“Thermometer Or Thermostat?” is October 22’s entry from Dr. David Jeremiah’s ‘Turning Points with God: 365 Daily Devotions’ (2014).
"Do not be deceived: 'Evil company corrupts good habits.'"
1 Corinthians 15:33
In a letter from the Birmingham jail, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote these words: “In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.”
Although those words were written more than fifty years ago, they still speak a poignant truth today. Are we, as Christians, acting as thermometers or as thermostats? Are we merely rising and falling to the spiritual degree of those around us, or do we set the standard for our environment?
The Bible says to “put away from yourselves the evil person” (1 Corinthians 5:13). This does not mean we are to ostracize those who do not yet know the Lord; it simply means that if Christian brothers or sisters are living in sin and we find ourselves being influenced rather than being an influence, we should separate ourselves from them.
Perhaps a gentler way of saying it is this: care for your spiritual environment. Cultivate relationships that are mutually encouraging in the Lord, and as much as possible, be the thermostat that sets the spiritual temperature so that others may see Christ reflected in your life and rise to His degree.
To end, a quote from Clint Pascal, “Thermostats are change agents and affect others around them.”
