Filter, Delete, Unsubscribe, Throw it Away

Steps to keep impurity out of your home.

Don’t you hate it when mud splashes into your coffee? Or when sand gets in your lemonade? Or someone puts pickles on your hamburger? Ok, that may just be Rob that doesn’t like that, but there are those like him with regard to pickles. We like to keep things we enjoy purely the way we like them and not to be dirtied by other things.

But how do we apply that to our lives? When it comes down to it, we tend to be more tolerant with impurities getting into our lives than getting into our coffee.

Seriously, don’t make my coffee wrong.

For the rest of life though, either we don’t see the potential harm or we don’t think it is enough to worry about. When it comes to dropping food on the floor, the chance of us eating it varies depending on if it is our own kitchen or a public bathroom. And when it comes to purity in our lives, we approach it the same way. We try to determine what we can ingest or allow and still be safe.

So, how do we keep impurity out of our lives?

We either need to keep impurity from getting into our lives or if we find it already in, we need to get rid of it as quickly as possible. In other words: Filter, delete, unsubscribe, throw it away.

First, if you can keep impure material  from even entering your life, do that! Filtering content that comes in is a very simple way to accomplish this. You can easily be selective with what channels you watch or listen too. If you know a channel has shows or music that bring impurity such as language, images or even violence into the home, choose not to even turn them on. Some people even go the step farther, and cancel their cable subscription altogether.  It actually is pretty amazing how many shows and movies you can watch when you don’t have a typical television option in your home.

Further options to filter movies and shows are literal filters you can purchase with a membership. There are several different programs available now for filtering. One that we love to use is called ClearPlay. You can filter out a variety of content from mushiness and being rude to parents, to language and nudity from the movies you watch.  Take a look a some of these links that are available and pick one that is best for you and your home.

• Clearplay – Filters content from DVD’s and some streaming options
• Pureflix – Only shows content that doesn’t need filtering
• CleanRouter – allows for parental controls to items on your internet

Another filtering option for the internet we use constantly is Covenant Eyes. It is an internet filter/accountability program. For a reasonable fee, this contemporary software allows for all of your personal devices to be included (phone, computers and iPad/tablet) and for a family, each person in the household can have their own account and therefor their own accountability. Even if there is not a content problem in the home, a great way to keep it out is to block it from even entering in. Here are some links to a few of the internet filtering programs available.

• Covenant Eyes
• Lion
• A quick Google search for internet filters brings up many more options as well.

Second is to delete. If there is content that is already in… then get it out. Remove it. And this isn’t just moving it to the deleted folder so you can retrieve it later. This is destroying it so you can’t get it back. When your computer asks if you want to permanently delete it, click yes! You can also “junk mail” content.  Usually the junk mail folder in your email box is just that, junk.  We know that sometimes an email that you have signed up for gets thrown into that folder, so if you need to, go in, select that email as “not junk” and then just delete the rest of the folder and then get out. Curiosity may try to get you to just open  one of those junk emails to only take a peek at what is in there. Don’t do it!

Finally, one more option to stop impurity before it gets in or from continuing to get in is to unsubscribe or throw it away. If you get newsletters that lead to impurity, unsubscribe. If you get channels that have movies that show impurities, unsubscribe.  If you get mailers that you don’t want sent to your home, throw them away! Sometimes, you receive mail addressed to a previous tenant or owner.  Not only can you throw the material away immediately, but you can contact the business and request to be taken off of their mailing lists.  It’s a simple step, but there are many who have been thrown off course because of catalogues, coupons and store promotions that lead to wandering eyes, lustful thoughts or mistrust in a relationship. One day Rob was getting the mail when he noticed, unfortunately, the first letter of a certain company’s name who’s advertisements have women in their underwear. The rest was covered up by the other envelopes and on his way back in to the house, he made a quick stop by the trash can and threw it in, not allowing it to come into the house. Later on, Jenna was tossing something into the trashcan and noticed the advertisement and knew that Rob had done something to keep their home pure. This is one way purity can make your marriage strong as it strengthens the trust between the two of you.

Just as you wouldn’t run through a mud puddle on your way to your wedding, dressed fully in your wedding attire, as you go through life, you should also try to avoid impurity puddles that will stain you. If the impurities get in, get them out as soon as you can. If you are married, work as a team together to accomplish this. If you are single, you can involve a friend, family member or roommate to help keep you accountable and be an additional filter source for you.  Each time you filter, delete, unsubscribe or throw impurity away, you are being strengthened. The stronger you are, the better equipped you will be to fight for purity.

Note: This is part of our tools series. To learn more about the different series we have check out our initial Tools blog post here.