Preparing Our Hearts

Today’s post is day three of preparing our hearts, and we will be discussing rejecting the old life. Psalm 34:12-14 teaches us, “Who is the man who desires life and loves length of days that he may see good? Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit. Depart from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.” Saying no to some portion of our lives is one of the hardest things. We comfortably call them habits, ruts, or routines. If the behavior is really engrained, you might even proclaim that this is just the way you are. God requires us to pick a side, which means we have to walk away from sinful practices willingly.
For seventeen years, I worked in critical care. Nine of those years, I was in California. I developed a mouth on me that made me sound like a character out of Scarface. There was nothing about my language that declared me a child-of-God. I have worked for years to clean up my mouth. If you were a past close prayer warrior friend, you know that this was a common prayer request from me. A few years ago, as I was driving, I blurted out profanity after a near collision. As I drove off, I was so disappointed that I had to ask for forgiveness for the umpteenth time. This time though, I asked God, “Why am I having this conversation, over and over again with You?” God’s reply was simple. “Because cursing is an option for you.”
In life, we have so-called figurative boxes of “no-go” areas and “go” areas. Hopefully, murder is a no-go for you, but unfortunately for some, telling a juicy story about someone and ruining their reputation might be in the go territory. Our job is to learn to put those comfortable sins in that no-go box. Let’s be honest if we did not enjoy the sin in some form; it would not be difficult to give it up. Alcohol makes me feel horrible, so not drinking means nothing to me. We need to ask God to help us develop a loathing for our mini gods. Maybe you need to go so far as to ask God that you develop an aversion towards that behavior.
I love the verse in Daniel that states that “Daniel made up his mind that he would not defile himself.” Today is the day that we must make up our minds to remove fill-in-the-blank from being an option for us. Tomorrow we will talk about stepping into our new life. Tonight you and God can have a long conversation about removing those “acceptable” sins from your life forever. Ask God to help you just walk away with no looking back or reminiscing. Jesus came to set the captive free. Let’s all walk firmly in our liberty.

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L. Kathleen Cline

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