Reflect on the security precautions we take in life. I mean, I lock and set the alarm of my car doors with the garage door down, then head inside, deadbolt the door, and set the alarm on my house. I have two-factor authentication set up on as many websites as will allow it. My online passwords are so insane (and different for every site) that I don’t even know what they are without looking them up.

We go through so much effort – but for what? To protect things that belong to us.

But I bet if I asked you what is most precious to you, most of you wouldn’t list any item that could be found in your car or your house.

Most of you would say your personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Hands down, right?

So let’s ask this question – do we take as many great lengths to protect our walk with Christ as we do our “stuff?” And if we don’t…what are our real priorities?

It hurts me to think that I often go through more cautious measures to protect my stuff than I do to protect the royal position I have inherited as an adopted child of God.

Instead of placing locks, barriers and alarms on the priceless gift of our salvation in Jesus Christ, we often spend more time trying to figure out exactly where the boundaries of sin are so I we can flirt as closely as we can with the line without crossing over to Satan’s side completely.

Would we ever be as careless with our material possessions? Would we leave the doors to our car wide open in the Target parking lot with our iPad in the passenger seat? Would we go out of town for an night with our home’s garage door open and doors unlocked? Of course not.

So why do we sometimes do this spiritually?

Actions stir from our thoughts. Thoughts are created by what we see. Yet we delusion ourselves to believe there is not a connection.

We believe we can watch that trashy TV show and not be affected.

We believe we can ignore the inappropriate lyrics in that song.
 
We believe that attending church doesn’t really matter as long as we still say we believe in God.
 
We believe we can hear God’s voice clearly without prioritizing time in prayer.
 

We believe we can live in obedience to God without spending daily time reading His Word.

Sisters, those are LIES.

Living that way is like being an amateur tightrope-walker, balancing on the boundary between following Christ and living in darkness. You’ve got a good chance of falling…and do you really want to risk falling the wrong direction?

Wouldn’t we rather be as close to Jesus as possible? As far away from that line as we can possibly get?

This week’s Bible verse serves as a jumpstart for where our thoughts should remain.

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” – Philippians 4:8.

True.
Noble.
Right.
Pure.
Lovely.
Admirable.
Excellent.
Praiseworthy.
Will you use these words as your alarms, locks and barriers of your thought life? Praying God will continue to whisper His sweet voice over us as we memorize these words this week.

Prayer:

God, help me to protect what my eyes see, my ears hear, and my mind dwells on. Instead of flirting with the line of living for you or living for myself, help me pursue holiness with my whole heart. Help me to remember that casual Christians are likely to become casualties, and God, I don’t want to take that risk. Help me to seek whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy. Help me to follow you closely and quickly. We love you. Amen.