"Floating" Fish

I've been working on setting up a new aquarium. The interesting thing about adding fish to an aquarium is the means by which you normally add them so that they don't die. You usually get your fish in plastic bags from the fish store, and you first dump off about a quarter of the pet store water, and add that much of your tank water back to the bag. Then you reseal the bag, and drop it in the water. Every 10 minutes you add another cup of your water to the bag for 30 minutes. Then you take the fish out of the bags and put them in the aquarium.

This process is call acclimation; the fish become acclimated to your water. It's how fish get accustomed to the different chemicals in your water that wasn't in the pet store water. In this process, I recognize a pattern that the devil often uses in our lives. Often, we're stuck with having to "just deal" with a little bit of ungodliness. Then a little bit later, after we've gotten used to that, we go for some more. Next thing you know, we're swimming free in the water that would have killed us just a short time ago.

Romans 12:2 says that we shouldn't conform to the world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. We don't have to just let someone watch dirty movies while we're around, or gossip to us, or tell us dirty jokes. Those are the patterns of the world, "Oh, that guy just always tells dirty jokes and I just shrug it off and go on."

Our minds are supposed to be being renewed, we shouldn't be thinking like that any more, and we don't have to listen, watch, or participate in those things just because we're not in our own home. We shouldn't participate in anything that we wouldn't participate in at church. Let's not allow ourselves to be made into the pattern of the world, let's seek God in everything we do, so that we will be found as faithful servants.

Straight Talk

What’s your water cooler chat like? Do you get wrapped up in the stuff that’s going on in everyone else’s lives? Do you laugh at vulgar jokes or even tell a few yourself? I know that I’ve been guilty of all of these things more than a few times in my Christian life, and it’s an area that I have to constantly and actively watch. Today’s devotion begins in 2 Timothy 2 where we find Paul talking to Timothy about living a Christlike life. We’ll start with 2 Timothy 2:4-5.

We see that it pleases the one who enlisted us, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, when we choose not to get tangled up in what’s going on around us. We also see that we have to play according to the rules if we want to win the prize, eternal life in Heaven. So, what should we do then? I’m not one of those overzealous people who thinks that anything not specifically about God should be avoided. But where should we draw the line, and what should we or shouldn’t we be a party to? And what should we do when we see others getting involved in this sort of behavior?

2 Timothy 2:14-17 and 2 Timothy 2:20-26 give us more insight into what our reaction should be. Most of my life, I’ve either idly stood by and thought that as long as I wasn’t an active participant in a conversation, I could stand there with the rest of the guys and laugh at the dirty jokes, and if it got “too bad” I could just walk away. But we see here a lot of action words, like “avoid”, “pursue”, “refuse”, “cleanse”, and so on. We’re supposed to be a “workman”. You can’t be an idle workman. And you can’t stand by doing nothing and be active in any manner.

We see in 2 Timothy 2:20-23 that we have a responsibility to “cleanse ourselves of these things” so that we can be useful to God (the Master). Cleansing ourselves is another thing that we can’t do idly. You can’t cleanse yourself while taking in dirty jokes, or morally bankrupt stories. We see that we should flee these things that are so attractive and easy to fall into, and then we get to the part about what we should be doing. We should (once again, actively) pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace. We should (actively again) refuse foolish and ignorant speculations.

But now we come to the hardest part. As men, regardless of what people think, most of us avoid confrontation as much as possible, and seek to make our confrontations as short lived as possible. However, starting in 2 Timothy 2:24, we’re given another course of action that’s a lot harder for us to follow. We’re supposed to “with gentleness” correct those who are in opposition. This passage shows that even if we’re in the presence of non-believers, we’re still supposed to guide people away from unclean acts.

I know there are lots of things that I’ve been a part of that other spiritual men stood by and saw me do, and didn’t guide me away from those things. I hold only myself responsible for those things, but wouldn’t it have been better to have been gently reminded that what I was partaking of was immoral. And since I’ve become a Christian, there are many things that I had done in my life before, that now I’ve had to go back and apologize to someone for wronging them.

So, as we go about our workday, and as we live our lives, let’s keep an active guard for the words that you hear, and the conversations that we’re a part of. Let’s be active in our conversations to speak out against immoral, untrue, and unclean topics. Remember that it’s our God-given responsibility to not only “not participate”, but also to guide others away from those topics as well. Let’s think in every conversation, “Could I stand here in the presence of the Perfect Man, and participate in this conversation?”, and then let’s act accordingly.