The lady in charge of cleaning and decorating the church has done a beautiful job. Everything looks so nice with accents of plants and wall hangings and things that make for a good atmosphere, including nice fragrances. A group of us was in the church kitchen one day and I poured myself a cup of coffee and put some creamer in it. I glanced to the left and to the right of the coffee pot in search of a stir stick, and noticed a half dozen or so stuck in a cute little jar on the adjoining counter. I thought, “Well that’s a good idea, to put the stir sticks in a cute little jar like that!” Preoccupied with the present conversation, I stepped over and got a stir stick and stirred my coffee. When I took a sip I thought, “Hmm, this coffee sure tastes different. It kind of has an exotic flavor!” About that time I was questioned on how my coffee tasted by one who had observed me reaching over and getting the “stir stick”. He had observed me innocently grabbing a decorative room deodorizer stick and calmly stirring my coffee with it. They were sticking up out of the cute little jar just like coffee stir sticks, and, they were pretty close to where the coffee pot sat. Then in the hearing of the whole group he told what I had done. Everybody joined in the funny situation thinking “Yuk!” because of the little deodorizer stick being used to stir my coffee. I did not really want to get rid of that cup of coffee because it actually tasted pretty good! I figured the ingredients in that little room deodorizer stick were probably no worse than what the FDA allows them to sell us to put in our coffee anyway. But, I thought “Just in case” and for social propriety, I poured the cup of coffee out and got another one.
Just because we grab something for our life that looks good, smells good, and tastes good, does not mean that it is good for us. Jesus said to “judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment” (John 7:24). How does it weigh in with what the word of God says in plain, simple language without a pre-formed opinion put on it? The Bible will “self-interpret” if we will submit our life to God and bring to bear all parts of the Bible on any given basic subject. Without this objective examination, we might have hold of something that might not be the best thing for us. It might look, feel, and smell good, but if it is not in line with the Spirit and power of the word, we need to pour that cup out and get one that is “right”. We don’t need something poisonous stirred into our cup of coffee.