Brand New Eyes

Carrying on from our previous post! We talked a lil’ bit about the importance and power of words because God Himself spoke the world into existence and gave us our life by breathing into it into us (Genesis 2:7).

Why do our words matter then - especially on the internet where we can, y’know, speak what we want to without bearing much of a consequence. Life’s easier and things are simpler, when you don’t see the people you’re talking to right? 

No.

Nothing really changes that much because we still speak to, well… Other human beings, within the virtual world. That is all. What is dumbfounding is the fact that we think we can communicate something the same way we would in real life, and think we’d achieve different results (say something bad and think it doesn’t hurt).

Why don’t we look at some common issues:

1. Inappropriate Language

What I would also call - a limited use of vocabulary, resulting in individuals like ourselves finding comfort in using the same word over and over again in many forms (noun, verb, adjective, etc.) of the English language. Many of us (myself included) struggle with the words we use today. Notoriously offensive words don’t get to us that much anymore simply because we’ve been desensitized (heard them too often eh?).

But what’s scary about what we say isn’t about the level of control (or lack thereof) we have of our sloshing tongues! Check out what this dude says - “Their (prisoners) talk was just filled with vulgar bathroom language and sex language. It struck me at the time how a person’s purity or impurity of speech is often an indicator of purity or impurity of hear. (ESV Matthew 12:34 You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.)” (Wayne Grudem on Offensive Language) Oh crap. What is in your heart then? What is in mine? Gospel check - reality check.

2. Gossip

What I would also call - careless, tactless, not-so-behind-the-back slandering of others especially when social media basically publicizes what we say openly. Gossip solves nothing but satisfies our idolatrous hearts’ desires to put ourselves above others. 

Why don’t we consider this instead - “Let’s not talk to others about people’s faults. Let’s talk to them about their faults. It is easy - and far too tasty on the tongue of our sinful souls - to talk about them. […] Let’s be forthright and honest and courageous and humble. (Meaning approach people personally not gossip behind their backs!) Jesus was amazingly blunt at times. Love sometimes sounds like that. He could hav easily been accused of callousness or lovelessness. But we know he was the most loving person who ever lived. So let’s follow him in this matter.” (Talking to People Rather Than About Them- John Piper)

3. Grumbling & Complaining

I really do see many of you, nodding your heads along with me as we see the words ‘grumbling’ and ‘complaining’ unfolding across this screen. Truth is that we unload our universe of emotions and angst on the internet now that journaling and private writings don’t have much swag anymore. Well, some of you might be thinking, “Hey Mister Uptight why get so annoyed with people who unwind online? I mean, doesn’t everyone?”.  

We were made to praise and give thanks even, or dare I say, especially in the small things. “Paul said, “Do all things without grumbling.” Grumbling is an evidence of little faith in the gracious providence of God in all the affairs of our lives. And little faith is a dishonor to him. It belittles his sovereignty and wisdom and goodness. […] Pray for me, that I would be glad in the Lord and receive willingly from his hand all he designs for my holiness. Then, as Paul says in the next verse, I can be “a light in the world.” Grumbling only adds to the darkness because it obscures the light of God’s gracious, all-controlling providence.”  (Do All Things Without Grumbling - John Piper)

Up to this point, I hope you see that what we say and do online have great repercussions on ourselves, and also those around us. We don’t stop being Gospel-people in the online world, we don’t stop being Salt and Light there. Kingdom living is also about claiming Jesus’ kingdom in every single corner of this universe.

My prayer for you, and myself, is that:

1) We survive lengthy, wordy posts like this not because of annoying writers like myself, but because we’ve lost the art of reading and should definitely re-love the habit of reading (not just words consisting a 140 characters)

2) We find our identity in Jesus and His Gospel, “this means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17) because there is security in this identity and nowhere else

3) We learn to use social media in a way that glorifies God without making ourselves look like silly fools partaking blindly in what would otherwise be Christless, mindless activities online - “let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)

Till we meet again, continue using your social media and whatnots liberally and freely… There’re also always people who share your football sorrows online… Be a good steward of social media!

“You tell us that our words are a sure reflection of what’s filling our heart: “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45). So no mere promise to avoid gossip, idle chatter, reckless words, or coarse jesting will be enough. We must constantly be preaching the gospel to ourselves, filling our hearts with your beauty and bounty, Lord Jesus.” (A Prayer for a Wise, Healing Tongue - Scotty Smith)

The magical mystery of Twitter is that some of think it is magically pure magic. Still, it isn’t. Yet it is incredibly amazing how a 140 words can reveal the type of person we are (and the type of person we aren’t).  Why do you use Twitter (or Social Media for that matter?) or Facebook? What do you seek to achieve in sharing your voice with the online community (of friends, perhaps, if you’re still sure who they are behind those screens).

Well, you and I think Twitter is pretty useful. So to a certain extent, haters can back off… There are plenty of ways it can serve our daily lives, or even God’s work. For one, I definitely get engaged in it when there’s a football game or NBA game going on. 

Now thats some of our opinions, lets hear from some others - this is what Mister. John Piper says about it:

“Now what about Twitter? I find Twitter to be a kind of taunt: “Okay, truth-lover, see what you can do with 140 characters! You say your mission is to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things! Well, this is one of those ‘all things.’ Can you magnify Christ with this thimble-full of letters?”

To which I respond: 

The sovereign Lord of the earth and sky
Puts camels through a needle’s eye.
And if his wisdom see it mete,
He will put worlds inside a tweet.

(Why and How I am Tweeting, John Piper)

Well, I will not and cannot make it sound like my  Twitter account lives for the same, mighty purpose as Mister Piper’s: which he says, because “All things were created through Christ and for Christ.” (Colossians 1:6) the world needs to use it in a certain way - which he strives to do so… I suppose many of us will find that hard even if we do try! 

Since we mentioned Jesus, lets talk just a little, little bit about Him. So Twitter’s all about words right (heck, as many as you can within 140 characters to be exact). In that case, we’ll take a lil’ detour and check out what words have to do with Jesus - since He, is Mister Word after all (John 1:1 - God as Word, becoming Flesh on earth eventually)! 

We use words peculiarly naturally, and also necessary - on the average, guys speak about 6070 words a day while the girls trounce them with 8800 (got me wondering why!). So it is with that Word, Him, Jesus Christ. God created the this earth you’re currently existing in, with well…Words (Genesis 1)! In short, Jesus followed His Daddy’s plan (John 14:31) and made everything according to His Father’s grand design! If you can hang around with me on that, for now you’ll see that there’s something special about the Word, and hence words. Words have a sparkling power about them, so it seems.

Take a pause here and check this prayer out - its about words, and also about how Jesus uses them:

“Gracious Jesus, we love words. We especially love the way you use words to bring us healing, freedom and hope. You never shame us or defame us with words. You never manipulate or flatter us with words. You never repeat our failures to others; you only bring our sin and broknenness to your throne of grace, where they are buried in the sea of your redeeming love.” (A Prayer for a Wise, Healing Tongue, Scotty Smith)

Alright hold your horses, thats all we’re getting at here today. We’ve touched upon the power of words (and hence the power of Twitter, somewhat). And we’ve seen an idea of how Jesus uses words.

How do you use your words? Especially when you can speak without bearing much consequences… On Social Media. Be right back with more!

To be continued…

Danny

“These young people think they need constant access to social media the way they need oxygen for breathing.” (Steve Gallagher, some vice-principal somewhere on this planet)

I can’t help but notice, with close inspection my my own life too, that people appear to take on be entirely different personas in the virtual world and the real world. Heck, they’re not even the same person online as they are in real life. Is that scary? Does that scare you? Nevermind that it bothers me because if it hasn’t bothered you, in time to come, it will. Word.

With the smartphone and computer at our convenient disposal, its brilliantly simple to come across as the awesome, charming person we all hope to be, to the rest of the world (assuming you, dear reader, are the average normal homosapien, barring the fact that some of you may hate popularity or gaining favor in people’s eyes). So what we have here today, ourselves included, is a galaxy of dual-identity aliens, living two (sometimes separate and different) lives both in the virtual and real world. At this point, you’d probably ask, whats wrong with that? 

Well, because there’s something called the Gospel. If there wasn’t, why are we even talking about this in the first place? Check this out: “Another issue that seems to beset us when using social media is a tendency to exaggerate or falsify our identity. We tend to forget who we are when we’re in front of the keyboard. Sometimes, to our shame, we inflate ourselves and our agendas, providing an unrealistic view into our lives.” (If Facebook Tempts You)  Can you relate to that? I can. I used to be (maybe still am to a small extent) that insecure kind of person, hiding behind stupidphones (smartphones weren’t in the ball game yet) and text messages to portray a confident, assured person who I really wasn’t. Perhaps because I found little confidence in my own image and identity. Whatever the case, your older friends among you can definitely testify to that too. Even when posting something like this, I run the risk of leaving my personality behind to come across as though I know these things and that I’m in control of who I want to be, be it in the online or real world. 

Together with your identity, many other things are affected too. Consider this: “Because so many people in their teens and early 20s are in this constant whir of socializing - accessible to each other every minute of the day via cellphone, instant messageing and social networking Web sites - there are a host of new questions that need to be addressed in schools, in the workplace and at home. Chief among them: how much work can “hyper-socializing” students or employees really accomplish if they are holding multiple conversations with friends via text-messaging, or are obsessively checking Facebook.” (The Hypersocialized Generation) I can say this with utter confidence, that our youth and young adults are being plagued with this incessant problem. I can say it simply because I can see it (doesn’t mean I’m not spared from its vices) and so can you!

So this post isn’t meant to be a forsake-social-media-follow-Jesus (PS: wordplay on the “follow Jesus” hint-hint Twitter), all-crazy-for-Jesus kinda message. Obviously I’d say (with dead seriousness & half tongue-in-cheek) that however you interact with social media does reflect who you find assurance in and your view of God in your life. Of course we can have identity in Jesus, a real, fantastic, never-changing one - as children of God. But lets think about this at surface-level first - we’re just at the tip of a potentially Titanic-sinking iceberg - before we delve deeper!

Perhaps posts like these that we can occasionally relate to (right?)…. Are constant reminders of how we’re living as Light to the people around us and the people we relate to. I hope this helps you with a quick-check on who you are and who you appear to be to those around you. 

“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life - your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life- and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. (Romans 12:1-2, The Message)

Love you guys, and thats why I hope we can be who we really are in this community.

Danny

“In March 2010, the social networking site, Facebook, became the number one most accessed Internet site in America, toppling the web giant Google for the first time in history. Why? I contend that young people in America (who account for the largest percentage of users) are starved for truly intimate relationships. Moreover, being “accepted” as a friend does wonders in fighting their continual fear of being rejected. Virtual relationships, therefore, have done nothing but appease a God-given appetite for true, grace-centered, intimate relationships.” (Giving Up Gimmicks: Reclaiming Youth Ministry From An Entertainment Culture, Brian H. Cosby)

If you’re reading this post, chances are that you’re skimming through this article faster than you would pause to consider your masterpiece in Draw Something. You’re struggling with reading this pile of disgusting words while searching for the next colorful picture within the walls of your screen, because you’re already accustomed and used to exercising less mental effort, preferring videos and images over pages of words. So here you go:

How many times a day do you need your jab?

I don’t think you can argue that we’ve been shaped and moulded by what our brain sees and feeds upon everyday - our smartphones and our computer screens.

“The once-prized discipline of listening has been left in the dust by a YouTube culture of visual stimulation. Youth have traded books for videos because watching a video or a slideshow is much easier than reading a book; it doesn’t take quite the mental effort. John Piper explains in When the Darkness Will Not Lift, “We find ourselves not energized for any great cause, but always thinking about the way to maximize our leisure and escape pressure.” The great irony of this is that youth are bored because they maximize leisure and escape pressure. The easy road of entertainment and the pursuit of the American Dream have left teens still bored and still dreaming.” (Giving Up Gimmicks: Reclaiming Youth Ministry From An Entertainment Culture, Brian H. Cosby)

This dude is talking loads about American teenagers of course. However, I don’t think they differ much from you and I. Since we’re so bored with school (really, how many times do you refresh your Twitter page and Facebook Newsfeed in lessons) with the wordy articles we have to read, we turn to the immediate satisfaction we gain from Social Media. Our identity becomes what we see, and what we see in others around us, no longer what we can find in Jesus. What happened to the Good News? “For the believer, we’re told in 2 Corinthians 5:17 that the Gospel changes us, that we are a new creation. If we’re drawn into sin and find that we envy the life of someone else, we’ve misplaced our identity.” (If Facebook Tempts You, Jason Allen)

I don’t think I write this to convince anyone that Social Media is bad. I’m apparently using it right now to convey this to you, right? Truth is, we don’t just find our fulfillment in Facebook, Twitter and our blogs. I’ve experienced that, and many of my peers know I’m still using my phone waytoo much at the dinner table and at gatherings too. I hope that all of you don’t have to grow up with friends like that, or become friends like that. Of course, I prefer to strive towards having real conversation!

We seem to have a stronger relationship with our smartphones, compared to the relationships we have with our actual, real-life friends, and our family members (picturing most of you nodding your heads now). What is the matter here, why can’t we enjoy the best of both worlds - build solid, real relationships and maintain online ones? I think it’d be better for me to leave you with this question rather than a simple answer - do you prefer to invest in your real-life relationships or vie for attention online with virtual friends 24/7 through your smartphones? Our actions betray our inner desires - you know what most of us would choose.

“Church is community with depth and commitment. It is the way God has designed it. As disciples of Christ, we are called to be in community […] And yet, this community is also with commitment and depth. The Christian life is not designed to be a life lived in isolation. God saves us and calls us together. We are to pray together. We are to sing together. We are to eat together. We are to serve together. We are to study together. […] We are to live and die together. This togetherness creates a depth of intimacy that not only serves the cause of Christ (John 13:35), but it serves us in our times of need (2 Cor. 1:3-7) (Facebook, Community Without Depth, Anthony Carter)

So put your phone down, the iPhone 4S can wait for the iPhone 5 to arrive, the real conversations at the dinner table are waiting for you. Picture yourselves 7 years down the road, your siblings 7 years older. They’d have started with Angry Birds, Cut The Rope and Fruit Ninja as kids. If they’re still talking to you, then you have a small chance in encouraging them to start investing in real relationships with the people around them!

Real relationships. We were made for that. First with Jesus - then with others. Love you guys, and that’s why I hope whatever has been said helps.

Danny

Matthew Lou shares (after reading “The Plan” from The Gospel Coalition Booklet series):

God’s plan for us human beings is perfect and has not, at any point in time gone awry, as some people might think due to the state of the world - some think the presence of sin and suffering apparently contradict God’s holiness.

However, God planned everything that has ever happened, being omnipotent as well as sovereign, able to fulfill His own plan in His own time by His own power. Our plans are never perfect, as we are unable to control the other factors. However God’s plan is - having control of everything in the world. As Christians, knowing that God is watching over us should comfort us that no matter how things pan out in life, God’s hand is in our lives ultimately to complete His perfect plan. 

God’s plan all along was for His Son, Jesus, to come down to die for our sins, and thus fulfilling all the promises He made in the Old Testament. Now, He has made even greater promises, with their zenith reaching us and promising a cleansing of sins and an eternity with Him.

Since God has made amazing promises which have already been fulfilled, we can rest assured in the promises and sovereignty of God. These are the things we look forward to - our eventual life in heaven in sinlessness and purity - which must then prompt us to repent, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thus be saved.

Matthew Lou shares (after reading “Christ’s Redemption” from The Gospel Coalition Booklet series):

Jesus Christ is God, existing as the second person of the Godhead, the eternal Son of God. From eternity, He had always been blessed with sweet and perfect communion with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. To give up all of this to save a people filled with sin for love, shows the extent of its power, purity and grace that Jesus Christ had for this people, us. 

   To complete this redemption, Jesus not only gave up His heavenly throne, but also humbled himself, becoming a child of a carpenter, born fully God and fully Man, so as to be able to take our sins and nail them to the tree for us; a sacrificial lamb.

  This sacrifice, in return, promises countless things for all those who believe, some of which are that although we are sinners, Jesus has taken those sins away from us, cleansing us and allowing us to ascend to heaven, to be with  God. This then leads to the belief that Jesus Christ should be our only Hope, and our All in All, and His redemption should always lie in the center of our hearts, as it lies in the center of the message of Christianity.

Interesting perspective yes? Whether its true or not points us to the fact that setting our relationship right with Jesus first will definitely set us on our way in our other friendships and romantic relationships.

Nick Ang shares:

To know Grace is to first know sin - to know how divine it is, you have to know how condemned we are. Our minds were darkened, our hearts hardened. Our spirits alienated from God - literally, our spirits were DEAD. We were unable to see what God wants. We were always choosing what we wanted and rejecting God’s helping hand. We bit the hand that LOVES us. But, instead of rejecting us, God, being all merciful, sent His Son to die for our disgusting, undeserving souls. This was to make us alive together WITH Christ. We are no more bound by the sin we were haunted by. We stand glorifying and in awe of His act of MERCY to us, that we should always worship with the way we live and the words we speak. 

Why did He do this? To show us how great He is and to turn us to Him, and always never look back. To worship Him and magnify Him in everyway we can. To show us that we are His workmanship made in Christ - no more of ADAM, but of CHRIST. We were dead in our sins and transgression, but are now made alive in Christ without having anything to prove ourselves to God - a gift of God.

That is GRACE. 

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:1-10)

He uses our blundering efforts, if only love and faith be in them, to bless others, to do good, to build up His Kingdom. Christ is saving the world today, not through faultless work of perfect angels, but through the poor, ignorant, flawed, oft-times very tactless, foolish work of disciples who love Him. - J.R. Miller (1840 - 1912)

We hope you had fun, got to talk to the unchurched, strive to further reach out to them, and ultimately hope that you’ll want to know Jesus more through camp. :)

Sincerely,

Flawed People

Caroline Fu shares:

Just a month ago, we started on the ‘Pray’ section of our Youth Fellowship theme (Eat, Pray, Love) this year. We learnt about how we should and should not pray and who we are praying to. In the introductory video, Pastor Mark Driscoll (Mars Hill Church, USA) said that prayer should be like talking to our Father. It made me realise how intimate God is. He is not some distant God who just stays in heaven and watches His people live their lives; He is right by our side, listening to us and guiding us. And as His children, we can go to Him anytime and anywhere because there isn’t a time when God is busy or not listening. Also, we do not have to use all sorts of bombastic words in our prayer or pray for hours like what the Pharisees did. Prayer should just be talking to our Father, who truly loves us and wants to hear us talk to Him.

I also learnt that prayer is collective, so it should not only be all about me. It is amazing how we can just gather to pray to our Father together as His children, knowing that He is listens to every one of us and at the same time, gives us the ability to build each other up. Not only that, Jesus intercedes for us when we pray! (It was something I never knew until Dev mentioned it). 

I am really thankful for this privilege of prayer, that despite being so sinful and unworthy, God still provids a way for us to communicate with Him. He is a loving Father who will give us what is best, even though it may not always be what we want. :)