Mastering Social Media: A Spiritual Perspective

no one can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or he will be devoted to one and despise the other you cannot serve God and Mammon so this word master I think of social media in the same category as money sports entertainment fame etc and all of them I think fall into this category of Mammon but it's interesting to note that Jesus didn't say you cannot have God and Mammon he said you cannot serve god and mammon so the issue with Mammon has to do with rulership that means does it control you [00:01:37]

just like there's nothing inherently sinful in money itself the danger with money is that it can have power over you in the same way there's nothing inherently wrong in social media as long as what you're looking at or reading is not sinful the danger in social media is in the power that it can have already so if social media is your slave that means you have control over it then you're putting it to good use just like if money is your slave then you're putting it to good use [00:02:38]

but if social media is your master that means it has control over you and you find that you're always responding to the pull of social media then you must seek to be free from that power just like you want to be freed from any thing that has power over you except God himself I've heard it said that one way to know what your Idol is is by looking at what is the first thing you think about in the morning [00:03:23]

so for example as soon as you wake up in the morning if you find that you're getting on your phone or your computer to check social media perhaps that is your master the second word I want you to think about is the word entangled entangled that's in second Timothy now first Timothy chapter 2 no this second Timothy chapter 2 verse 4 2nd Timothy chapter 2 verse 4 Paul writes to Timothy who he refers to as a young person as a young man [00:04:09]

so it's clear that it is possible for normal everyday life things to entangle us and social media can be like that as well um think of entanglement like a heavy ball and chain attached to your leg if you had a heavy ball and chain attached to your leg you can survive it won't kill you but it's going to be very difficult to live your life every time you have to get up from the chair is very slow if you have to go to work it'll take you a long time [00:05:38]

if you have to catch the bus you may miss the bus because it'll take you such a long time to get on the bus so everything is very sluggish and it's the same thing spiritually as well if the everyday things of life become an entanglement that means they're attached to you in some way that you can't get your mind off of it or you can't stop yourself from all is checking your phone or looking on Facebook or Instagram and it's become an entanglement and it will slow down your spiritual life [00:06:21]

remember the spiritual life is a race so all the more reason that we have no attachment nothing that slows us down another picture that has helped me is think of it like a a bottle of very expensive perfume that you have but there's a hole at the bottom and over a period of time that hole will drain the bottle of everything that's in there all that precious perfume and think about those little moments during the day where if you're not careful they can become like little holes at the bottom [00:06:55]

of your bottle of perfume and that bottle of perfume that you have near young people is your time very very very precious there's no amount of monetary money value that you can put on that time that you have and these things social media if you're not master over them can become like little holes in the bottle at the bottom of this precious bottle of perfume that you have and one day you'll wake up in your 30s or 40s and wonder where did all that time go [00:07:41]

the only thing I'll say here is to be especially careful of interactions on social media because social media allows you to develop a personality and a world of imagination as it were that is artificial because online you can make yourself out to be somebody that you're not in real life and that's that's dangerous ultimately God intended for us to be people who interact with each other face-to-face and even if you're the relationship with somebody you end up marrying begins long-distance or over social media [00:10:06]

eventually when you get married you have to be face-to-face with that person that's how God intended our lives to be on this earth so getting too caught up with how things are on social media or on the Internet can not only lead you into a lot of temptation and sin but it can end up in heartbreak you may you may make that online interaction to be more than it actually is and more than the other person thinks it is in your imaginary world could somebody come crashing down [00:10:55]

as with regard to mixed group co-ed group chats as long as the conversation in those chats is not sinful or flirtatious then I don't see anything wrong with it because for most of us if not all of us are school or workplace environments are co-ed there are boys and girls men and women there and so likewise those group chats are okay as long as the content and the purpose of that group is not sinful or flirtatious in any way [00:14:16]

if the sole purpose of posting something on Facebook or tweeting about something is to vent that frustration that's inside it's never healthy if it comes out if the purpose of it is to just get it off your chest especially if you're doing it about somebody else where you're speaking about somebody or some group of people it would first of all be a form of gossip or slander which the Bible forbids but as I mentioned earlier social media allows you to hide behind your phone or your computer [00:20:57]