Spiritual Dullness

 

“Stay alert!  Watch out for your enemy, the devil.  He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.”  1 Peter 5:8

There are so many different platforms of social media and streaming to keep us well entertained if we allow it.  If we are not careful, these platforms can make their way into our hearts and have their way of changing how we function.  Let me see if I can explain what I mean.

Before television, telephones, computers, cell phones, our method of communication and learning was very different.  Children played outside for hours. There were no video games or cable television to keep them occupied.  Cartoons were shown on Saturday mornings and there were holiday specials such as A Charlie Brown Christmas or Frosty the Snowman.  Now, cartoons are so common and probably 24/7.  Video games have intensified.  Our brains have become so used to these changes in technology that going back would seem prehistoric.  Imaging having to use hard copy encyclopedias over the internet or kids playing old school video games over the advanced technology games of today or even telling a kid they have to wait for the weekend to watch their favorite cartoon, and they only have a choice of the Flintstones, Jetsons, Bugs Bunny or Woody Woodpecker.  Times have changed and so have our methods of doing things.  Our minds have become so fast paced that simplicity seems dull.  Be careful.

I am not much of a fan of social media or television, etc.  However, I do enjoy watching sermons on TV by Billy Graham or watching a few good sermons on YouTube by a few pastors that I believe to be very solid.  In fact, there came a point in time where I even had a Facebook page.  I used the page as a tool to share Jesus – absolutely nothing else.  Then, I opened an Instagram page to do the same.  Then I tried making YouTube videos to encourage others.  I was now using YouTube (listening to the best preachers) to learn what the Bible had to teach me.  I mean, God most definitely anointed them, and I was learning.  But the same way it would be difficult for kids to go back to playing old school video games and TV shows that entertained our generation, I was finding it difficult to concentrate on just sitting and reading my Bible.  I have now introduced my mind to so much that I could barely focus on quiet reading time.  I became spiritually dull.  I say that because my dependency on learning God’s Word became more and more dependent on a good sermon and not the Holy Spirit.  It didn’t matter if everything I was watching was to edify me spiritually.  I neglected the TRUE source of life and that is my personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

So be careful.  The enemy is subtle but quite strategic.  He will take your good intentions and devour you through them if you let him.  Despite technologies’ advancements, there is no substitute for time with God Himself and what He alone can teach you through His Word if you are willing to just turn everything else off and sit in His presence.

“Jesus answered, ‘If anyone [really] loves Me, he will keep My word (teaching); and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our dwelling place with him.’”  John 14:23