Toxic

We wouldn’t dream of drinking poison; yet we poison ourselves every day.

I’ve recently cut back on my salt and caffeine intake. Why? Well, I noticed for the first time in my life that my blood pressure was significantly higher than normal. One look at my diet and I found at least one of the primary culprits. Too much salt in your diet is poisonous.


Since I’ve cut back on my salt intake (yes, I do read labels and make simple, obvious choices) I feel a lot better, not to mention my blood pressure has dropped back down to normal levels (for the record, salt wasn’t the only issue, and this blog isn’t about that anyway).

We humans put all kinds of poison into our bodies, we just don’t label them as such, and the bottles and containers that carry them, at best, have tiny print on them as the sole indicator of their harmful effects. My primary care physician once told me that if he could eliminate one thing in this world it’d be soft drinks, “Just awful,” he said. Too much sugar in your bloodstream can cause glucotoxicity, which can lead to organ damage, diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.

Are food and drink the only sources of poison we ought to beware of? Hardly. There are even more harmful things out there that we need to avoid. For example, what about what we let into our souls through our eyes and ears?


Solomon’s good counsel was to “keep your heart with all vigilance”. In other words, be very careful about what you expose yourself to, for what you see and hear has the power to change your life, from the inside out. Jesus said plainly, “Pay attention to what you hear” (Mark 4:24). The human tongue just may be the most poisonous thing on Earth!


So, you wouldn’t dream of drinking from a bottle labeled “poison”, but you’ll ingest the world’s venom. If you have a TV that you watch regularly, that’s precisely what you’re doing. If you have Internet access, a smartphone, worldly books, and so on, what do you think you’re opening yourself up to? Will you argue, “Well, I only watch good shows and the news”? Define “good” and “news”. How much of the “good news” (the Gospel) are you hearing? ‘Nough said. You get the point. We willingly open ourselves up to hearing the thoughts and intentions of evil hearts. We purposely “enjoy” toxic meals. We dine with and are served by the enemies of God. We act like we’re doing nothing wrong or harmful to ourselves and others. We act like we don’t know better, but we do. We go to church on Sunday mornings then spend the afternoons spoiling the meal we received from the pulpit. The question is, “Why?”

Do we not know that our spiritual health is at stake? We are surrounded. “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10). We are at war. Are we to drink from the cup of our enemy?


Let’s at least be transparent here. How many meals do we spend with the Lord and how many with His enemies? The practical assessment is, how many hours a week do we spend dining on the Word of God versus on everything else? Or maybe another way to think about this is to ask ourselves, “Do the Christian labels we wear match what’s inside?” Could it be that we are the poisonous source in someone else’s life? According to the Bible, if we open our mouth and it’s not to God’s glory, then we are part of the problem. In that case, we ought to just get up and leave the table for the sake of others, assuming we love them enough to deliver them from our own toxicity.


We wouldn’t dream of drinking poison; yet we poison ourselves every day. In all fairness, we do it to each other. Shame on us if everyone seated at the table is a so-called “Christian”. We ought to tend to our spiritual health the way we tend to our physical health, and we ought to help each other out, not harm one another with tempting morsels that make us sick.

If you haven’t been feeling well lately, take a look at what you’re eating and which table you habitually pull up a seat to (ala 1 Corinthians 10:21). If it’s toxic, then cut it out of your diet. Make a resolution (no need to wait until New Year’s Day), if not for yourself only, then for your children, your family, your friends.



Love in Christ,

Ed Collins