“And to the angel of the church in Sardis write, ‘These things says He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars: “I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. 2 Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God. Read Revelation 3:1-6
Memory Verse: Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God, James 4:4.
Almost and if not everything on planet earth has a definition assigned by man; after all, God has given us the power of dominion right from the start and through this we are able to label things as we wish and desire. Having studied the human race, we seem to have this desire to be categorized, belong to a class, a crew, a group or gang of our own, this desire grows and pushes us into continuous and endless striving to fit in.
A clear example is the idea of acquiring followers on social media. Once you start your social media journey, if conscious effort is not taken, you could easily get caught up in the number of followers in your page. The hunger to increase them surfaces from seeing how many followers’ other people have. That’s why in recent times, we see online fame being defined by how many followers people have and this desperation to fit in pushes people to pay social media influencers or companies to either boost their followers or inflate the count so either active or not, they want to be recognised by how many followers and likes on each content being dropped on their social media page. The focus has shifted from “what God thinks of me” to “how others think or see me”
This competitive nature continues to drive our everyday lives and it’s fast becoming some sort of addiction to the extent we rarely get to spend any quality time doing something productive asides from trying to keep up with worldly trends. It’s reached an extent where an individual will now rather have a thousand illegitimate followers on social media in place of a hundred true followers who are legitimate, who will add value and are interested in what the individual has to offer. It’s all about our reputation and the need to fit into society just so we can we be classed as part of a certain league as defined by the world is unnecessary.
Even more painful is that because we spend so much of our time catching up with the world, we sometimes lose focus of what’s truly important; our relationship with God. The church in Sardis experienced a real examination of who they were and although to the rest of the world they were the perfect church. John referred to them as a dead Church. The church however had a few things they could savage only if they retraced their steps sooner rather than later, their reputation before God was bad, literally in God’s sight they were not in a good standing and far from the perfect church.
God is not against enjoying the things He created in the world, after all, He created everything for our own benefit and as said earlier, gave us dominion over all He created Genesis 1:28 but there is a different between dominating and being dominated.
Most of us today have lost control of the things God put in our care and just like king Solomon, the world has started controlling us. Due to our love for the things of the world, our hearts are daily turned away from God and though we may be building up rank in this world, we are losing our place with God and growing a bad reputation before Him.
Can God really vouch for us like He did for Job when the devil conversed with Him?
The world may have ranked King Solomon as the greatest king of all in wisdom, wealth and the likes but he was doing evil in the sight of God and for this reason the Lord tore his kingdom apart and gave it to his servants, 1Kings 11:9-11. what is more important to you? Is it the report of man or that of God? If we are constantly twisting and turning the truth just to fit into the world, then truthfully we cannot be said to be of God. If the way God sees us is important then we will continue to walk daily in ways that glorifies His name.
PRAYERS:
- Father you for you for another amazing week just ending
- Thank you for your grace and favor
- Help me from today Lord to focus on you and rise above the distractions of the world
- Help me to be steadfast, unmovable and continue in the mandate which you have assigned to me
- Forgive me of my shortcomings o Lord and help me to live above sin
- Receive my sacrifice of praise for in Jesus mighty name I pray, AMEN.
