Baggage Scan

Baggage screening is a mandate at the airport. The Luggage Scanner is a machine that can construct an image showing not just the position of objects, but also roughly what they’re made of and their density. 'Current airport X-ray scanners produce images in orange, blue and green. Each color corresponds to a material category—orange means organic material (food, paper, marijuana), green is for medium-dense non-organic materials like plastic soda bottles, and blue means metals or hard plastics'. Security personnel scrutinize the image to detect weapons and dangerous explosives as well as other prohibited items. The offenders could be willfully carrying such baggage with evil intent or they could be unaware of their dangerous content. The intended outcome of the whole exercise is safety and security.

My heart and mind undertake a similar, yet more sophisticated scan when it passes through the scanner of God's word. This hi-tech scan judges the thoughts and motives of my heart -Hebrews 4v12 (b). The explosives within are exposed. Those concealed and dangerous thought patterns and deceitful darkness of anger and bitterness are revealed. This scanner reveals the contaminated and corrupt content within - all moral filth (James 1v21), bitter envy and selfish ambition (James 3v 16), malice and deceit, hypocrisy and slander (1 Peter 2v1). I must confess that some of these contents have been willfully packed while others I have carried about ignorantly. At the end of this process, I am asked to make every effort to be spotless and blameless ( 2 Peter 3v 14). The intended outcome is safety and security, both mine and those around me :-)

Yet, unlike the latest security scanners at the airport, God and his word replaces the explosive luggage of my heart with a deposit of eternal value that blesses me and others in my life. His divine power gives me everything I need for life and godliness through my knowledge of him and mine to possess are his very great and precious promises enabling me to escape the corruption of the world and allowing me to participate in his divine nature. I am urged to add to faith, goodness and to goodness, knowledge and to knowledge, self control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness and love. (2 Peter 1 v 3-7). That was a long paragraph of deposits but worth a 'repeat-read'

His anointing is the 'icing on my cake' for it remains in me to help me discern the the truth of every input to my heart and mind. It is my prerogative though as a child of God to cooperate with the Holy Spirit by remaining in him. ( 1 John 2v 27)

If God's word were to scan your heart and mind, what would it reveal ?