The Gall of us humans

Judges 17:6
In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right inhis own eyes.

Deuteronomy 29:17-19

King James Version (KJV)

 ¹⁷And ye have seen their abominations, and their idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, which were among them:)

 ¹⁸Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the LORD our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood;

 ¹⁹And it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst:

The other day, I had a gall stone attack. In the painful process, they had to remove my gall bladder for the betterment of my health. The Gall bladder is not something we really think about a lot. It is the little organ (that looks a lot like an Eggplant- another reason for me not to eat an eggplant) that the body uses to temporarily store bile from the liver. 

The liver is the bodies impurity filter. It catches these impurities, forms them into Bile, and forces them out of our system. When we eat wrong, and bring in too many fats and things that aren't good for us, then excess Bile is made and it is stored in our Gall bladder until the body can push it out.

In the Bible, the term Gall means, "1) gall, venom, bitter, poisonous". 

So, the Gall bladder is so named because it's job is to store things that would be poisonous to our bodies, until they can be pushed out. For this reason we (emphasis on WE) need to be careful what we eat in our diets.

By the same token, we need to be very careful what we take into our spiritual man. In ancient Israel, they were told to stay away from the abominations and idols of Canaan. If they did not, God knew that these things would take root and grow into spiritually poisonous practices that would cause their destruction and their eternal separation from him. 

The New Testament boldly declares that we are "saved by Grace through faith". Yet, Grace is not a free pass or a "get out of jail free card". Grace is the name of the spiritual relationship with God that we enter into through the New Birth (John 3:3-8, Acts 2:37-39). Because of this relationship, we are to "work out (our) own salvation with fear and trembling". 

The New Testament is chock full of warnings about the avoidance of sinful acts (adultery, fornication, idolatry, etc), attitudes (pride, haughtiness, looking down on others, etc), and even dress (immodest clothing, costly array, etc). Scripture tells us to FLEE these things, to get rid of them WITH ALL MALICE, to chase after the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Why?

Sin is spiritual Gall. We are to avoid it with everything we have. It even helps to purposely plan our lives in a way that will help us to stay away from people, places, and things that tempt us. For instance, is it a good idea for an alcoholic to go to a store called "the beer palace"? or to eat at an establishment with a bar? No. He should avoid those places. He should stay away from those former drinking buddies who are still drinking, as well. Knowing full well that hanging out with them will eventually lead to his being around that substance that almost destroyed his life.

For the Christian to repent of his/her sins and then keep hanging out with people and in places that are full of those same sins, is like Israel leaving the chains of Egypt, but staying IN Egypt instead of leaving. Eventually, they would have been slaves again. By the same token, when we repent of our sins, we need to stop hanging out in places that tempt us to get caught back up in those same things. If you were addicted to porn, don't hang out at the video store or magazine rack! If you were a drug addict, don't hang out near those places you used to buy drugs (or similar places). If you tended to eat too much (gluttony), don't hang out at the Buffet!

How can we truly say we've repented of our sin, but yet we keep staying in the same places, watching and reading the same filthiness, living the same ways? This is like the crook who gets caught and says "I'm sorry". Is he truly repentant? Not usually. He's sorry he got caught. If he had been truly repentant, he'd have stopped doing it. 

To repent is to make a clean break with those sins. This cleanses them out of our active systems and stores them up for expelling from the spiritual man. Left there, our spiritual gall bladders will become overfull and infected- poisoning our spiritual man. 

When the blood of Jesus is applied through water baptism in Jesus name- these sins are washed out of our spiritual man. We are cleansed and made whole- a new creation! 

Then, the baptism of the Holy Ghost gives us the strength and guidance to enable us to live the way the Lord wants us too. 

Let us, as Christians, truly stand for what is right. Let's pray and ask God to show us the Bile that is in our own lives. When he does, let's truly repent of it! Then, pray and ask God to cleanse them. This will allow him to spiritually wash them away from our inner man. 

1 John 1:9

King James Version (KJV)

 ⁹If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.