How to remove all the toxicity from your life.

  • Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.

    If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!

    To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
M

mlssufan01

Member
#1
Feb 9, 2014
168
35
28
#1
Basically, cut everyone out from your life, and then find a way to be perfect, even better than Jesus.
Note* that was sarcasm.
This teaching of removing toxicity or toxic people from your life is actually quite counter-intuitive, and will actually lead us down a route headed straight for looking like a Pharisee. See, what we've done is renamed "sin" into "toxic" so that, rather than view an offense as an offense toward God first; now we can label it as personal violation without any recourse needed, since it is no longer sin. Not only this, but we also convince ourselves so much about the toxicity in others, that we fail to recognize our own toxicity. But because it is no longer labeled sin, we do not even need to repent. We know that sin is an offense to God; but toxicity? Oh, well that's just personal problems. Do you see the problem here?
Labeling something as toxic fosters a holier than thou attitude; a contempt for those we have deemed spiritually immature. But rather than guide them to maturity, we have decided they are a threat to our comfortable life of happiness.
Do you see the problem yet? What if I told you, that maybe, just maybe (but not guaranteed), the ones we have deemed toxic might actually be the ones with God's blessing because they actually recognize their own brokenness and need of forgiveness? What if I told you that those who teach removal of toxic may very well be much like the Pharisee who shouted "Thank God I'm not like that!"
Maybe, we need to stop rephrasing and redefining key elements of Scripture in order to justify our own sin.
 
JamOn

JamOn

Banned
#2
Jun 10, 2019
4,304
1,659
113
#2
About the guide them to maturity statement,

what about that saying you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink
 
M

mlssufan01

Member
#3
Feb 9, 2014
168
35
28
#3
JamOn said:
About the guide them to maturity statement,

what about that saying you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink
Click to expand...
id say its not a biblical statement....
 
M

mlssufan01

Member
#6
Feb 9, 2014
168
35
28
#6
JamOn said:
How about dusting off the feet
Click to expand...
Context is everything. In this text this references Jesus sharing the Gospel to multiple cities, and he says that if they reject the message, dust off your feet. But this particular passage is not instruction to boundary other Christians, but rather, keep preaching to other place if one place rejects it.
 
JamOn

JamOn

Banned
#7
Jun 10, 2019
4,304
1,659
113
#7
mlssufan01 said:
Context is everything. In this text this references Jesus sharing the Gospel to multiple cities, and he says that if they reject the message, dust off your feet. But this particular passage is not instruction to boundary other Christians, but rather, keep preaching to other place if one place rejects it.
Click to expand...
I would assume if something is being rejected that is a toxic atmosphere
 
M

mlssufan01

Member
#8
Feb 9, 2014
168
35
28
#8
toxic as in sinful? yes...that's actually my main point of this post. and yes, it is sinful to reject God. Though, I suppose one could argue that because Jesus was there, God's presence was there, and therefore a holy atmosphere despite those sinful towns rejecting Him; but still, the holy atmosphere would be in the personhood of Jesus Christ alone.
 
JamOn

JamOn

Banned
#9
Jun 10, 2019
4,304
1,659
113
#9
mlssufan01 said:
toxic as in sinful? yes...that's actually my main point of this post. and yes, it is sinful to reject God. Though, I suppose one could argue that because Jesus was there, God's presence was there, and therefore a holy atmosphere despite those sinful towns rejecting Him; but still, the holy atmosphere would be in the personhood of Jesus Christ alone.
Click to expand...
I think sometimes when folks say that is toxic meaning the harmony isn’t flowing not that we shouldn’t forgive we should but sometimes it’s best to walk.
 
M

mlssufan01

Member
#12
Feb 9, 2014
168
35
28
#12
Whispered said:
No? The Book of Matthew chapter 10 says different.
Click to expand...
There is no such phrase in Matthew 10; nor anywhere else in the Bible that I'm aware of. There are quite a few subjects in Matthew 10, but leading a horse to water is not one of them; though if you can provide actual Scripture I will stand corrected.
 
M

mlssufan01

Member
#13
Feb 9, 2014
168
35
28
#13
Roughsoul1991 said:
This is how I handle toxic people.

Dont have time for that lol
Click to expand...
My argument here is simply that all people are toxic, if sinful and toxic are equatable. Certainly, there are some sins, or toxic behaviors that do warrant a cutoff, such as unrepentance, sexual immorality, and others the Bible mentions; but my issue is that toxic people tend to not think they themselves are toxic.
 
Blain

Blain

The Word Weaver
#14
Aug 28, 2012
19,212
2,547
113
#14
I think there is wisdom in understanding when to say someone is toxic or not, but you also have to have to understand the difference between toxic and simply a sinful person. For instance placing yourself in a situation where say a bunch of people are doing drugs talk foul language and are just simply awful sinful people. Now for some they could see this as an opportunity to show Christ but it also is a risk because no matter your intetnions the more we are around some,thing the more it influences that is just how the mind works.

A toxic person is different everyone in their family has that one person who is classified as toxic hang around them too much and they can wear you out or bring you down. The reason the word toxic is used is because of how poison works most of the time it doesn't kill you instantly it wears you down makes you feel horrible and and the more you are around it the more it infects you and drains you of life
 
M

mlssufan01

Member
#15
Feb 9, 2014
168
35
28
#15
Blain said:
I think there is wisdom in understanding when to say someone is toxic or not, but you also have to have to understand the difference between toxic and simply a sinful person. For instance placing yourself in a situation where say a bunch of people are doing drugs talk foul language and are just simply awful sinful people. Now for some they could see this as an opportunity to show Christ but it also is a risk because no matter your intetnions the more we are around some,thing the more it influences that is just how the mind works.

A toxic person is different everyone in their family has that one person who is classified as toxic hang around them too much and they can wear you out or bring you down. The reason the word toxic is used is because of how poison works most of the time it doesn't kill you instantly it wears you down makes you feel horrible and and the more you are around it the more it infects you and drains you of life
Click to expand...
ANNNNDDD if you haven't had an honest dicussion with that person about their what's bothering you, that would be on you. And if you have, and they refuse to change, thats what we call unrepentance; which brings us back to sin.

More often than not, the issues that arise in toxic situations basically just start out as idolatry of a person...which is simply sin of putting something before God. Note: If that's the issue...we are all guilty of this every day.
The problem with removing a Christian brother for "toxicity" that isn't sinful, is that this disobeys God's Word for unity, and to stand against division, and remember the eye cannot say to the foot, "I don't need you."
 
JamOn

JamOn

Banned
#16
Jun 10, 2019
4,304
1,659
113
#16
Proverbs 21:31
A horse is made ready for the day of battle, but victory belongs to the LORD.
 
JamOn

JamOn

Banned
#17
Jun 10, 2019
4,304
1,659
113
#17
mlssufan01 said:
There is no such phrase in Matthew 10; nor anywhere else in the Bible that I'm aware of. There are quite a few subjects in Matthew 10, but leading a horse to water is not one of them; though if you can provide actual Scripture I will stand corrected.
Click to expand...
Is the word toxic used in the Bible, or remove all toxicity is this substituting one word for another yet lead a horse to water can’t be applied to anything.
 
M

mlssufan01

Member
#18
Feb 9, 2014
168
35
28
#18
JamOn said:
Is the word toxic used in the Bible, or remove all toxicity is this substituting one word for another yet lead a horse to water can’t be applied to anything.
Click to expand...
Ok, where do I begin here. Firstly, this passage is in Proverbs, not Matthew. Secondly, they mean 2 completely different things. The horse to water thing is about how you can teach someone something all day long but in the end it's on them to actually apply it. There probably is some element of truth there and probably a similar passage; but I'd have to do some searching on that; the saying itself though, is certainly not biblical; it also doesn't really apply to my original message even if that be the case. As for the verse you gave; this is in the book of Proverbs, a book pertaining to wisdom; here this is saying we can make preparations to be successful; but ultimately it is God who gets the glory. That is very different from the other saying.
 
G00WZ

G00WZ

Senior Member
#19
May 16, 2014
1,318
453
83
38
#19
Some people do have toxic mindsets and they create toxic content. I know a guy on another site who lives to create toxicity and chaos, he is even at the point to where he identifies himself as it. I am under the understanding that even with something like toxicity and chaos they have a place, a value, a purpose, and duty to the habitat in which they belong to, similar to how different animals have their own little habitats in nature that they live in. For example flies need turds and corpses, birds need trees, fish need water and so forth. If a person chooses to have the mindset of a fly, they need to find them self a nice turd or corpse to light on, because on a mental/ mindset level that's where they belong. Sometimes you can ask them if they like their mindset, if this is what they wanted, and if they say yes, let them be, and accept and treat them as that. If they say no, you should treat them according to what they want to be identified with.
 
M

mlssufan01

Member
#20
Feb 9, 2014
168
35
28
#20
I would like to add--for those who say that toxic is simply someone who "drains you of your life and energy," this is literally what happened to Jesus for the entirety of his ministry; and I mean literally. He was literally drained of his lifeblood, his oxygen exhausted, his body tortured in the most excruciating way possible; being an example of longsuffering. It almost sounds like He willingly chose to be in the presence of toxic, aka sinful, people to spread his message. Oh yeah, He did.
Now, I am not suggesting that every Christian on earth be a martyr; but what I am suggesting is I think we have let this term toxic replace the word sin, and in so doing have redefined the meaning of the Bible; as well as robbed people of true repentance for their sins; as well as robbed people of the blessing of repentance and forgiveness and reconciliation with one another; a practice God honors.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.