You Are What You Consume

How can we expect to live a Christian life if we are watching movies with nudity and sex? How can we expect to be more Christ like if the music we listen to is full of cuss words, talk of drug use and violence? How are we going to set a good example if the video games we play are full of killing?

If you are a parent, you know that the company your child keeps is an influence on who they are. What they are exposed to, what they see as acceptable or what they are peer pressured into dictate the person they become.

Luke tells us that what our eyes see, affects our whole body.

Luke 11:34-36

34 Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are healthy, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are unhealthy, your body also is full of darkness. 35 See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness. 36 Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be just as full of light as when a lamp shines its light on you.”

We can also see in James where we are told of how easily we are persuaded.

James 3

3 When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. 4 Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. 5 Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. 6 The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.

7 All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, 8 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

9 With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. 10 Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. 11 Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? 12 My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.

We cannot look at this only as the people we surround ourselves with, but also the media we allow into our homes and our own bodies. When we talked about music just a few weeks ago, we looked at what God tells us to seek in our lives, and essentially what we should allow into our hearts.

Philippians 4:8

8 Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

All of these movies and songs and other things we consume daily and think that they are not affecting us or that we are too strong or too smart to allow them to change us, we are wrong. Satan is the prince of lies, the one who tells us that “It’s just some gratuitous nudity.” or “ I grew up on this music.” Look at the verse in Philippians again.

Is our God a God of compromise or is He an unchanging God?

Does Scripture tell us a little bit of sin is ok or that our opinion matters? NO! Scripture tells us about a lukewarm Church and lukewarm Christians and what Jesus will do with them on the day of judgment.

If what we consume is evil, what we produce is evil. Either you believe God’s word and obey it or you don’t. There is no in between. There is no middle path. Only the wide path that leads to destruction or the narrow path to salvation. We cannot deny the truth of Scripture.

I cannot say that I am the one who can disobey God by exposing myself to ungodly things and still be living for Him. I can’t get up in the morning and look at porn on my phone and turn around and say I live for God. This is not the good fruit that God says I should bear.

Matthew 12:33-37

33 “Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit. 34 You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. 35 A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. 36 But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. 37 For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”