What Do I Do With All This Filth?

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Almost every Christian I know, and dare I say, every Christian who exists, encounters this question as they come face to face with the contradicting desires that wrestle on their inside. When we compare ourselves with the nature of Christ, we see all our inadequacies and inconsistencies because Christ is holy, immovable, consistent, true, compassionate, merciful, just, good, and so many other things that we aspire to be. The struggle is the same everywhere; the temptation to not be any of those things comes upon every single Christian. From the most revered clergy to the new converts, we all face temptations, and even though God tells us that He will provide a way of escape, He doesn’t tell us that the temptations will cease. Also, we don’t always escape; sometimes we fall, and we fall hard, and that reveals to us just how unlike Christ we are.

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. — 1 Corinthians 10:13

For example, two days ago, I listened to a message talking about how we should value one another and never look down on anyone because they are made in the image of God and saying we are better than them or condescendingly treating them is dishonouring the God who made them. I felt really great and was fired up to treat people with love and compassion and see them as God sees them, then I got to the park yesterday and was faced with my limitations. There was a woman who was indecisive about where she wanted to go, and it irritated me, and the man who sat beside had a body odour that triggered nausea in me whenever the car slowed down. I could feel the contention in my heart, and I battled it right until I got to where I was going. I looked down on them because I felt I could have made better decisions than them and in that moment, I was face-to-face with my weakness of dishonouring God’s creation.

If we are being honest with ourselves, we all know where we are prone to fall, we know the temptations that we are willing to let linger, thinking “it’s not that deep”, you’re probably thinking of one right now. The question we now have to face is, how does God see it? Does He just ignore it and move on to the next thing? The answer is no. In God’s eyes, it is that deep. Let’s look at how Jesus sees it;

“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.” — Matthew 5:21–22

If we continue reading down to verse 48, we can see that Jesus doesn’t take these things lightly. He calls out even the thoughts in our minds for how filthy and evil they are to reveal how severe they are. He doesn’t see them as not that deep because the call is to be perfect, as our Heavenly Father is perfect, and this is where we fail most of the time because we are still tempted by our desires.

So what do we do with the desires to hate, to hold grudges, to fornicate, to love money, to chase fame, to be greedy, to think of ourselves as more than others, or to be independent of God? What do we do whenever we encounter how helpless we are and how finite we are as human beings? What do we do with the filth that contends for authority in our hearts? Do we ignore them and act as if they do not exist?

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who was tempted in every way that we are, yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. — Hebrews 4:14–16

Whenever we go to the doctors to be examined, the doctor doesn’t just start treatment without first acknowledging what the problem is. Most times, we are told, “This is what is wrong with you, and this is how we are going to fix it.” In the same way, God doesn’t just ignore the filth in us; He exposes it to get us free of it. Someone who is greedy and denies being greedy will never not be greedy. They have to come before God in surrender, just like we go before the physician to be diagnosed and be instructed on what to do next. So what do we do with all this filth? We bring them to God, we acknowledge our weaknesses, and we let Him prune us to bear much fruit. It is out of God’s mercy that He exposes our weaknesses and doesn’t cover them up, and we must learn to stay still as the great physician cleanses us from everything that doesn’t look like Him. So our filth should chase us to God and not away from Him for only in His hands can we be cleansed.

This is a process we will go through every day till we leave this earth because of the corrupted nature of our flesh and the world we live in, but we have hope. One day, we will have these struggles no more, for there will be a glorification that will take place when Jesus returns, and we will see Him as He is and become just like Him. No evil desires, no evil world, just us with our joy overflowing in the presence of our Saviour, glory to God.

Further reading: Romans 5:1–5, 2 Corinthians 12:9, Romans 8:26, Isaiah 40:29, James 4:4–8.