If Our Relationships Stroke Our Flesh We Will Produce Sweet Nothings

An aphid near a hungry ladybug larvae who is eating an aphid

Aphids are tiny little  insects that feed on the soluble sugars produced by vascular plants.  As they suck the plant's literal life blood, they can cause discolorations and deformities in the foliage of  their host plants.  While feeding, they produce large quantities of exudate known as 'honeydew".  These sweet excretions drip from the insect's abdomen and soon turn black as it becomes fodder for the sooty mold fungus.

 Aphid populations are prolific in nature because they can reproduce rapidly through asexual reproduction.  One female aphid can give live birth to 40 generations of nymphs in her life time. This rapid population explosion can cause major problems for host plants.

Yet another mechanism by which aphids rely on for survival is their symbiotic relationship that is naturally developed between them and ants.  As the aphids excrete the 'honeydew' waste, certain species of ants are attracted to what they are exuding and they feed on that waste.

Much like a dairy farmer, the ants stroke the sides of the aphids with their antenna to encourage more sweet excretions to be produced by the sugar sucking bandits.

When we form relationships as Christians we must be aware that our relationships were meant to feed others and if we are exuding things that are a detriment to our lives and the people that we are intimately involved with, then we are in a symbiotic relationship with sin.

Our relationships at times become venues for our sensuality in that we want someone to validate our complaining or we want someone to stroke our flesh so that we feel and think that we are spiritually right or validated in our sinful propensity.

In I Corinthians 5, Paul is addressing the sexual immorality in the church and he points out in verse 6 that another's sin effects the whole body;

Do you not know that  a little leaven leavens the whole lump?  ... Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Proverbs 13:20 says

Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, 

but the companions of fools will suffer harm.  

2 Timothy 2:16 shows us that what we talk about with others can bring ruin and he exhorts us to handle situations by calling people out on their sinful propensities when their hearts are exposed

Remind them of these things, and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers.  Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.  But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene.  

And of false prophets Peter speaks;

These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm.  

For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved.  

For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping 

from those who live in error.  

They promise freedom, 

but they themselves are slaves of corruption.  

For whatever overcomes a person, 

to that he is enslaved.  

For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world 

through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, 

they are again entangled in them and overcome, 

the last state has become worse for them than the first. 

See here that as our egos are stroked and our ears are tickled by what others are speaking, we are at risk to becoming deceived in our view of God because we are in actuality drinking the excreted waste someone who is trying to entice us by the sensual passions of the flesh.

When we sow to our flesh we will reap of the flesh.  

Solomon talks to his son in Proverbs 2 about the value of seeking wisdom;

My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God.  

He goes on to tell the reader  that  wisdom is a shield to those who walk in integrity and it guards the path of justice and as it comes into our hearts, discretion will watch over us and guard us and deliver us from the way of evil and from men of perverted speech.

In order for us to be able to discern between good godly relationships and relationships that lead us onto the wrong path by way of stroking our flesh, we must receive the words of God.

Solomon sings of the importance of grazing in a pasture near the shepherd;

If you do not know, O most beautiful among women, 

follow the tracks of the flock, and pasture your young goats beside the shepherds' tents.  

Positioning ourselves among a body of believers and submitting ourselves to the teaching of a shepherd, whose job it is to watch over our souls, is what can safe guard us from being drawn away by vein deceit.

The human heart tends toward being convinced that we are ultimately good when we are in desperate need of wisdom in order to stay on course and develop relationships where truth is spoken instead of sensual sweet nothings that produce fodder for sin and corruption, much like the fungus that takes advantage of the 'honeydew' drippings of the aphid.

Father, help us not to succumb to the sweet babbling of a perceived friend but help us to hold fast to the teachings of truth that expose our sinful hearts.  We want to be in relationships where we can grow in the knowledge of Jesus and are sharpened and challenged to not partake in the dainty morsels of sensuality in our speech that leads to gangrenous filth that will wash over the body because sin effects the entire body.

Give us discernment as we submit ourselves to a body of believers and submit to the spiritual authority of a pastor shepherd, who will watch out for our souls and feed us the truth of the gospel.