Be Careful What and Whom You Entertain

What You Entertain Determines Your Outcome

There is a kind of change so profound, so far beyond what the human mind can calculate or predict, that the only word adequate to describe it is incomprehensible. It is the kind of change that leaves you standing in the middle of your own life, looking around at what God has done, and whispering, "I do not even know how we got here." That is the incomprehensible change God has always intended for His people. But there is another kind of incomprehensible change, the kind that leaves you in ruins, wondering how things went so terribly wrong so fast. The difference between the two is not luck, not circumstance, and not the outcome of any election or earthly system. The difference is what you choose to entertain.

Back to the Beginning

To understand where we are, we have to go back to where it all started. In Genesis 3, we find Eve standing at a tree, engaged in a conversation that would alter the course of human history. The figure she encountered is described in Hebrew as a "Nahash," a word that carries several layers of meaning, something cunning, something bright and shining, something that appears to possess wisdom. This was not necessarily a slithering reptile dangling from a branch. It was likely something far more familiar, something that looked like what Eve already knew and trusted, a being of light, radiant and seemingly wise.

That familiarity was the trap.

Eve was comfortable with glory. She walked with God. She knew what it felt like to be in the presence of something luminous and holy. So when this figure appeared, there was no immediate alarm. There was recognition. There was comfort. And in that comfort, she began to entertain a conversation she never should have had.

What the enemy appealed to was not complicated. He appealed to the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life, the same three vulnerabilities referenced in 1 John 2:16, which warns that these desires do not come from the Father but from the world. He made it personal. He made it about what she could gain, what she could see, what she could become. He took something that was never meant for her and dressed it in the language of personal benefit and self-fulfillment.

And she ate.

What followed was incomprehensible change, but for all the wrong reasons. What had been effortless became laborious. What had been open became walled off. What had been intimate became distant. Giving up the promise of God for a moment with the enemy is, by any measure, beyond the grasp of understanding. And yet, generation after generation, people do that very same thing.

The Deception Has Not Changed

The enemy's strategy has not evolved since the garden. He still appears as an angel of light. He still appeals to personal desire over Kingdom purpose. He still makes the destructive look attractive and the costly look affordable. The Apostle Paul warned the Corinthians about this directly in 2 Corinthians 11:13-14, pointing out that false teachers disguise themselves as servants of Christ, and that this should come as no surprise since Satan himself disguises himself as an angel of light.

This means discernment is not optional. It is essential.

Not everything that looks evil is evil. The account of the bronze serpent lifted on a pole, an image of death repurposed as an instrument of healing, reminds us that appearances alone are not sufficient guides. Conversely, not everything that looks bright and promising and full of wisdom is from God. The brightness of a thing does not confirm its origin. The question is not how it looks. The question is what spirit is behind it.

This is precisely why Holy Spirit was sent. He dwells within believers not to burden them with guilt, but to press them toward life. Every conviction that rises up inside of you when you are about to make a choice that is not meant for you, that is not condemnation. That is Holy Spirit doing exactly what He was sent to do, steering you away from the fruit that was never yours to eat and back toward the fullness that God has accounted to you.

What Psalm 106 Reveals

Psalm 106 tells the story of a people caught in an exhausting cycle. They witnessed the mighty works of God. They sang His praise. Then they forgot. They lusted in the wilderness. They tested God. They exchanged the glory of the Lord for idols of their own making. And the consequences were devastating, leanness of soul, plague, scattering, and ruin.

But embedded in that dark account is a stunning moment. A man named Phinehas stood up and intervened, and the plague was stopped. His intervention was counted to him as righteousness for all generations.

Someone had to stand up. Someone had to refuse to go along with what everyone else was doing. Someone had to say, "This is not the way." And when that person stood, things changed.

The Invitation Standing Before You

The question worth sitting with today is this: what are you entertaining? Who are you walking with? What conversations are you having? What are you consuming, watching, participating in, and allowing to shape your thinking and your desires?

Incomprehensible good is the result of entertaining what is righteous and godly. Incomprehensible bad is the result of entertaining what is unrighteous and ungodly. There is no version of this where the outcome is neutral.

Repentance changes everything. It is not a moment of shame. It is a turning, a deliberate, Spirit-led decision to stop eating fruit that was never meant for you and to return to what God has always had in store. The Father has sealed you for redemption. He has accounted to you the things of His kingdom. But your choices, your decisions, and the things you choose to entertain will determine whether that accounting becomes your reality.

Stand up. Intervene on your own behalf. Stop gazing at what has come to deceive you. And listen, really listen, to the voice of Holy Spirit that is already inside of you, pointing you toward life.