The past Sunday, I heard ten minutes of a sermon in which the pastor seemed to be discussing “life in the flesh.”. However, I did not hear the beginning or the conclusion. I changed the channel. Although I appreciated his efforts to convey information on this subject, he did not quite understand it yet. As a result, I moved on. He was trying hard to be humble and to remind his people that they are not alone. He cited an example in which, when posting on social media, if a “like” does not follow right away, he waits for a few minutes. He apparently is constantly in a fight with himself to yank the post because if people do not “like” it right away, his ego gets in the way, and he makes it personal.
While I appreciated his humility, he touched upon one of my pet peeves, which is, “Those He calls, He prepares”. They don’t realize that what they lack is the most basic because they are not prepared. This should have been obvious to them long ago, and they should have moved beyond it.
I see social media, especially Twitter and Facebook the same way God used Satan as a tool to reach out to His servant Job. Our role in postings should not be to please everyone and collect “likes” and comments. If this is part of our identity, then what does that say about who we are in Christ? If that is the case we are no better than the unbelievers. Think about it, when Christ comes back, who is going to care that we were approved by someone on social media who probably did not know better? Who cares if they temporarily make us feel good? How valuable are the “likes” we collect going to be before God? I am not saying it isn’t pleasant to have “likes”. I am saying that it requires constant efforts on our part to separate ourselves from unbelievers and those worshipping in the courtyard. We are called to enter the holy of holies and worship there. God is also in the details. When we stop being compartmentalized, we understand the importance of it all. We should ask God to renew our spirit and make us whole in order to see the difference.
Our job should be to let God guide us on how to use the tools of this world to reach out to those who are not walking with Him as they should, and also reach out to those who are lost. So, what people feel about us, how they respond to our posts or not, should not be the issue here. This becomes relevant to us when we learn to think about what our hope in Him is all about. We forget we are meant to be servants of Christ not to be served or admired by others. Since we have learned to emulate the world so much, the unnatural appears natural to us.
It must be said that I have been so discouraged and overwhelmed by the need I see on social media that I have stopped checking my profile all the time. Here are the reasons. The people God is calling to come closer to Himself have avoided Him like the plague. Nevertheless, they continue to act as if everything is fine with Him. They are totally ignorant of the fact that they did not accept the invitation to draw closer because it was not comfortable. They are not willing to let God cleanse their hands and purify their hearts to get there. So, in order to avoid feeling the conviction of the Spirit of God, they get busier, doing useless activities for God, as a substitute for their lack of love, obedience and faith.
I am also discouraged because I keep reading the same thing over and over again, with the same level of ignorance of the true God. Sometimes I am flabbergasted to see how after so many years, some people have not grown spiritually at all. They have no idea that means “there is no light, and there is no life”. I am at a loss to see how little they care. It is always the case of the blind leading the blind. They worship Him with their lips but not their hearts, and yet they are clueless.
If we paid closer attention to God, He would show us what we need to see in order to serve Him better while on social media. But, in order to pay close attention to Him, we must first, take our eyes off of us. Over the years, I have learned that God is not seeking the “likes”. We must participate in His work, if we are His, and love Him sufficiently to do so. We should pray that God will use us to reach the hearts of others. Even if that means only reaching one person’s heart for God. As we pray, we should ask God to help us find those on social media who are in need of prayers. Let Him reveal that to us. We should post with humility in our hearts, knowing that it is not about us, and that only His will matters.
I know that God used some people in my life to lead me to Him. Yet, years later, when He was calling me to Him and I was too attached to these people, He showed me that they had become a stumbling block because they had been living the life of the Pharisees. Initially, I was shocked to learn these people were not as holy as everyone in my Church saw them, but there was something else. I learned that we are never too low or too high up for God to use us in His work to redeem the world. He can use us with our cooperation, or it can be in spite of us. I also learned how fragile walking with God is. While we have everyone around us applauding our prouesses, we forget to assess how He sees us, because we never asked Him, we simply assume He agrees with man’s assessment of us.
The moral of the story is, in everything in the Christian life, we are always in a worship mode. Always in a servant mentality, and always living for Him in whatever we do.
Oswald Chambers says:
Once we realize that Jesus has served us even to the depths of our meagerness, our selfishness, and our sin, nothing we encounter from others will be able to exhaust our determination to serve others for His sake.
No one can lead you where they have not been with God for themselves!
Bye for now,