For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. Phil. 3:18-21
I do spend a lot of time on Twitter or X I must confess. Instagram and Facebook get little time and I've never downloaded TikTok. We just took a trip with our 13 year old niece to California and she said, "Isn't Facebook for old people?" I fear for her development and my other 10 grandchildren as they grow up in this cell phone era. The stuff I see on X makes me cringe. I like X because it keeps me up to date on my baseball team, the news (have to fact check everything though), Christian leaders and edifying posts, Christian music, Pokemon Go events and more. But other things pop up like young adult influencers who break records of how many people you can have sex with in a day, masturbating live on Only Fans, drunken parties, showing off perfect bodies, and podcasts discussing every lewd behavior imaginable with millions of views. Just saw that Chelsea Handler sleeps with multiple men and if anyone wants to get serious, they are gone. Cherlize Theron says it's a turn off if guys say "You want to make love?" She says just say, "You want to have sex?" Clavicular says that his signature move is to approach women with an erection. It's shameful for me to even repeat this stuff!
Paul would describe these posts as "taking glory in their shame". In other words, the things that they should be ashamed of is what they are posting and actually getting famous for. He talks about this in his letter to the Romans as he is talking about the downward spiral of sin when he says,
"Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them."
He says that they approve of, or in modern day vernacular "give likes to" or "follow" people who take glory in what should be shameful. Was Paul prophesying about today? No, things have always been this bad, in fact God flooded the earth and started over because 4000 years ago it was worse. Never before, however, has debauchery been at our fingertips 24/7 before. Our poor kids and grandkids. As Allison Eide sings, "Sorry if you're growing up and you're 15 and living in the 21st century..."
How can we not succumb? My dad would say, "Keep looking up!" Set our eyes and affections on the return of the Lord and as the saying goes, "Make Heaven crowded" Spend more time in the Word and talking to God than we do scrolling or texting. Spend more money on expanding the kingdom than our waste lines and then spending money on Ozempic to reduce them. As the song goes,
"Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face;
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace." Post that!
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