SWORD OF THE SPIRIT                                                                                               1034

“Polluted House”

…and they polluted the house of the Lord that He made holy. (2 Chronicles 36:14)

I have read about The Great Pacific Garbage Patch aka the Pacific Trash Vortex lately. Although one of many such patches, this one is now twice the size of the state of Texas.

In the beginning, God created the heavens, the earth, and man. God declared His creation to be very good. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. (Genesis 1:31). When Adam and Eve sinned the pollution of the heart of man and of God’s creation began and continues to this day.

Pollution is defined as the presence or introduction of something that has harmful or poisonous effects. We can readily see what effects pollution has on our air, land, and seas. But what about spiritual pollution? We seem to be more concerned with the pollution of our temporal physical environment Heaven and earth will pass away…(Matthew 24:35) and less concerned with the pollution of our immortal souls. And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. (Matthew 25:46)

As Christians, our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. Are we polluting God’s house? Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)

We pollute the house of the Lord physically when we freely give in to its lusts for pleasurable things that are harmful to our health. We pollute the house of the Lord spiritually when we willfully and repeatedly expose our hearts and minds to words and actions that God considers to be sin and an abomination before Him. Like the whale that died ingesting trash that appeared to be food, we too are in peril when we allow ourselves to be polluted by the sin of the world. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. (James 1:27-NIV)

We may have a pious Christian outward appearance, but be nothing more than a whitewashed tomb due to the sin pollution we allow in our life. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. (Matthew 23:25 & 27)

The root cause of polluting our environment as well as the temple of our spirit, mind and body is a selfish love of self and a lack of love for God and for our fellow man. …“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:36-49)

May the great commandment to love God and fellow man be firmly embedded in your spirit, guiding your heart and mind in all life choices, decisions, words and actions to the glory of God.