I know “censorship” is fightin’ words for some folks but I believe strongly in censorship — self imposed censorship that is. Psalm 101:3 says; “I will set no worthless thing before my eyes.” Another way to say that is the way The Message (a paraphrase of the Bible) puts it; “I refuse to take a second look at corrupting people and degrading things.”

Never has there been a better time in history to adopt self censorship. Why? Because when has there ever been more choices of worthless things to gaze upon? Think of magazines, television, advertising, movies, and Internet sites. Which ones are worthless? I won’t decide for you but I’ll give some clues.

Ask yourself what is being promoted by what you are looking at. Philippians 4:8 gives us the rule. “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things.” You can judge what you see against that.

Secondly, how do you feel when you are viewing that particular movie or magazine or whatever? Does it promote your spirit or your flesh? If Jesus were sitting beside you, would you mind seeing it with him?

If you identify something worthless that you have been wasting your eyes on, what do you do? Impose censorship on yourself. Your decision to filter everything past your new rule will be the first step to putting it into practice. Then get in the habit of quickly glancing away or clicking away or throwing away or flipping away. The keyword is “quickly.” Your eyes can decide very fast if something is on the “worthless” list. Once they have decided, don’t waste another glance.

Censorship may not be very popular these days but you’ll be glad you embraced it. With all that worthless junk out of the way, it will be a lot easier to see God.

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