Thursday, April 7, 2011

A Philippians 2 attitude--Even in a Blogging World

StatisticsTim Challies, a pastor and Christian author, wrote an excellent article on his blog this morning. He talks about fighting the urge to constantly check your number of readers and followers. Instead of caring so much about pleasing people you will probably never meet, he reminds us to focus on our direct circle of influence we have on family and friends. He wisely muses that it wouldn't matter much if he had thousands of happy readers but was neglecting his wife and treating her badly. Who is in your direct circle of influence at home?  Are there times you need to shut the computer and attend to the needs of your husband, kids, or friends?  How much time are you serving at church in comparison to your time spent blogging?

Bloggers often remind us to just blog because we love to do it and not to worry about popularity in the blogging world--don't obsess over numbers. Christians need to take it even a step further--we need to do everything in humility and for the glory of God, not ourselves. We can celebrate the creativity God gives us, but we need to make sure we do it while pointing to Him and encouraging others. Remember you are Christ's ambassador--His representative. As a Christian, we know every moment will have to be given an account to God someday. Do your readers know you are a Christian by your words and behavior, not just your profile paragraph?  Are you making sure you spend time in the Word and prayer daily--especially in comparison to the priority you give to blogging? . . . A thought for the day. . . I'll be thinking about what changes/application I can make.

Philippians 2:3-8
3Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Here is a link to Tim Challies blog post, which is written and explained much better than my post.

5 comments:

  1. What a great reminder--I know I definitely spend too much time checking and rechecking for comments and emails when I could be doing something good in the real world! Thanks for the reality check :-)

    Rachel @ Maybe Matilda

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  2. That's definately something to keep in mind. Amazing how easily we can get distracted from the truely important things in life.

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  3. Thank you so much for posting this. I needed to read it!! Can't wait to check out his post.

    {HUGS},
    kristi

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  4. Great words!! You know, when I started my blog I knew I couldn't leave God out, that's why I have the Chapel every Saturday. It's hard not to be focused on the numbers! I am amazed though that there are people in France and Austrailia reading my blog! Only God could do that...my opinion! Thanks for the reminder to keep my focus where it should be!

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  5. Wow. Smacked upside the head. In a good way. Philippians is my fav book in the bible. Such good stuff in there. :)

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