I was watching one of those dramatic medical shows one time and a young man came into the hospital because he wasn’t feeling well and through out the episode continued to get worse and worse. They eventually figured out that the young man unknowingly had a piece of metal on his key chain that was radioactive and it was slowly but constantly poisoning him to death. When the hospital made the discovery, you should have seen how they treated the young man’s belongings: full radiation suits, evacuation of the whole hospital wing, people scanning the whole area for more possible effected material. Kind of like in the move Monsters Inc. when they find the human sock and yell “23-19!!” Both the radioactive keychain and the sock merited extreme caution.
What about around the house? If we find asbestos in the house, it’s a big deal and needs to be promptly (and carefully) removed. What if your toothpaste had a label that said “Known to Cause Cancer,” would you continue using it? Do you mix bleach and ammonia while cleaning? I certainly hope not because it makes a toxic (potentially deadly) gas. All of these things we take great caution around and try to keep them out of our houses because they are dangerous.
But then what do we watch on TV? What do we read or listen to on social media? Who are we allowing to have influence on us? It’s easy to think that such small things have no affect on us. But a lot of times sin starts out small and unnoticed. But the more we are exposed, the more we become infected until we start having symptoms that we can’t explain. Negative attitudes, impure thoughts, selfishness, pridefulness, ill-will toward others, etc. One day you realize, something is different. This isn’t you. And it certainly isn’t the image of Christ. Where did this discontentment come from?
King David didn’t think that lustful thoughts would lead to him committing murder. That young man on the hospital show didn’t know that a small, harmless keychain was, in reality, slowly filling his body with poison and would ultimately cause his demise. What things are you regularly exposing yourself to that really need to be handled while wearing a hazmat suit?