I tried an experiment a little over five years ago now and in that time I have come to know the GODLY value of protecting what you put into your mind. I have received such a wonderful gift, a gift of sight, a gift of knowledge, a gift of value beyond any comprehension. I wanted to write this to let all of you know how you too can receive such an unexpected and wonderful treasure from GOD.
    I keep hearing a small portion of a song, I am unsure of the title, but some of you who grew up in church may know this song and may even know it well. The portion I hear is “Be careful little ears what you hear…be careful little eyes what you see” those two phrases alone set a fire in me to tell everyone about my 6 month long experiment turned life long experience.
    I was driving down the road one day, GOD moved in me and I turned the radio to a Christian radio station, as I listened to the songs I felt a strange and unfamiliar presence move within me. The DJ came on and made this challenge, “If you want to experience a change in your life and your relationships, for 6 months listen only to Christian music and you will see a positive change in your attitude, your outlook on life and your relationships” I must say I was skeptical at the least.
     The way my life was going at this point I had little to loose I thought, after all I had just lost a good job as a regional manager and had been forced to take a job back where I started my career some 8 years earlier, so what the heck, if nothing else comes of it I can say I have tried everything.
    As I started this challenge I did not tell anyone, after all I did have a reputation for being such a severe heavy metal music fan that I would never be able to live it down if anyone ever found out. There were times as I was doing this that I felt real stupid, I would be driving down the road and I would pull up to an appointment and I would have to dry the tears from eyes as I prepared to meet my next customer. I would have felt pretty stupid if any of them had ever asked why or even noticed, after all I grew up in a home that knew nothing of GOD, so as I was exposed to these bands singing about a GOD who loved me, I mean come on GOD love me, even though I had been saved now for sometime, I had never really taken it for more than fire insurance and I knew that I never really felt his love until this challenge. I can imagine now if a customer had said “sir why are you crying, what was I going to say.. Man there was this song and it was saying how much GOD loved me and how much he wanted a relationship with me”, I mean come on how stupid does that sound. Well back then it felt and sounded lame and stupid but that was over two years ago.
    My friends, I write this today to let you in on something that is not taught much these days but if it were, the world would be without a doubt a much better place. After two years, almost all the evils I have placed in my mind and heart are just about gone. When I see things that would offend GOD they now offend me.
    My dear friends the song I quoted in the beginning “be careful little eyes what you see…be careful little ears what you hear” most of us as Christians, It would be safe to say, feel this is a very good message for our young children, but would we apply the same rules to our older children or even ourselves.
    Brothers and sisters as you know I will not dare hold back, I will not pull a punch, I also will not lie to you or try to mislead you. We have to some degree become hypocrites, we follow the movie rating set up by a secular world, and I too have been guilty, but not any more. In the past two years my life has changed so much that just the other day I watched a PG-13 movie and was outraged by the language and sexual content and we as believers and followers of Christ have not only let this become acceptable for us, but for GODs most precious asset, our children.
    Friends as I and some of you grew up we learned that there were two standards one for children and one for adults. I ask, how can we continue to use that same standard today? As we know in the kingdom of GOD there is but one standard and it is clear that we are to all live our lives by that very same standard. If I tell one of my four children that they can not watch certain movies, TV shows, or listen to certain bands, then what right do I have to do what I have forbid my children. Now understand I know that there are things that young minds should not be exposed to that we will or even in some cases need to be exposed to, so before you think this too harsh remember, we are children also, children of GOD.
    GOD wants and desires us to shield what we put in our hearts and minds, just as we would shield the hearts and minds of our children. I have heard some say that it is ok and it is our duty to expose ourselves to the things of this world. GOD would have us to keep our minds and hearts pure. GOD in his word says that we are not to lavish ourselves in sin but to protect ourselves from it.
In Gal 5:13 the word says: Galatians 5:13 (NLT) For you have been called to live in freedom—not freedom to satisfy your sinful nature, but freedom to serve one another in love. 
In Matt 15:10-20 Jesus said: ¹⁰ Then Jesus called to the crowds and said, “Listen to what I say and try to understand. ¹¹ You are not defiled by what you eat; you are defiled by what you say and do. ^* ”¹² Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you realize you offended the Pharisees by what you just said?”¹³ Jesus replied, “Every plant not planted by my heavenly Father will be rooted up, ¹⁴ so ignore them. They are blind guides leading the blind, and if one blind person guides another, they will both fall into a ditch.”¹⁵ Then Peter asked Jesus, “Explain what you meant when you said people aren’t defiled by what they eat.”¹⁶ “Don’t you understand?” Jesus asked him. ¹⁷ “Anything you eat passes through the stomach and then goes out of the body. ¹⁸ But evil words come from an evil heart and defile the person who says them. ¹⁹ For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all other sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander. ²⁰ These are what defile you. Eating with unwashed hands could never defile you and make you unacceptable to God!”

    Here is more of what the word says about the evil we let into our lives by embracing the things of this world and not of his world.
Galatians 5:20 (NLT) idolatry, participation in demonic activities, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, divisions, the feeling that everyone is wrong except those in your own little group,
1 Samuel 15:23 (NLT) Rebellion is as bad as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as bad as worshiping idols. So because you have rejected the word of the Lord , he has rejected you from being king. ”
Leviticus 19:31 (NLT) “ Do not rely on mediums and psychics, for you will be defiled by them. I, the Lord , am your God.
Leviticus 20:6 (NLT) “ If any among the people are unfaithful by consulting and following mediums or psychics, I will turn against them and cut them off from the community.
Leviticus 20:27 (NLT)  “ Men and women among you who act as mediums or psychics must be put to death by stoning. They are guilty of a capital offense. ”
Deuteronomy 18:10,11 (NLT) For example, never sacrifice your son or daughter as a burnt offering.^* And do not let your people practice fortune-telling or sorcery, or allow them to interpret omens, or engage in witchcraft, or cast spells, or function as mediums or psychics, or call forth the spirits of the dead.

    Brothers and sister the verses above are just a small portion on a very small subject matter. I looked only on two subject matters witchcraft and sorcery. You can find this subject matter glamorized on TV. GOD says it is evil but TV says it is fun. We can justify and say it is make believe, but it is not, for the Word of GOD declares these things to be sinful. 
    We must start to realize how much we grieve GOD by our actions. I am a living testament to the power of GOD, I took a challenge one faithful day, now I too am grieved as GOD is grieved and friends if we are to find the heart of our GOD then what grieves him, must also grieve us.

Oh how it breaks my heart to know that so many of us can not feel the heart of GOD because we have filled our own hearts with all the sin and hate the secular world has to sell us. You have musicians out there saying to you and your children that rape is acceptable, that vulgar language is acceptable, murder is acceptable, hear me my fiends hear me clearly ONLY to Satan are those things acceptable. To GOD they are not only unacceptable but they are a sin. That is just from a couple of types of music, others say abusing alcohol is cool, cheating on you spouse is ok. From another you find that anarchy is preferred, you find that hate rules.
    When you change gears from what your little ears hear to what your little eyes see, movies are even worse. I look at simple TV shows that I used to enjoy, I see no respect for family, authority, and there is a complete lack of any GODLY values anywhere in secular media.
 Is it all bad? No. Is any of it good as good pertains to GOD? No!
    I can not and am not going to pass judgment on you for how you live your life and I am not claiming to be perfect, please let me say this loud and clear, GOD will judge us all good or bad. I have been put with a task and I must complete it. The written word is how I complete it.
    There are many good Christian programs and there would be and will be more as we, as a Christian community, start watching and showing our support for this type of programming.  
    It was a little over a year ago when GOD laid on my heart to really abandon my ties to this world and devote myself to him and I mean really devote myself to him. Today I know that I am moving toward this “all things in my life are not only of GOD, but all things in my life are also about GOD” for this is the goal.
    I turned off my satellite service with all the secular programming and shows a year later and turned on Sky Angel, which for those of you that have never heard of them, they are a Christian satellite company they only air shows and music that are about GOD and support the Christian message and life.
    Praise be to GOD for on this day, I am a better man, a better father, a better husband, and a stronger believer, because I shut the garbage from this world out and I have turned it over to GOD and seek him only and his world. My friends I am not going to tell you what to do for that is not my mission, but please keep in mind this old saying.
 “You can not wallow in the sewer and come out smelling like roses.”
    The enemy would love for you to think that you can watch and support the sins of others without it affecting your very soul, but as usual he is lying. GOD will deal with him and all of his deceptions in his perfect time.
"Jesus said “If you love me you will obey me”
I ask, how can we obey Jesus if we do not devote ourselves to him and his teachings?
 Jesus said “you can not serve 2 masters for you will love one and hate the other”
I ask, if we are not dedicating our entire lives to the pursuit of GODLY things and knowledge, who then are we serving?
Jesus said “ If you seek me earnestly then you will find me”
I ask, where do we seek him?
   It is said you are what you eat, but there is more truth in that you are what you put in to you mind. GOD desires us to love him with all our hearts, all our souls, all our minds, and all our strength. If we are to use ALL, then we must not reserve any for anything that is not of GOD.
    I want to leave you with this final thought, I was looking in the “New Bible Dictionary” and looked up the word WRATH and here is the definition.
    WRATH . The permanent attitude of the holy and just God when confronted by sin and evil is designated his ‘wrath’. It is inadequate to regard this term merely as a description of ‘the inevitable process of cause and effect in a moral universe’ or as another way of speaking of the results of sin. It is rather a personal quality, without which God would cease to be fully righteous and his love would degenerate into sentimentality. His wrath, however, even though like his love it has to be described in human language, is not wayward, fitful or spasmodic, as human anger always is. It is as permanent and as consistent an element in his nature as is his love. This is well brought out in the treatise of Lactantius, De ira Dei    The injustice and impiety of men, for which they have no excuse, must be followed by manifestations of the divine wrath in the lives both of individuals and of nations (see Rom. 1:18–32 ); and the OT contains numerous illustrations of this, such as the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the downfall of Nineveh (see Dt. 29:23 ; Na. 1:2–6 ). But until the final ‘day of wrath’, which is anticipated throughout the Bible and portrayed very vividly in Rev., God’s wrath is always tempered with mercy, particularly in his dealings with his chosen people (see, e.g. , Ho. 11:8 ff. ). For a sinner, however, to ‘trade’ upon this mercy is to store up wrath for himself ‘on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed’ ( Rom. 2:5 ). Paul was convinced that one of the main reasons why Israel failed to arrest the process of moral decline lay in their wrong reaction to the forbearance of God, who so often refrained from punishing them to the extent they deserved. They were presuming upon ‘the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience’, and failed to see that it was intended to lead them to repentance ( Rom. 2:4 ).
    In their unredeemed state men’s rebellion against God is, in fact, so persistent that they are inevitably the objects of his wrath ( Eph. 2:3 ), and ‘vessels of wrath made for destruction’ ( Rom. 9:22 ). Nor does the Mosaic law rescue them from this position, for, as the apostle states in Rom. 4:15 , ‘the law brings wrath’. Because it requires perfect obedience to its commands, the penalties exacted for disobedience render the offender more subject to the divine wrath. It is, to be sure, only by the merciful provision for sinners made in the gospel that they can cease to be the objects of this wrath and become the recipients of this grace. The love of God for sinners expressed in the life and death of Jesus is the dominant theme of the NT , and this love is shown not least because Jesus experienced on man’s behalf and in his stead the misery, the afflictions, the punishment and the death which are the lot of sinners subject to God’s wrath.
    Consequently, Jesus can be described as ‘the deliverer from the wrath to come’ (see 1 Thes. 1:10 ); and Paul can write: ‘Since, therefore, we are now justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God’ ( Rom. 5:9 ). On the other hand, the wrath of God remains upon all who, seeking to thwart God’s redemptive purpose, are disobedient to God’s Son, through whom alone such justification is rendered possible.             Bibliography . R. V. G. Tasker, The Biblical Doctrine of the Wrath of God , 1951; G. H. C.     Macgregor, ‘The Concept of the Wrath of God in the New Testament’, NTS 7, 1960–1, pp.     101 ff. ; H.-C. Hahn, NIDNTT 1, pp. 105–113 r.v.g.t
     I feel this to be such an important issue, that I beg of you please seek counsel with the Lord in these days, the enemy is on such a large scale attack of the very values and morality of GOD that we must seek his righteousness in every area of our lives, so that we may show a lost and darkened world the light of our GOD.
    GOD this day I have but this simple prayer, Lord GOD help us all, give us each the formidable strength needed to abandon the evil us this world. Lord pour out your spirit on everyone who reads these words and know that we have to abandon the things of this world for the things of your world. GOD your word says “be in the world and not of it” GOD almighty you and you alone are the author of our lives, let them be lives that will grieve you not but bring honor and joy and glory to you. Father, I would ask for nothing more or less than for us all to bring such honor to you.

Lord GOD in the name of your son Jesus Christ I lift this prayer to you.

AMEN!