Worried About Our Image And Our Space Up On the Internet

I first got the idea for this title shortly after I heard Lecrae's song "Go Hard" several years ago:

"Oh man, we ain't focused on the war. We're just kicking it,

Worried about our image and our space up on the internet.

Take me out of the game, coach. I don't want to play no more.

If I can't give it all I've got and leave it out there on the court.

Thank You for the grace, for the will and the desire.

Got me living for Your glory instead of living to retire.

But I pray I'll never tire of going hard for Messiah.

I don't need no motivation. You're the Reason I'm inspired!"

I guess I could describe myself as an internet missionary. Jonathan Edwards resolved to use new inventions of mankind for advancing the gospel. In our day, perhaps the best example of this is the internet. Right now, few people in the civilized world have not had exposure to the internet. Nearly everyone I know uses it daily. And many people use it to a point of "addiction", or as I prefer to call it, idolatry.

Having used the internet for well over a decade, it is interesting to note how it has evolved into a tool where we ourselves have a significant influence over its content. The top five websites in the world right now are Google, Facebook, YouTube, Yahoo, and Blogger. All provide some means for the users to submit their own content, and Facebook, YouTube, and Blogger exist for almost the sole purpose of allowing people to say, "This is who I am. This is what I like. I want people anywhere, or at least my friends, to read what I write, see the photos I take, watch the videos I make, and visit the links that I like."

William Shakespeare wrote that all the world is a stage and all of the men and women on it are merely players. I submit to you that all the web is also a stage, which gives all of its players visibility to anyone in the world. Nearly everyone today, my parents' generation and younger, has a web presence, even babies.

So, how are you using your stage? Is it, to you, a means to promote the gospel, to become aware of the needs in the world so that you can pray about them and do something about them if possible, to edify and strengthen others in the faith? If you cannot use it this way, it is better to immediately throw it by.

I say all of this as an exhortation because there is so much potential for us to make much of Christ in new media, yet many people just waste their time with it and use it to say what frivolities they are pursuing with their friends. May I say Farmville and Mafia Wars? If you do use the internet to game, may I ask you: are you even in the real war, or just in a fake war with no eternal or even temporal significance? Friendships grow deeper when the camaraderie occurs because of a real, significant cause - not when we use our time together to pass along even innocent internet memes that result from either our sinful culture or Christians' just wasting their time.

The internet can make us forget about the "war" by giving us mere images and videos of the "war" while taking us off of the battlefield. If I see an image or a story about a country that is closed to the gospel, faithful missionaries risking their lives in the 10/40 Window, or Christians being persecuted, my first reaction should be to pray - hard - and do something, not to just keep paging through images and stories and think, "Maybe God should do something; I'll just go back to my life." This is a reaction of wartime living as applied to how we spend our time.

Does a soldier spend all of his time at the fort? For some, it is their job to stay in the fort and support the other troops. But God has given us this gospel that must be shared. Even those called to hold the rope for missionaries who go down in the well must go down into their local wells themselves. And this is an indictment on me; I rarely share my faith with unbelievers outside the internet. And my unbelieving friends probably just ignore what I have to say on the internet.

Also, my internet browsing habits reveal who or what I really love. I don't spend as much time reading every obscure sports statistic about people who I will never meet as I did before. I frequently visit the various blogs that I list in the sidebar of this site. This is an evidence of God working in my life. But, as Json raps in "Chisel Me", "Am I in love with God or in love with theology?"

Constantly browsing theological sites and switching between browser tabs splits your attention, especially if some of the other sites have nothing to do with God. You must have time alone with God in secret if you are to grow in satisfaction and delight in Him. You cannot take technology with you into that secret place. In a sense, technology is a very great help because it allows ready access to so many resources for advancing the Kingdom and it gives a stage for us as individuals and groups to promote the gospel and make much of our Lord. But, everything in moderation, except for sin, which must be put to death. If I go to that secret place and I am playing with my phone, my heart is divided, even if I am looking at a theological resource - because it says, "Lord, You are not enough. I need this too, or I will not be satisfied."

Based on this, I would also say that we profit from having a printed copy of the Bible. As helpful as commentaries, study notes, and the like can be, I found that after I only read a study Bible for several years, I relied too heavily on the study notes and not on what the Word of God was actually saying. Similarly, in the secret place we must be able to spend time with our full attention on the Word. Always using a phone app as our primary Bible can introduce many more distractions than just reading it in a book.

I realize we are a multitasking generation, and those after us are inheriting that trait from us. Even as I write this, I am working on a Tagalog lesson in Rosetta Stone. But Christ states that the greatest commandment is to love Him with our whole heart, with our whole soul, with our whole mind, with our whole strength - not to divide our attention.

If we want to be chiseled, realize this: the Lord's chisel stops at nothing.