5 Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith,
6 from which some, having strayed, have turned aside to idle talk,
7 desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor the things which they affirm.
One of the components of the Christian life is evaluating our hearts, allowing the Holy Spirit to search and penetrate our minds and our deeply held attitudes in our spirits in order to identify what is not pleasing to God and to enable us to eradicate those harmful patterns from our lives. What we accommodate can ultimately do us harm and spill out and touch other people in a negative way. We have to be aware of these vulnerable areas in order that we might take steps to be strengthened in Him.
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God is calling us to renounce sin, not to accommodate it, and in 1st Thessalonians 4, we read a series
of warnings about not participating in sinful behavior:
3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality;
4 that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor,
5 not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God;
6 that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified.
7 For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness.
Well, it's good for some residents of Sanford, Florida to know that Zeek is back behind bars - after 15 minutes of fame frolicking in a city neighborhood on Monday.
Zeek, you see, is not your average criminal - he's a monkey, and escaped from the home in which he is kept, according to a story on the Orlando Sentinel website, which reports that in a 911 call released Tuesday, a man is heard saying, "There's a big monkey in the street." On the recording, people in the background are heard saying the animal looks "cute" and that it's jumping on cars.
The man making the call says, "It looks like pretty clean and nice...but it is on top of my car."
Yes, Zeek hopped around on some vehicles and even tore the molding off a police vehicle before he was distracted by a bottle of water.
The owner is permitted and licensed to keep the animal, according to authorities. This is not the first go-round for Zeek's owner, who was fined back in 2012 after an escape.
This incident of monkey business has caused me to think about some spiritual lessons for us, so please indulge me here as I share:
First of all, we can be reminded that what we accommodate may sometimes spill out and affect others - negatively or positively. If we privately harbor behaviors or attitudes, those things we keep inside may eventually emerge, perhaps at a time when we do not want them to. If we hold attitudes of resentment or ill will toward another person, try as we might, we may not can hold those expressions back, which can cause damage. Anger and frustration bottled up and not dealt with using spiritual means may have a devastating effect, not only on our own well-being, but on our relationships with others. Conversely, if we are cultivating the fruit of the spirit, the attitudes and actions of the new nature, we will see those attributes lived out.
So, another by-product I thought of from this weird, Wednesday story: the 911 caller said the monkey was "clean and nice." Observers said he was "cute." Yes, there are things that we might regard as cute or innocuous, but could actually present danger to us and others. Someone might think it "cute" to make an inappropriate comment or crude joke in the workplace. You may consider certain forms of entertainment "cute," but what we expose ourselves to might actually not be consistent with what the Scriptures say to put in our minds. You may be dabbling with material or playing with temptation that you really need to stay away from. Satan wants us to regard sin as cute and harmless, when he is attempting to lure us into his trap.
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