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PROGRAM D-8126
Walls—they can be for good or for bad. I want to examine the walls that we need to build in our lives, and the walls that we need to bring down.
Walls are used for many good reasons. For example, there are walls built for protection. The people of Israel had to build a strong wall around Jerusalem and all their cities in order to protect their people from enemies. Those were necessary walls.
Do you have some walls of protection erected in your life? We all need to build walls that protect us from temptation and sin. For example, if gluttony is a sin you struggle with, it would be foolish to keep stocks of candy, potato chips, pizza, and cake around you to tempt you. Build a wall of protection against that temptation by staying away from those foods as much as you can.
Do you struggle with purity of life? If so, what walls have you built to protect you from that temptation? Any type of pornography should be obliterated from your life, even if that means getting rid of your television and DVD player. What you read and what you talk about should be carefully screened so that you are not allowing the walls of protection between you and that temptation to break down.
Some of you, as single people, have a great desire to be married, While there is certainly nothing wrong with desiring marriage, I’ve seen many of us allow ourselves to become involved with the wrong people. You need a wall of protection that keeps you from making wrong choices about relationships. That wall could come in the form of a person to whom you are accountable. It also would mean that you don’t put yourself in places where you meet the wrong people and are tempted with those harmful relationships.
In Proverbs we read, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Proverbs 4:23). This means you must build a wall around your heart—the seat of your emotions and will—so that the decisions and choices you make are right ones.
I remember a friend who let down her walls of protection and began dating a man who was not a believer. While she terminated the relationship fairly quickly, she exposed herself to temptations and passions that she had before been protected from, and afterwards it was not easy to build that wall of protection again.
What walls of protection do you need to reinforce in your life today?
