You Are What You Absorb

We absorb what is around us and reflect it back in different ways. Someone lets us pull out in front of them in traffic, and we wave someone else in a few moments later. Someone shares a word of encouragement or prayer with us, and when we return home, our spouse is the beneficiary of a kind word and a warm embrace.

What we take in often comes back in ways we can’t anticipate. The key is to make sure that what we absorb is helpful to us and glorifying to God. It must demonstrate that we know our bodies and minds are God’s temple, the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit.

That’s why Coach Noll, our head coach when I was with the Pittsburgh Steelers, was always careful with the coaches and players he brought to the team. Because he was trying to create a positive atmosphere that would solidify us, he had to carefully screen the attitudes of everyone who was coming in.

What are you absorbing into your life today? Do you need to add more healthy things, eliminating things that compromise your witness and do not glorify God? The things that you take in often come out in your words, your attitudes, your habits. Make sure everything you bring in is worthy of being in the temple.

His Promises

You are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to him at all.) And Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God.

He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you.

Because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death.