"Here's another way to put it: You're here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We're going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I'm putting you on a light stand. Now that I've put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven"
Did you catch that last part? You will prompt people to open up with God. By you shining your light...you can show a lost world a ray of hope. But you can't do it by going out and living a life full of garbage.
This post has been prompted by me seeing a lot of friends or acquaintances who continually post things out on the internet about the happenings in their life. What their doing, watching, listening to. Have you heard the statement, garbage in, garbage out? Well, it's true. What you choose to fill yourself full of is what eventually comes out. It works very much the same as what you are is what you eat. The stuff we put into our bodies is in direct correlation to our overall health and well-being. You put nothing but junk in your body...your body is going to be junk. It will emit junk. If we insist on placing lemonade in our engine, instead of oil, we will destroy it. We need to take care of our bodies. Just the same, what we put into our mind and our heart via music, movies etc should be closely monitored.
God is not an evil God. He is not vengeful, but He has given us a mechanic's manual for our well being. He very plainly tells us things to avoid. How many Christians are avoiding those very things? Are we being drawn into these poisons that seem to be cleverly disguised as mere fiction, love stories or here is a good one, "it's just a good movie!" Poison is poison. A little recreational poison can be as lethal as a lot of poison from the hand of an assassin. I for one am tired of seeing my fellow brother's and sister's being drawn away into an obsession with things that are not of God. As cliche' as it may have sounded...what ever happened to "What Would Jesus Do?" When did we, as Christians, stop checking ourselves on that? As parents, why aren't we watching more closely to the things that our children are listening to or watching? I too am at fault here...I need to be reprimanded. Take this post from a movie review...just one section on language content. I won't name the movie, but it is a very popular movie out there than many Christian kids have been watching and adults too.
"Over 70 f-words, including a handful used in sexual contexts and several combined with "mother." About two dozen s-words. And close to a dozen combined misuses of God’s and Jesus’ names. (God’s name is coupled with "d‑‑n.") After that leadoff, it hardly seems worth mentioning that there are plenty of milder profanities, numerous references to male and female anatomy, and an obscene gesture. "
That's just the language content part of the review. Doesn't even touch the sexual content or other parts of the review. Would you even want to know? So....is this really what you want your kids watching, and moreover, would you feel good about watching it?
I think we really need to take a second look at the WWJD.
As Christians...our lights are growing very dim.
Hi Val
ReplyDeleteI agree so much with what you have to say about today's movies (just one area of agreement). My hubby (particularly)and I used to watch quite a few movies and go out occasionally to see them. Seemed like a pleasant pastime, all the pleasant past associations with pleasure and popcorn, etc., but over the past couple of years God has been putting me to sleep about 15 minutes into most videos we bring home, and then I watched a really scathing and eye-opening indictment against movies in general by a person of my faith community and it really made me think... is it possible that even Disney movies are filled with stuff I don't really have time for in my life? Having our precious granddaughter here for a week was another eye-opener... this little girl is a child of her generation, she can actually get on to Youtube to watch Justin Bieber sing "Baby" (because she can spell and type Baby-- she is 4 years old)and she really really enjoys DVDs like Snow White, etc. Watching Snow White, etc. (the whole fairy tale and Barbie/Barney genres)I was for the first time in my life struck by how the occult permeates these stories. So, my husband and I made a trip to the library to pick up old classics (Black Beauty being one) and lots of books. She loves books. And we kept her so busy with outdoor activities and trips to the beach that she was ready for bed early every night (and then Ed/Lolo read and read to her-- she did get him to read "Snow White" but he also read lots of other books lol). I personally have lost my desire to watch movies-- or at least for any at the box office today-- and that is a blessing for me. We don't have TV. But we do (hubby and I), of course, spend inordinate amounts of time on the internet, some of it great for 'connecting', some of it just uselessness and distraction from doing the work our gifts equip us to do... God bless you for speaking out with a strong (and warm) voice!