(Thanks Scott for sharing about this wonderful animal! Your hard work is more than appreciated.)
Have you heard of the ermine?
In the forests of northern Europe and
Asia lives little animal called the ermine, known for his snow-white fur in winter. He instinctively protects his white coat against anything that would soil it.
Fur hunters take advantage of this unusual trait of the ermine. They don't set a snare to catch him, but instead they find his home, which is usually a cleft in a rock or a hollow in an old tree. They smear the entrance and interior with grime. Then the hunters set their dogs loose to find and chase the ermine. The frightened animal flees toward home but doesn't enter because of the filth. Rather than soil his white coat, he is trapped by the dogs and captured while preserving his purity. For the ermine, purity is more precious than life. (HGB, Our Daily Bread, April 21, 1997)
Are we a set apart people that desires God's purity so much that we are so driven as the ermine to stay pure? Do we make the choice that we would rather die than to become 'dirty' with sin, to ingest filth?
I talk to my girls a lot about music and movies right now. I try to explain that the age old addage 'garbage in, garbage out' does not just mean food we eat but things we hear and watch also. It is hard. It is hard to be the one that stands out of the crowd and says-I do not want to see this or I should not be listening to this. Or do I say- this is not so bad... I can know the difference between good and bad so this will not affect me... I am okay because so and so listens/watches much worse than this and she is still a good Christian...
These choices are difficult for an adult let alone a teen. I do not always make the right choices. But I am striving. I am challenged by our pastors sermon the other night that brought this little animal up as an example. What am I willing to let soil my fur? Why? More importantly am I willing to go the distance and 'suffer' in order for purity to reign in my life? For Christ to truly be the center? What is my plumbline and do I use it or abuse it? My mind continues to ask this question of myself.
Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. (1 Peter 5:8-9)
No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, that you may be able to endure it. (1 Corinthians 10:13)
As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy." (1 Peter 1:14-16)
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)
All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything. (1 Corinthians 6:12)
Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. (Romans 6:12-13)
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