I’ve never seen a good selfie,
mine or anyone else’s. You know what I’m talking about. They are posted all
over FaceBook and every other social media site.
They are never very flattering. I
mean, how many selfies have you seen that should be framed and put on a wall? When
I take a selfie, my nose suddenly looks like the honker of a goose. In order to
make my nose look decent (and, let’s be honest, I don’t really love my nose…thanks
mom for passing on that gene to me) I’d
need a selfie stick the length of Texas. And then, some other part of me would
look bad.
Some selfies are taken by “dumb”
smart phones, which means the shot is taken by clicking a reflection in the
bathroom mirror. Really? I don’t need to see your filthy bathroom, or you
without your shirt on…wait until you get fully dressed please.
My smart phone allows me to “turn
the lens around” at the push of a button so I can take my selfie more
conveniently. It’s also more convenient if you have spinach in your teeth, it
acts like a bathroom mirror (yes daughter, I’m thinking of you).
As a culture we have become so
self-absorbed that the best pictures we can take are of ourselves; as if the
world is just waiting with baited breath to see another bad picture of myself posted so they can “like” it.
This self-focus bleeds into other
areas of our life as well. It feeds the lie that life is all about me, and
everyone else should notice.
STOP!
It’s time we stopped living out
our Christianity like we’re taking a selfie. It’s not about you. It’s about
Jesus and what He wants. It’s about
living the life He’s called you to
live. There is no part of it that is
about you, your convenience, how you feel or how your needs are met!
It is about loving, serving and
living in a way that reflects the beauty of our Savior.
A friend of a friend of a friend
(does that distance it enough?) recently told a friend that she doesn’t really get
up to go to church anymore because it’s her only day off and it just isn’t
worth it.
That’s a Christian selfie.
Church isn’t about you. It’s
about Him and how he wants you to
relate to His people. It’s not about
what you get out of it, but what you put into it. You will never be fully his if
you aren’t involved in the things that are uniquely Him. If you’d look
outward instead of inward you might find that you are there for someone else!
The Apostle Paul, in Romans 13, tells us to love others as well as we love
ourselves.
Another friend of a friend of a
friend gets put out when people ask her for money to go on a mission trip. Her
thought is that everyone knows she has money and asks because they think, “Oh,
she can afford it.”
Christian selfie.
Whose money is it anyway? Has she
ever thought about praying that God would let her know if this is the best use
of His money? She’s been given her wealth for a reason…maybe it’s to advance
the Kingdom of God.
What? Your church doesn't do it your way? Christian Selfie. What about not serving because I
just don’t have time? Christian selfie. What if Jesus didn’t make time to spend 33 years on earth to
make a way for us to spend eternity with him?
Church…it is time to stop
focusing on yourself and start living completely for Him. It's time to rid your life of the Christian selfies that keep you from becoming the man or woman he calling you to become. The days are growing darker
and our King has a purpose and plan, created long ago, for us to shine our “flash”
out into the darkness to point the way.
