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Key Bible Verse: A prudent man sees danger and takes refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it (Proverbs 22:3).
Bonus Reading: Psalm 101

Once in a hotel room alone I turned on the television to see if there was anything interesting to watch. I paused at a channel where a movie was in progress. Since I caught the show partway through, I was trying to figure out the plot.

Suddenly without warning, the female main character undressed and hopped into bed with the other lead character, a man. I sat there stunned. I'd heard about such movies but had never before seen one. But then, because I have a lustful heart like most men, I continued to watch to see if she'd do it again.

I learned my lesson.

I can't trust myself to turn on the television when I'm alone in a hotel room, unless it is to watch a specific program like the news, or a sports event, or something where I know the overall content of the program beforehand.

Knowing my own lustful heart and the likelihood of seeing something on television that will play to that lust, I must, as [today's Key Bible Verse] says, see danger and take refuge. The way I've taken refuge is to commit to never turn on the television at random when I'm alone in a hotel room.

—Jerry Bridges in The Discipline of Grace

Here's how I plan to regulate my film and television viewing:

God is better served in resisting a temptation to evil than in many formal prayers.

—William Penn (Quaker colonizer, 17th century)

Adapted from: The Discipline of Grace (NavPress, 1994) with permission.

For your convenience, The Discipline of Grace is available in the ChristianityToday.com bookstore.

Copyright © 2001 by the author or Christianity Today, Inc./Men of Integrity magazine.
Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.

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Prayer for the Week

Forgive me, Lord, for loving the world too much. Set my affections on You and help me to recognize and resist the temptations of television.

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