This post is a follow-up message from Pastor Ben's sermon entitled "The Walk of the Wise". [Watch video]

If you’ve ever traveled on the Tube, London’s underground rail system, you’ve heard this recorded warning to “mind the gap!” Each time you get on or off a train you are warned of the gap between the train and the platform, and so, the reminder to watch your step. Our verse in Ephesians 5:15 similarly warns us to “Pay attention to how carefully you are walking.” Why? Each step in our walk with Christ is important. One misstep, one foolish choice, can change the direction of our lives. We should therefore consider the Christian walk as one step at a time, and pay attention to each and every step.

I read in the Proverbs this week (and perhaps you did too) about watching out for the dangers in life that can trip us up:

“Surely it is futile to spread a net in plain sight of any bird,
but these men lie in wait for their own blood,
they ambush their own lives!” (Proverbs 1:17-18).

This highlights the foolishness of not paying attention to our life. Even a bird will see a net and avoid its snare. But the fool ambushes his own life by just not paying attention. We do it to ourselves.

What are we talking about? Temptation and sin. Mind the gaps in your life, the nets that trip you up. Everyone is different and has different temptations. But we must pay careful attention to how we walk because the net is often spread right before our eyes, and the warning to “mind the gap” often becomes nothing but background noise.

So, look to yourself. Pay attention. “Know thyself” is the ancient Greek aphorism (for those of you in Greenacres an aphorism is a general truth). Seriously, pay attention to those “gaps” in your life, for if you step into them, you can hurt yourself and others around you.

Have you examined yourself, your life? Do you know the particular temptations that come at you again and again? Pay close attention that you walk carefully. It is the wise thing to do. Mind the gap!