Wrestling your gators!

Wrestling your gators!

Did you ever watched the show "Crocodile Hunter?"

It is about this very odd fellow from Australia who wrestles extremely dangerous animals; he gets up close and personal with alligators, crocs and super poisonous snakes. I do not advocate anyone picking up man eating animals or anything that can bite you and kill you within two steps!

But there is something about what the "Croc Hunter" does.

 Many times, he takes these animals captive so they cannot harm anyone?

It got me to thinking - that is what we are supposed to do as Christians -

Paul says it in 2 Corinthians 10:5
"We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ?"

As Christians you are to look into your own life and wrestle with those things that poison who you are, to take captive those man-eating creatures that can turn on you and eat away at your life.

What are the alligators, crocs, and snakes that we wrestle with, ones that we are called to take captive?

Well they are things like - Envy - Jealousy - Anger - Pride - Arrogance - Revenge - Impatience - Rudeness ? Can you think of any others?

There is a reason that we are supposed to "capture those thoughts" - Jesus said it in Matthew 21-22 and 27-29 - that is, the thought that we harbor in our secret lives will turn into the dangerous animal that will poison us, attack us spiritually and then manifest itself in our actions and try to attack those around us.

 Proverbs 4:23 tells us that we are to - "Watch over your heart with all diligence, For from it flows the springs of life."

Max Lucado wrote a wonderful note about this -

Today's thoughts are tomorrow's actions -
Today's jealousy is tomorrow's temper tantrum -
Today's bigotry is tomorrow's hate crime -
Today's anger is tomorrow's abuse -
Today's lust in tomorrow's adultery -
Today's greed is tomorrow's embezzlement -
Today's guilt is tomorrow's fear

When I was growing up we didn't have a Crocodile Hunter - we had Marlin Perkins and his buddy Jim on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. Marlin never got on the ground and dealt with the animals, Jim however was ALWAYS wrestling deadly creatures (while Marlin watched and commented).

Unfortunately too many of us are like Marlin - we know that the animal has to be captured but we sit in the back of the truck or in the helicopter and watch as someone else (Jim) wrestles with it.

For some reason we are too afraid to wrestle our own beasts and take them captive because we know that there is a danger involved. Oh, we do good at describing someone else doing it, and we are even better at giving someone else advice on how to do it.

But the bible tells us how we can capture those things and the "what" to replace them with -

 Paul says it in Philippians 4:8

"And now, brothers, as I close this letter let me say this one more thing: Fix your thoughts on what is true and good and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely, and dwell on the fine, good things in others. Think about all you can praise God for and be glad about." (Living Bible)

 And Paul gave us the reason for it - that as Christians we live under the law of Christ and that is the law of Love. In 1 Corinthians 13 - we see more of what should be living in our hearts - love not arrogance, love not impatience, love not greed, love not selfishness, love not rudeness, love not jealousy?

We have a choice - we can wrestle and take those things captive that are eating away at our life or we can let them lurk around inside, sneak up on us, poison every thing we do or possibly even kill our lives?

 What beast do you need to wrestle with, capture and take captive?