Another Throw Away The Filth

I have to send all of my stuff to Texas.  I came across these shoes that I've had since my feet stopped growing.  The trademark on the soles said 1990.  The shoes leaked, and the soles squeaked on tile floors. But I had put a little oil on them, and they looked okay.  But I struggled to decide whether or not to send them to Texas.  I agonized over the decision.  I couldn't let these fifteen year old shoes go. 

As I was agonizing I remembered a radio preacher saying "Throw away the filth."  He was a screamer.  "THROW AWAY THE FILTH."  At the time, I had no real idea of what he meant.  But as I was staring at those shoes, I think I started to figure it out.

I cared for those shoes because I thought they said something about me.  I thought they showed or proved that I was frugal and conservative and a good steward of my resources.  I wasn't confident enough in my myself that I was really those things, so I needed those shoes to show I was a good man, a good person.  I started to look around and I saw more and more things like that.   More things that meant something to me because I thought they said something about me that probably wasn't true.  These things are the filth that we must throw away.

And there is only one way to really throw away the filth of life and that is fully trusting Jesus Christ.

Acts 16:30-31 (New International Version)

³⁰He then brought them out and asked, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"
 ³¹They replied, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household."