The warnings on labels these days often border on the ludicrous.  Reading them might well lead to the conclusion that if the purchaser needs such warnings he or she shouldn’t be out in public unattended.

However, there are things in our world one might well avoid like the plague: potassium cyanide, sulphuric acid, electric shock, king cobras and brown recluse spiders, just to name a few. There are valid reasons any information about these will certainly contain words like, caution, deadly, corrosive, or aggressive. Some things are programed to be destructive. If they are allowed into proximity to anyone, they remorselessly function to the extreme detriment of their unfortunate victim.

One must wonder if there shouldn’t be warning labels on certain personalities: “Caution! Anything shared will show up on social media!”

Another might be: “Danger! This personality is highly critical and can be very corrosive to one’s sense of self-worth!”

Or: “Prolonged exposure to the culture of sin contained in this character can result in a severe infection of unrighteousness!”

Isolation has been tried to no avail by well-meaning ascetics from time immemorial. Not only is it non-productive for believers to stay aloof from the ordinary world around us. It is also a violation of the spirit of Jesus’ prayer for us in John 17. It seems rather clear that He sees us as His emissaries to the world; certainly not a part of it but Heaven’s representatives to it.

Thankfully we are left with the choice of whom we let into our inner circle. It is imperative that we screen those closest to us and make choices not to allow the patently corrosive nor the clearly contaminant to infect us with their nature.

Choose the inner circle well. It is the base from which compassionate inroads may be made into the community of the hurting.

Serving the God of the Bible as revealed by His Son, The Lord Jesus Christ,

Richard Orrell, Pastor