What if Jesus Were on Facebook?
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What if Jesus Were on Facebook?
by Don Blackwell
I wake up, grab my iPhone, turn off the alarm, and
update my Facebook status. On the way to school I
scroll through my friends' status updates, updating
mine with the song on my iPod.
At lunch, I take a picture of me and my friends and
upload it to Facebook.
Now, I am chatting with my best friend in Tennessee.
Status update: "Good night all. I'll text you in the
morning." Such is the day of a typical American young
person.
Facebook has taken the cyber world by storm and our
social lives forever in a different direction.
Compete.com ranked Facebook as the most used social
network in the world.
According to Facebook's own stats page, there are
currently more than 350 million active users, and 65
million people are accessing Facebook through their
phones/mobile devices. They say that the average user
has 130 Facebook friends and spends more than 55
minutes a day on their site.
What if Jesus was on Facebook and he sent you a friend
request. We know that such is not possible, but for the
sake of illustration pretend.
Would you have to stop and think before you accepted
it? Would you have to look through your pictures to be
sure that you don't have any immodest pictures or
anything tasteless?
Maybe make sure that you don't have any pictures taken
in inappropriate places? Would you go back over your
postings to be sure that you haven't said anything
crude or inappropriate?
Would you scan through your list of favorite movies and
music, perhaps deleting a few before you let Jesus on
your site? What about the games you play? Quizzes you
take?
Is there anything that would make you stop and say to
yourself, "I think I'll delete that before I let Jesus
on my site?" If the answer is "Yes," then why not go
ahead and take it off? The fact of the matter is the
Lord does look at our Facebook pages!
Proverbs 15:3 says, "The eyes of the Lord are in every
place keeping watch on the evil and the good."
Not only God is watching me on Facebook, but other
people are watching. What they see on my Facebook site
affects what they think about me, and the church, and
Christianity.
What if I have my "religious preference" listed as
"church of Christ," and then I have pictures posted of
me at a nightclub, or dancing, or at the beach
immodestly dressed, or with an alcoholic beverage?
Or what if my status update has immoral lyrics? Or
maybe I'm venting, and running someone else down. We
ask, "What effect is it going to have on my non-
Christian friend who looks at my site?"
He might say to himself, "I do better than that, and I
don't even pretend to be a Christian!" Or he might
think, "What a hypocrite!"
Imagine that you are surfing Facebook, and you see that
Jesus has his own site. You are excited, so you send
him a friend request. Would he accept it?
Most of us when we receive a friend request have some
sort of criteria before we indiscriminately accept
someone as our friend.
We want to know if we know the person. We glance at his
information, his friend list, where he lives, etc. Does
Jesus have criteria for friend requests? Sure he does!
He said, "You are my friends if you do whatever I
command you"(John 15:14). Therefore, to be a friend
of Jesus, you have to obey him. In light of this,
Christian friend, ask yourself "Would Jesus accept my
friend request?"
Before you answer, consider your faithfulness in
attending worship, your Bible study habits, your
efforts to teach others, your giving, the way you treat
other people, etc.
Now, with your answers in mind, "Would Jesus accept your
friend request?"
___________
Don is the preacher for the North Charleston Church of
Christ in Charleston, South Carolina. He also works
with the Gospel Broadcasting Network.
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