While we’re waiting for the Rapture, let’s live for Christ.
Let’s begin by ridding ourselves of things that encumber us, that keep us in the dark and keep us from seriously and diligently learning the Scriptures found in the Holy Bible.
“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1)
Ready? Here’s a start.
Suppose you have an inkling that the fashionable media everyone raves about has exerted an influence on you that is ill-conceived, unhealthy and just possibly unnecessary. What do you do about it?
Can you quit an addiction, just like that? What steps would you take?
Identify and appraise the particular activity. Otherwise you will shadow-box a phantom. Then decide; make a decision and a commitment to stop being a robotic slave to that “addiction.”
You can quit. Yes, simply, quit.
That also involves repentance. The thing itself has multiple connections to sin.
Replace it with an alternative that is personally and mutually edifying and brings glory to God’s name.
What activity or behavior are we talking about here?
Hint: It consumes inordinate amounts of your time and money. It is also incrementally remolding your personality, your character, your living habits and your relationships.
Worst of all, it mimics or counterfeits those things the Lord provided us with, things that humans have always thrived on; the real things that are essential for the health of our families, society, culture, nation, and civilization. They not only edge out and replace what God gave us, they invalidate what’s real.
Now, I’m afraid the hold that authoritative information sources have on our culture have made it all but impossible to intelligently communicate all the dangers they present. (Or list all the harm that’s been done.) Almost no one understands what has always driven mind-numbing television, and now the drone-like “go with the masses flow” of social media; Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Why have those technological wonders succeeded in turning their dependents into covetous, phony-sensory addicts? But wait! (It’s all for Jesus some proclaim.) Almost no one ever thinks to step back and analyze what’s happened, let alone make any attempt to break the chains that define the autocracy’s control over our thoughts, beliefs, and actions. Christians are not immune to this power play.
We have a vague idea of who these autocrats are. They are part of the anti-Christian new world order, in its various manifestations. We are satisfied to shake our fists at the scapegoat image their ministry of truth gives us – a preconditioned response that lulls us into a smug complacency. “We showed them, huh!” They laugh.
No, they aren’t laughing like they used to. We were conquered too readily. We are no longer a worthy opponent. They won; we’re relieved. Just keep the pleasing images flashing before us. Big brother’s supply is unlimited and we’re tired of fighting.
Most American children have never wandered quietly through the woods, startled by frogs, squirrels, or grasshoppers—wonderful creatures just as startled by a human’s intrusion. Instead, kids follow the antics of boring, inane cartoon versions of reality with hidden subliminal messages designed to take them far away from God.
Real animals don’t speak intelligently and they don’t have souls. Only on the screen. Better, the frolicking animals you encounter in nature have personalities and instincts. In fact, so much have they impressed humanity, that they have frequently been worshipped.
The moon’s a baboon! Thus, the ancient Egyptian god, Thoth. Modern caricaturists cannot even aspire to that. Nor can public TV’s nature programs. Yet we choose these manufactured versions of reality over the ones God created.
People of all ages thumb along the information highway. Are meaningful authentic connections made? Do people reach a destination in the heart and soul of another person? Do prodigious amounts of data lead to anything approaching wisdom and knowledge, or tell us anything we must know? Or is it yet another battle for one-upmanship?
No. No. A thousand times, no.
We need no other mediator of information other than the Lord Himself:
1 Timothy 2:5 says, “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”
There are certain religions that ordain people as priests. That’s unbiblical, but it’s a step-up from where we’re at now.
There is no invention, no mechanism—not even one that mimics us—that can mediate between us and the Lord God who created us. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. And He resides in the hearts of those who belong to Him through faith. He is not a series of zeroes and ones. He alone gives “…a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him” (Ephesians 1:17)
The machines we devise can remain tools to effectively perform the tasks necessary for daily living. Or they can replace human functions, dissolve our attachment to humanity, obliterate the boundaries God placed between us and that which would harm us; lay traps we cannot see—let alone avoid, because our senses are preoccupied, and deceive us into believing we are more than we are. (Or less.) We are only valuable to the extent that we are part of their web—so they have convinced us.
That’s step one explained. The rest of the steps are up to you.
They lied to you.
You believed them because you were brought up to believe you are really nothing more than a consumer. And the American Dream was worth attaining. But that dream is no longer so readily attainable, and if it were, the dream is not worth the nightmare that accompanies it.
Care to rejoin the human race the way God intended?