PASTOR’S CORNER, Chuck Scroggs, Central Christian Church, Liberal
Oh no! What is going on? My social media is down! I have no YouTube, X, What’sApp, or Instagram. Even my Facebook is gone! I picked up my phone and something has happened to it! I am unable to call out I have lost all my connections with the outside world! I got rid of my landline and now I have no backup to call or connect to my family and friends. I hurried to my computer thinking “Surely my e-mail will work – it won’t be as good as my phone or Facebook but at least I will not be completely cut off.” Oh NO! I am cut off because even my computer is down.
That means my smartphone is not going to work either. I decided to go get in my car and head toward town thinking surely somebody will be open, but when I got in my car and tried to start it, there was no response. A voice from my OnStar kept saying: “You are unauthorized to operate this vehicle.” OnStar had a signal challenge and was keeping me from using my automobile. Living alone was never a problem with all these forms of media, even being so far out in the country. The only thing in my house that was connecting me to the outside world was an AM radio.
“Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” Phil 3:8 ESV
I am sure you realize that this is a fictional story. But there has never been a time in human history where we have been more distracted. Go to about any restaurant in Liberal and watch as families and couples sit across from each other and are consumed by their phones! Do we realize that this story, even though it is fiction, can happen? So, I would ask the obvious question, what would you do? Or maybe a better question is what do we do now?
I watched a program that was trying to inform us how videogames were ruining the young minds of our children and how there are older adult children living in their parents’ basements right now and still hooked on these games. One father, coming to the end of his rope and his preteen son’s complete infatuation with gaming, gathered every game and took them outside and laid them on the grass. (They added up to hundreds of dollars) As he fired up the riding mower his son came out the back door of the house to see his dad head into the pile of games. What was witnessed next was a young boy having a complete emotional breakdown! Now this may not be the way to handle it, but the father had purchased all the videos and now realized what a mistake he had made.
In scripture, we see the importance of Jesus Christ in our lives. Paul was ready to lay down everything and count it lost if he could have in place of all those thing JESUS!
Will we be the kind of folks who have to lose important things before we find out what is most important? Let’s start today, no matter how challenging it might be, to begin to put Christ and the things of God back to their proper place in our lives. Even if you start with just one thing and put proper limits on it, you will begin to see great changes!
And be able to say with Paul: I count all things lost for the worth of knowing Jesus.
