“A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.”   -Galatians 5:9

    One morning during a recent trip I got up to work out in the fitness center of the hotel we were staying in.  As I got on the treadmill, I noticed something interesting.

    The treadmill had increments of incline from 0% (which is level) all the way up to 15% (which is like walking up a steep hill).  I immediately thought, “Well, there’s no way I’ll ever be using the 15%, that’s for sure!”

    So, I started out at 1% grade, walking slowly to warm up.  After a few minutes, I bumped the incline to 2% grade and started walking a bit faster.  A little while later I was walking even faster.  The grade was now up to 7% incline. 

    Towards the end of the workout I was actually intentionally, deliberately working towards the highest elevation.  When it was over, my heart was racing, my pulse was pounding, sweat was dripping as I had spent the last three minutes at 15% incline going as fast as I could move.

    What had started out as impossible turned into improbable and then into intentional.

    Then it hit me:  that’s  what sexual sin looks like.  It most cases, it comes in 1%, 1MPH, 1 step at a time moving in the wrong direction.

    “I’ll never get addicted to pornography.  I’ll never have an affair.  I’ll never get mixed up in sexual depravity.”  And – through a series of seemingly innocent, seemingly insignificant choices we can progress down a path that leads us from impossible to improbable to even intentional.  You find yourself with your heart racing, pulse pounding, involved in things you never dreamed you’d ever do.

    And it begins in the mind.  We entertain thoughts.  We take in things that we should force out.  We allow our eyes to wander just a bit and then linger a bit longer.  There’s a bit of flirting.  Listening to and sharing dirty jokes. A few sex scenes in R-rated movies.  A glance at the lingerie ads in the Sunday paper.  1%, 1MPH, 1 step in the wrong direction.

    There is a battle for control of our minds.  Proverbs 23:7 tells us that as a man “thinketh”, so is he.  Paul told the Galatians, “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.  For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other:  so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.”

    There’s a battle going on. 

    There’s a fight between the Spirit and the flesh and the battleground where it’s all taking place is in our minds.  Whoever controls our thinking is ultimately going to have great influence upon our actions.

    Years ago I heard an illustration of two dogs fighting inside of us – a “good” dog representing our new nature in Christ and a “bad” dog representing our old fallen nature.  The illustration pointed out that the dog which won the fight was the dog that was fed the most.

    There is such truth to that!  When we feed our minds enticing, sensual images, we set ourselves up to lose the fight. 

    Guard yourself against little things that lead to big trouble.

    All it takes is 1%, 1MPH, 1 step in the wrong direction to take us places we should never go.