Just like you ought to visit the doctor for regular health screenings, it’s important to thoughtfully review how you’re using Social Media. In this day & age, Social Media use is a bit of a given. But as a Christian, you shouldn’t just mindlessly adopt cultural norms; instead, you should adopt the prophet Haggai’s admonition to “Consider your ways (Hg. 1:5,7).”
Social Media is a tool. But tools can be misused & abused. The hammer that helps you frame a wall, can also be used to crack a skull. It’s also possible to use the tool in the right way, but be rather clumsy with it. This is how thumbs are smashed, boards are cut too short, and paint splatters cover the floor.
You can also use a tool skillfully, but to the neglect of other duties. If you’re still swinging the hammer when your wife called you to dinner, or the kids need a bedtime story, or your homework still isn’t done, you’re skill with the tool is kinda beside the point. Neglecting your God-given duties & relationships is misusing the tool.
Do you slink off to Social Media to avoid your responsibilities? To enviously spy on what others have (or at least present to have)? To gawk upon the immodesty & unchastity of seducers? To give ear to the false doctrines of god-haters? To engross yourself in correcting the theology of everyone on the internet?
Don’t be passive when it comes to your own or your family’s use of Social Media. Better to do without it, than let it nuke the spiritual health of your home. In principle, the tool isn’t the problem, it’s your heart. Have you lifted it up to vanity, or have you set your heart to seek the glory of God alone, even in how you use Social Media?
There are dangers & foes all around us, and if we are neglectful of God’s warnings to be watchful we will succumb to these follies & sins. Instead of using the tools of technology with wisdom & gratitude, too often they are used for greedy indulgence. Put simply, this is pathway to enslavement. But the Gospel calls us out of servitude to be freemen. If this exhortation hits home, repent. Where you have lacked vigilance, ask the Lord for forgiveness. Where you have misused the good tools God’s providence has given, seek His pardon. Where you have idly wasted the precious time granted to you, trust in God’s mercy. And then, by His Spirit, seek to diligently use all your time & all your tools to serve the Lord and advance His Kingdom.
Our deliverance from the bondage of sin enables us to rightly receive all the gifts which God gives, including tools of technology. The joy of sins forgiven should spur you to offer all things up to God, seeking His wisdom as to how we can glorify Him.
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