Who Is In The Room?

We are pretty selective about who we allow into our homes.  A home should be a place of comfort, security, safety, nurturing, and love.  When we have guests it stands to reason guests not only have access to one or two rooms, they have access to the entire house including the occupants and even the land it sits on. Just like we  wouldn’t dream of allowing anyone or anything the access that would threaten our home, the same should go for our spiritual house. When the devil is given a foothold, he not only has access to one room, he has access to the entire house.

Proverbs 4:23 says Above all else guard your heart for everything you do flows from it.

Transcript

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Hey friends, this is Jesse B and thanks for pulling up Unfiltered on this late Saturday afternoon. I must admit that I have been struggling the past few days on what to talk about, not because I was running out of things to talk about, but I just wanted to make sure that it's from the Lord and that I'm not throwing out content just for the sake of having content. I want this to be beneficial to everyone who listens and I want to represent the Lord the best I can. So I kept going back to spiritual houses, not just keeping our spiritual house in order, but being vigilant about protecting our spiritual houses. Now I have to give credit where credit is due on this first part. And in the chapter about anger, Craig wrote about how people use Ephesians 426 as a verse to justify and defend being angry. However, nobody talks about the verses past that, in particular, verse 31, where Paul is still writing with instructions to get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling and slander with every form of malice. And if you're not familiar with verse 26, it is where Paul is talking about in your anger, do not sin. And people often say, well, see, it's not a sin to be angry. He just says, in your anger, do not sin. But as I said in verse 31, Paul is still writing, telling us to get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger. So anyway, I agree with Craig that it's ironic how people will use one verse to justify something while ignoring the verses before and even after it, as in this case. And while I'm not specifically on emotions tonight, I might do a deep dive into emotions in some different podcasts, but right now I want to focus on giving the devil foothold, which is what Paul warned about in Ephesians 4.27, where he says, Do not give the devil a foothold. And the word that I want to focus on tonight is foothold. The word for foothold in the Greek is tapos, which means a physical place, like a room, if you will. And when we give the devil a foothold, we are actually giving the devil a room in our hearts. And I want you to think about it like this. I would imagine that all of you listening are pretty selective about who you allow into your home, as I would hope you would be. After all, I mean, you go out to go to work or you go somewhere else to attend church and you go here or go there to socialize, but your home is where you live. It's where you are secure, it's where you're nurtured, comfortable, and being comforted. So right now I'm living with a couple, uh, my adoptive mom and dad, so to speak, until I can get my own place or my old place sold and decide whether or not to build or to buy, or who knows, I may even take another job out of state. But regardless, either way, I will be selective about who I allow into my home. And if you're like me, you don't want your comfort, your security, your safe space to be disrupted in any way. To protect that is not being mean or secretive or snobbish. Now, personally, there are people that I've known for years, even some relatives, that I would not allow into my home. And it's not so much them as it would be the spirits that are attached to them. And we all know that whoever we allow into our home not only has access to one or two rooms, they have access to the entire house, including the ones who reside there and even the land that it sits on. And it's the same way with our spiritual house. Once the devil gets a foothold, the enemy not only has access to that room where you hide your doubts, that room with your prized trophies of unforgiveness, or that room where you watch certain videos when nobody else is around. Eventually the enemy will have access to that entire house, and eventually that access is going to work its way into other rooms. Now, Proverbs 423 tells us above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. Thanks for listening. I love you guys. Good night.