overbearing

John 15:19
If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.


In a world with so much stimulation - lights, color, screens, internet, sounds, bigger/better/now - it's really hard for me to step back and assess, rightly I might add, the state of my heart and the immediate circles therein.

So much is pressing to get in my brain. So much is digging to find root in my heart. It's almost disgusting how much of my time is spent filling myself with distraction. To be sure, there's moderate amounts of most things that are ok, but I can't help to think that all this input doesn't just sit there. Like some kind of reservoir of information that after all is spilled back out, a residual section remains, and it seeps down into my psyche.

Whatever it is I take in, good or bad, it holds some influence over me. (I realize this is a nominal approach to what I'm getting at, but bear with me.) So I ask myself, as a Christian, what things with Scripture in addition to, or instead of, am I letting indoctrinate me? I think a lot more things do influence us than we realize. And even more so, as Christians, I think we tend to hold on to the things that are not beneficial to us, though they may not be things of sin.

Thinking through my goals of the next few years, and wanting to go to unreached places for the Gospel, and that I want to plant a church, and the idea of "Don't waste your life", the profundities of how much uselessness I allow in my life, and I see others allow in their lives, is more than just a staggering shock, it's grounds for God to take everything away from us. And yet, by His grace He sustains us with the things we have and allows for us things to make us happy for enjoyment - not to be worshiped.

I'm going to end this overview here, but I think I'm going to continue looking intently at different ways that this intrusion of culture and world infects us, affects us and reflects us, with regards to Scripture.

Soli Deo Gloria