Screen Savers – The Seventh Commandment

Screen Savers

The seventh commandment

Exodus 20.14; Deuteronomy 5.18

“And you shall not commit adultery.”

Psalm 101.2, 3

“I will ponder the way that is blameless…I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless. I hate the work of those who fall away; it shall not cling to me.”

What’s on your mind?

My computer uses a “screen saver” to prevent permanent images burning onto it when it’s not being used. If I don’t work on it for a while, it will shift into a repetitive presentation of stars zooming past. All I have to do to get it out of that condition is hit a key. But it always goes there because that’s where I’ve programmed it to go when I’m not working on it. What about you? What “screen saver” pops up when you’re not thinking about anything in particular, or when you lean back and close your eyes for a few minutes of rest in the midst of a busy day? What do you think about? What images flash appear on the screen-saver of your soul? Put more theologically, what are the default values of your conscience – the priorities that guide your mind and heart? The more you ponder loveliness – the beauty of Christ exalted, the majesty of His creation, the glories of the heavenly throne room, the good works of His Law – the greater is the likelihood these things will “snap into place” during the “down times” of your thinking. But if you fill your mind with worthless images – pornography in all its forms, fantasies about members of the opposite sex – that’s where your unguarded mind will harbor, and that’s what will form the bent of your soul. What you fill your mind with is what will set your conscience and come up as the screen saver of your soul when you’re taking a break. And that’s as good a barometer as I know to show us what’s really going on inside us from day to day.

Take two or three minutes to close your eyes, put your head back, and think about nothing. What comes on to the screen saver of your soul? Is that what you want to have there?

—

“In the Gates” is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore

T. M. Moore is editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001,2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Editor’s note: The use of a translation other than the Authorised Version in an article does not constitute an endorsement in whole or in part by The Christian Observer.