The Gates PT.1
I remember a time in the beginning when I first came to accept Christ and finally received true salvation back in 2005. I learned so much during this time. I was hungry for the Word and through this I noticed many areas of my life that were not correct. Part of me didn’t even realize that I was living wrong, but that showed me the deception that Satan uses to influence unbelievers. So when I came to Christ, I wanted to live for Him and Him alone. That meant I had to let go of so many things that were not good for me and certainly was not pleasing to God. However the scripture that continued to relate to me was Romans 7:19 NIV “For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep doing.”
Who can relate to that? And what was double scary for me is I heard the phrase, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” And man I had lots of good intentions but they were not pleasing to my Father in Heaven. So God what do I do? I want to please you but this flesh suit that I’m rocking is screaming for everything it wants and its hard to ignore. I mean “will power” will only get me so far… Well lucky for me the church I went to introduced me to a concept that would change me and my views forever…My Gates.
Now I was asking the same questions you may be asking if your never heard of this. What the freak are my gates? And then the pastor told me to guard my gates. How do I guard something and I don’t know what they are? Well of course any good pastor will clearly explain this to his sheep and that’s what happened to me. And it really cleared things up for me and helped me with my walk with Christ.
So back to the question at hand. What are the gates? Well Webster’s Dictionary defines gate as: a city or castle entrance often with defensive structures. Another definition is: a means of entrance or exit. So with that in mind, how do thoughts and negative ideas enter your mind? The answer is they have penetrated or have gotten through your gates. Some of these things fight through our gates and attack our thoughts, others we willingly open the gate and let it in. And that’s where guarding our gates comes into play and it is extremely important that we practice this and make guarding our gates second nature. There are 3 gates for us to watch and they are the eye gate, ear gate, and mouth gate.
The eye gate is probably the one that causes the most havoc of the 3. What are you watching? Either by yourself or with your spouse if you have one? We know pornography is dangerous, (and if you are not aware of that, that topic will likely be covered later), but are you watching overly romantic movies with sex scenes? Just because it is not labeled as porn doesn’t mean it is not or at minimum that it won’t have the same impact as hard core porn. Movies or shows that are inappropriate can plant seeds of lust and if those seeds continue to be watered they will grow like weeds. If you know anything about weeds, they are hard to get rid of and usually harm healthy parts of the lawn even if you are able to get rid of the weeds. These images can be burned into your brain and if the eye gate is left unchecked it can let harmful things directly into your brain where you don’t want it. Psalms 101:3-4 states, “I will not look with approval on anything that is vile. I hate what faithless people do; I will have no part in it. The perverse of the heart shall be far from me; I will have nothing to do with what is evil.” This also includes not staring at women because they are pleasing to your eyes. Matthew 5:28 NIV states, “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Protect your eyes and don’t let them run rampant, we can control our eyes with God’s help.
The ear gate although not as powerful is still a threat. What are you listening to? Who are you listening to? Be careful of the music you listen to. When I was younger I loved rap! Like I had a legendary CD case (if you are not too young to remember CDs). The rap music I was listening to was riddled with violence, drugs, and sex. Think about it, music creates a mood. Some people listen to music to set the mood for sex, some listen to music when they are angry or sad, and people use music to keep them amped up for a workout. So be careful with what kind of music you listen to. Also what friends are you hanging around and what are they talking about? Be careful not to listen to “locker room” talk. Guys that are talking about what they did with some woman is not something we should be entertaining. Besides they are speaking about one of God’s daughters and we should not be playing that game. Be wise to certain podcast, or talk shows. One vice for myself is stand-up comedy. I naturally love to laugh and I like stand up comedy, but a lot of it is not clean. It has a lot of raunchy topics and comedians are good at painting really vivid pictures. My advice to you? Choose wisely.
-Darron
