In his letter to the church at Corinth, Paul wrote:
I myself, Paul, appeal to you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ—I who am humble when face to face with you, but bold toward you when I am away! - I ask that when I am present I need not show boldness by daring to oppose those who think we are acting according to human standards. Indeed, we live as human beings, but we do not wage war according to human standards;for the weapons of our warfare are not merely human, but they have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ. We are ready to punish every disobedience when your obedience is complete. II Corinthians 10:1-6
We live in a world of an immense amount of information, and it is doubling every 13 months! In a lot of ways we find this fact remarkable, overwhelming, and terrifying all at the same time. On one hand it is great to have that amount of information at our disposal, but on hand how do we make sure that we are the masters of it rather than the other way around? Much of this information comes to us in the form of media, and if we are not careful, we can be influenced by it in ways that we don’t want or that are counter to God’s Word.
Paul says that we are to “take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” It is not too much of a stretch to say this includes our interaction with media and its influence on us. The big question is “HOW”? How do we keep media in its proper place? How do we take it captive?
The verse before, reminds us that the “weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh.” The battle is not solely ours. We need to invite God into our media lives; to allow Him complete control of and amount of the media we consume.
We live in a wonderful age of information, learning, technology, and the ability for connection. (In fact, it is media that has brought you this very devotion!) God just needs to be Lord of it all and we need to allow Him to lead us in it. As you consider this, ask God to show you if your media usage in check. Is it drawing you toward the Father or away from Him?
My hope and prayer for you is that you continue to seek to make God the Lord of your ENTIRE life.
-Pastor Todd