My heart was hard-yet little did I know. I was lost. I did not know.
The removal of the disgust, demonic and demeaning material in my life:
You may read this subtitle and think “What in the world is she talking about?”…. Read on please:
What you VIEW with your eyes is connected with your mind, heart, soul, and spirit. Everything is connected. You may “feel” it is so innocent to visit a website, watch a show or movie, and/or read a book/magazine that may “just” be about fashion, and relationships or (you fill in the blank). However, seriously evaluate the material. Evaluate. Review.
What I was taking in, was filling me with what is contradictory to God’s will for me. The garbage, sexual material, articles of fornication, glorifying immodesty, and worldly advice did not build me up. It did NOT draw me to the Lord it actually drew me AWAY from him. When I was participating in the above behaviors, I identified as a “Christian”. Yet, I did not understand what that meant.
As I began to draw near to Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit continued to change me and remove my desires from me (fleshly desires). I began to read God’s word more and understand that this life is not right. It is not how I should be living 100% of the time. It goes against the Word of God. I also began to not desire worldly things. The relationships that once were the center of my world began to change. My priorities changed. My heart was changing.
I remember going to the store and not wanting to grab the magazines. During this time, I was in college and a classmate had the magazine I used to read religiously on her desk. She called it the “girl’s bible”. I started thinking, that it is such a popular magazine with information that women run to for “self-help, marriage/relationship advice, fashion, sex, money advice, and life plans. It is a resource that is so easily accessible and filled with the wrong advice. Sad.
How to protect your eyes, heart, and thinking…
I do not believe this is talked about often among women, mothers, and wives. I wanted to share this because as a believer, mother, and wife- it is still imperative to guard our minds by paying attention to what we do. I would hope and pray that this is the same and a priority for your marriages, home, and children. Just as we protect what our kiddos watch we should be mindful of what we glance at, desire to watch, or subscribe to.
I like to think that what I teach my children, I LIVE BY IT TOO.
We are NOT perfect BUT we serve a perfect God. We still need to have self-control and be intentional in living for the Lord Jesus in ALL we do.
Where can I find this in the Bible?
2 Corinthians 10:3, NKJV- “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh”.
Romans 8:6, NKJV- ” For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace”.
Romans 7:25, NKJV- “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin”.
Proverbs 3:7, NKJV-“Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the Lord and depart from evil”.
1 Corinthians 6:13, NKJV-” Foods for the stomach and the stomach for foods, but God will destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body”.
Philippians 4:8, NKJV- “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy meditate on these things”.
How can we mediate on what is true, pure, and just when we are looking, reading, and/or listening to things that are contrary to that? How can I as a mother be the mother God is calling me to be when I am filling my mind and heart with what the world tells me how a mother should be? How can I be a godly wife, obedient to my husband, chaste, pure, and loving IF I fill my mind with what society identifies a wife to be? How can I be the woman God created me and calls me to be if I examine myself against the false definitions and examples television, articles, and the world state a woman should be?
As I conclude, I am praying that you can meet with the Lord in prayer and ask if there is anything that is hindering your walk with him. I pray that you can evaluate and set aside time to meet with the Lord and clean up what should not be in your life. Ask the Lord to show you if there is anything you are watching, reading, or listening to that is hindering your walk or hindering you from having Him in your life.
Thank you for being here! The Lord gets all the glory!
Luke 11:34-35, NKJV ” The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore, when your eye is good, your whole body also is full of light. But when your eye is bad, your body also is full of darkness. Therefore take heed that the light which is in you is not darkness.
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