"Fight Hard for Holiness..."

"Then I beat them small as the dust before the wind: I did cast them out as the dirt in the streets." (Psalms 18:42) Understandably a very odd way to describe what you might do to your enemies, but there are some things that must be totally destroyed and gotten rid of, once and for all! I see two very important points in this that pertain to what God has been putting upon my heart, and that are things which I know that I must deal with in my own life, and within my very own house. The first of which has to do with those things that I allow into my life which are compromising to a life of holiness before God; and I say this with some slight hesitation, but they may have more of an impact upon me personally, then they ever will on God. God already knows all there is to know about me; He even knows more about me, than I even know about myself. So how can I do something that will cause Him to be more ashamed of me than I am of myself? It is God who only wants the very best for our lives; He wants us to thrive in His mighty love for us, and really know the peace and the joy that He has to offer; yet, it is impossible to experience that total peace and joy, when there are things that hinder us from that experience. I must be careful when speaking of this subject, because there are many people who take something like this that I am talking about and turn it into some kind of legalism. This is not about how God views us in the way that we live our lives, but more about how we view ourselves in the light of His Holiness, and whether or not we are living out the victory that He has established for us to walk in. The thing that I feel God speaking into my heart is about taking things down to the smallest degree possible, and then anything that is left must be swept up and cast out of my house as dirt that has blown in from the street. I know that might sound rather radical and is probably not something that you might look forward to doing yourself; but if we have things that are around us that we know cause us to stumble, then by all means, we need to get them out of our house. The Lord has put it upon my heart to start with my movie collection; and believe you me, there is a lot of them! I have chosen the first order of removal by anything that I could not feel good about watching with all my brothers from church being here and watching them with me. I feel that God wants us to take a hard stand for Him; especially in this time right now, where His very existence is being mocked almost daily in our schools, public life, and even by our government. The second thing that God is making me see in this, has to do with how we portray ourselves to others, and how God's Holiness is visible or invisible to others in our lives: we really need to punch out that desire of the flesh... "Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: but I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway." (1 Corinthians 9:24-27)