Monday; February 7

Matthew 12 tells a rather interesting story. Jesus mentions the fate of an unclean spirit that is cast out of an individual, but can’t find a place to rest. The spirit decides to return to its host and finds the previous dwelling place cleaned up and empty. This gives the spirit the idea to reoccupy the man. As Jesus summarizes this parable, He notes, “Then it goes and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first. That is the way it will also be with this evil generation.” (Matthew 12 45). This is not one of the best-known stories of Jesus, but I believe we can learn something from it. While it is good to periodically “clean house”, we need to replace the evil with something better. It isn’t enough to get rid of a bad habit or internal struggle, we must make the effort to fill it with something positive or things might actually get worse for us. Unless we do something proactive, the void caused by the change might invite bigger problems.
I hope we are cleaning out the bad in our lives, but let’s make sure we are replacing it with something good. Unless we do, we might exchange one bad habit for seven that are worse. However, when we replace the bad with the good, we’ll be able to grow and develop into all we can be.

Think About It! 

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