It’s important to follow God’s laws and be obedient to His Word, but social media and other forms of entertainment can sometimes get in the way of that.
Hi! I haven’t been posting on this blog in a very long time. So long in fact, that I almost ended the blog entirely. The past couple years have been the craziest of my entire life (but that’s for another time).
When the new year started, I made some goals for myself (shocking right?). Those goals included: getting in a closer relationship with Jesus and making healthy choices for my family. I’ve been working on this goal by:
- Making non toxic swaps for my home
- Learning a new homemade skill every month
- Committing to reading the whole Bible (with accountability)
- Reading Proverbs 31 everyday
- Taking an extended time off of Instagram
I’m learning everyday what it means to be a Christian wife and mother, but social media is not my instruction manual for that… the Bible is.
God’s Word should be the resource you use to guide your life. There have been way too many times that I have let Instagram or Pinterest tell me what my life should look like. What does that result in? That results in feelings of jealousy and inadequacy. That results in me spending too much of my time and money on things that give a certain “appearance” instead of things that God has purposed for my life.
This isn’t intended to be a “light” message. Something that I am going to bring up in almost every single blog post this year is John 14:15, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” If we claim to have a relationship with Christ, we should be striving to obey his commandments.
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
Romans 12:2
This verse is telling us that if we conform to the same things that the world is doing, then we won’t be able to discern the will of God. This means that when we look like the rest of the world, lines start to get blurred. “Oh it’s okay if I do this because…” or “that’s really not that big of a deal.”
“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”
Matthew 7:13-14
Things that used to give us that uneasy feeling, feel acceptable now. If you have gotten too close to the things of this world, then you aren’t able to differentiate what is sin and what is not.
The gate is narrow, but in our culture, we have a broad view of what is allowable and what is not. That’s very dangerous territory. The Bible teaches that it leads to destruction.
We are not supposed to look the way the rest of the world looks. Many of us are very lukewarm in this area. We are very quick to compromise in a lot of ways. There have been a lot of gray areas in our faith and we are quick to value comfort over conviction.
Social media can be an important tool in spreading the gospel. It is a great thing to be a light in this dark world, but don’t use that as an excuse. Like any addiction, it’s easy to say that it’s harmless when it’s actually an idol in your life.
This can often look like:
- turning to the internet instead of the Word of God when making decisions on how to parent your children (Proverbs 22:6)
- constantly buying something new because you saw it online and now you can’t get it out of your head (Matthew 6:19-20)
- endlessly scrolling on your phone instead of taking care of your other responsibilities.(1 Timothy 5:8)
- hiding behind your phone instead of cultivating the relationships in your life (Hebrews 10:25)
- opening up the comments section to read all the mean things everyone is saying (or saying them yourself) (Ephesians 4:29)
- spending your time catching up on social media rather than reading your Bible (Psalm 119:9-10)
- obsessing about likes to get the approval of the world (Galatians 1:10)
- obsessing about someone else’s life instead of the life of Jesus (1 John 5:21)
- being deceived into thinking that something is holy and biblical when it is not (2 Corinthians 11:13)
- compromising on the values and instructions taught in the Bible because you’re so consumed in the world (Romans 12:2)
I have been taking some time off Instagram to get my heart in order. I want to post encouragement to others, but I need my relationship with Jesus and my duty as a wife and mother to come first.
The intention of this post is not to tell people to delete all social media. The point is to encourage you to check your heart and make sure that you are walking the narrow path. If you love Him, obey His commands!
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