Does anyone recall that government health campaign run a few years ago, where, “You are what you eat” was the slogan? This was in Britain of course, And we are always looking for ways to make sure we are healthier, slimmer, have more energy, in other words we often eat what we know will suit our likes as far as bodies,  whether its our vanity in appearances, or  us wanting to increase our strength and staimina or maybe life expectantcy.  And what does Scripture teach about the body versus the soul? Luke 12:4. Yet how do we compare when we are on a new fad or diet or getting ourselves fit routine, to how we guard and watch, how we feed our soul?  On the whole, very poorly I would think. The bodily is often put ahead of the spiritual, which is a little like putting the cart before the horse.

What drivel do we watch on TV, even subsconsciously at times, that may have inapprorpiate material that we would not watch with our gran, but will sit there almost immune to the  shocking content that now appears on TV even in the commercials at times!! Do we think this has no effect upon our spiritual well-being? If we watch sexually explicit material,  or things where making wealth is the main aim, or lots of other things. If we are always buying magazines to covet what we would like materially, even if we put ourselves into debt to acquire it, is this spiritually healthy?

The puritans believed to a certain extent, we are even responsible for sin as we sleep in what we dream.  I doubt not one person reading this blog post has never not had a dream that they would never tell their gran about, or perhaps not another living soul, because of the shame they would feel.   And yet the movies, TV, magazines, interent, a whole host of entertainments that defile us today if partake of the wrong types of it,  have an affect upon what we dream. We dream about things close to our hearts most often. The troubled mind will often have troubled or tormented dreams.  The Bible in Phil. 4:8 tells us to do the things instructed in that verse for a very good reason. What goes into a man, has an effect upon any of us.

Richard Baxter has this to day about dreams:

Dreams are neither good nor sinful simply in themselves because they are not rational and voluntary, nor in our power: but they are often made sinful by participation and consequently. And the acts that make them sinful, are either such as go before or such as follow after.
1. The antecedent causes are any sinful act which distempereth the body, or any sin which inclineth the fantasy and mind thereto; or the omission of what was necessary to prevent them. 2. The causes which afterwards make them objectively sinful, are the ill uses that men make of them: as when they take their dreams to be divine revelations, and trust to them, or are affrighted by them as ominous, or as prophetical; and make them ground of their actions. and seduce themselves by the phantasms of their own brains.

Direct 1. Avoid those bodily distempers as much as you can which cause sinful dreams, especially fullness of diet; a full stomach causeth troublesome drams, and lustful dreams: and hath its ill effects by night and day.

Direct. 2. Endeavour the cure of those sinful distempers of the mind which cause sinful dreams. The cure of a worldly mind, is the best way to cure worldly, covetous dreams: and the cure of a lustful heart, is the best way to cure lustful dreams: and so of the rest: cleanse the fountain, and the waters will be the sweeter day and night.

Direct. 3. Suffer not your thoughts, or tongue or actions to run sinfully upoin that in the day, which yuo would not dream of sinfully in the night. Common experiences telleth us, that our dreams will be apt to fllow our forgoing thoughts and words, and deeds. If you think most frequently and affectionately of that which is good, you will dream of them: and so of coveteous and ambitious drams. And they that make no conscinece to win waking, are not like much to scruple sinning in their sleep.

Direct. 4. Commend yourself to God by prayer before you take your rest, and beseech him to set a guard upon your fantasy when you cannot guard it. Cast the cure upon him, and fly to him for help elp by faith and prayer in the sense of your insufficiency.

Direct 5.Let your last thoughts still before your sleep, be holy, and yet quieting and consolatory thoughts. The dreams are apt to follow our last thoughts. If you betake yourselves to sleep with worldliness or vanity in your minds, you cannot expect to be wiser or better when you are asleep, than when you are awake. But if you shut up your day’s thoughts with God, and sleep and find them upon any subject, it is like to use them as it finds them. Yet if it be distrustful, unbelieving, fearful thoughts which you conclude with, your dreams may savour of the same distemper. Frightful and often sinful dreams do follow sinful doubts and fears. But if you sweeten your last thoughts with the love of Christ, and the remembrance of your former mercies, or the foresight of eternal joys, or can confidently cast them and yourselves upon some promise, it will tend to the quietness of your sleep, and to the savouriness of your dreams: and if you should die before morning, will it not be most desirable that your last thoughts be holy?

Direct. 6 when you have found any corruption appearing in your dreams, make use of them for the renewing of your repentance, and exercising your endeavours to mortify that corruption. A corruption may be perceived in dreams,. 1. When such dreams as discover it are frequent. 2. When they are earnest and violent. 3. When they are pleasing and delightful to your fantasies: not that any certain knowledge can be fetched from them, but some conjecture as added to other signs. as if you should frequently earnestly and delightfully dream of preferment and honours, or the favour of great men, suspect ambition, and do the more discover and mortify it: if it be of riches, and gain and money, suspect a covetous mind. If it be of revenge, or hurt to any man that you distaste, suspect some malice, and quickly mortify it: so if it be of lust, or feasting, or drinking, or vain recreations, sports and games, do the like.

Direct 7. Lay no great stress upon your dreams than there is just cause. As 1. when you have searched and find no such sin prevailing in you as your dreams seem to intimate, do not conclude that you have more than your waking evidence discovers. Prefer not your sleeping signs before your waking signs and search. 2. When you are conscious hat you indulge no corruption to occasion such a dream, suppose it not be faulty of itself, and lay not the blame of your bodily temperament, or unknown causes upon your soul, with too heavy and unjust a charge. 3. Abhor the presumptuous folly of those that use to prognosticate by their dreams, and measure their expectations by them, and case themselves into hopes or fears by them. saith Diogenes, “What folly is it to be careless of your waking thoughts and actions, and inquisitive about your dreams? A man’s  happiness or misery lieth upon what he doth when he is awake, and not upon what he suffereth in his sleep.” [Richard Baxter--The Christian Directory]

Any one who has read John Bunyans allegory, “The pilgrims Progress” wil know the kinds of thoughs and conversations that his pilgrims had on their journey. And doesn’t the example he uses below, where they lived day by day, practicing Phil. 4:8 on their journey show, how to think on good and pure things, makes our dreams be also innocent, and yet godly.

“I was dreaming I sat all alone in a solitary place and was lamenting over the hardness of my heart,” explained Mercy. “I hadn’t sat there long before I thought that many were gathered around me to see me and hear what I was saying. So they listened and I went on lamenting the hardness of my heart. At this, some of them began to laugh at me. Some called me a fool, and some started to push me around. With that, I thought I looked up and saw one with wings coming towards me. So he came directly to me, and said, “Mercy, what ails you?”
“Now when he’d heard my complaint,” Mercy went on, “he said peace be to you.” He also wiped my eyes with his handkerchief and dressed me in silver and gold. He put a chain about my neck, earrings in my ears, and a beautiful crown on my head. Then he took me by the hand and said, ‘Mercy, come after me.’ So he went up, and I followed until we came to a God len Gate. Then he knocked, and when those inside had opened it, the man went in, and I followed him up to a throne upon which One sat. And to me, He said, ‘Welcome daughter.’ The place looked bright and twinkling like  the stars, or rather like the sun; and I thought I saw your husband there. Then I awoke from my dream. But did I laugh?
“Laugh!” exclaimed Christiania “Yes, and well you might to see yourself doing so well. For you must allow me to tell you it was a good dream and that as you’ve begun to find the first part true, so you’ll also find the second part at least. ‘For God does speak–now one way, now another–though man may not perceive it. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men as they slumber in their beds..’.When in bed we need not lie awake to talk with God, He can visit us while we sleep and cause us then to hear HIs voice. OUr heart often wakes when we sleep, and God can speak to it either by words and proverbs or by signs and similitude, as well as if one were awake.”
–John Bunyan

We may not be altogether responsible for what we dream. But we can watch what we eat, so that if we refuse to pour all kinds of filth and ungodliness in our senses all day long, or for good parts of the day, our souls do not become what they eat.