Devotion for Thursday, December 1, 2011
I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me. 4 A froward heart shall depart from me: I will not know a wicked person. Psalm 101:3-4
As I am writing this devotion I’m on my ipad. I really enjoy using it, and I know right now I’m making some of you jealous. My daughter is sitting next to me and she is watching Veggietales through Netflix on our Wii. (The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything…I knew you were wondering).
We live in a world where media is an every day part of our life. We have access to a ton of movies, shows, websites and other information and for many of us it’s as close as your pockets.
Of course all of this can be very cool, but it also can be dangerous.
What do I mean? Well, there are voices that now can speak into our lives that don’t really have our best interest at heart.
The psalmist in today’s vesre purposed nin his heart. “I will set no wicked thing before my eyes.” It’s imporatnt to be careful with what we allow ourselves to see and be influcnced by. Frankly speaking, there is a lot of worthless things out there that target us as an audience. When we allow these voices into our lives it can lead to wrong thinking and wrong action.
Application:
Are there things you’re allowing your mind to take in that are worthless and wicked? Ask this question- Is what I’m watching on tv or the internet displeasing to God? If Jesus were sitting here with me, would it be awkward?
Study the Scriptures with Ben Jennings 
There are some worthless things that I’m allowing my mind to take in and I want them out but they just won’t come out but I’m working at them so that they will. I think the shows I watch are Not bad there like funny and stuff I used to watch family guy but and American Dad and all those other shows but I don’t watch I’m any more because they were displeasing god. If he were sitting here with me when I watch my shows and stuff it wouldn’t be awkward it would be cool to have him watch TV with me hehe! :).
I said the same thing!!!!!!!! Lol but I posted my long comment and it didn’t post. 😦 but oh well I totally agree! There r things tht r worthless to me. I use to Watch those shows But now I don’t watch them cuz ik for sure tht they displease god. And Ikr mafalda!!! It would be totally awky to have him next to me watching tv but tht would be amazing to!!!!!! Cuz I mean… Jesus Christ sitting on my bed watching my tv?!?!? Tht would blow my mind!!! 🙂 lol great Devo these may not help everyone everyday but ik fo sure tht they help me improve everyday on things!!! 🙂 love ya guys!! 🙂
What I got out of this is that we have all this really cool stuff like are IPod touches and all those other products and that’s really cool that we have them but we need to be careful about what we do on them like if your being tempted to do something bad we need to say hey I should just give my IPod to my Mom & Dad the IPod touch for the night so I don’t do anything bad.
There’s definitely been times when I’ve realized what I was doing on the internet is like pointless. It’s not like I was doing anything bad, just sometimes you can get caught up on the internet and end up spending a lot of time on the internet doing pointless things! We don’t have cable so I don’t watch a lot of tv, but there has been some times when I’d be watching something then think I really shouldn’t watch this anymore and turn it off. For me, when I watch a movie or listen to music that has bad language in it, it always embarrasses me so I try to stay away from it! But still, the media can be a crazy thing! I know when I was in middle school, I was media crazy! I wanted a phone & iPod soo bad, and was obsessed with a ton of celebrities! I’ve realized since then those things are not as important as I once thought they were!
Good comments! & I hope you guys had a good day today 🙂
That last question at the end there I’ve had to ask myself many times. If Jesus was here with me right now, would he approve of what I was doing? The answer to that question hasn’t always been a yes. The funny thing is, Jesus is watching us every second of the day, but because he isn’t physically with us we tend to forget and act as though He isn’t watching or like it’ll be ok if we slip it past Him. When I was younger I totally thought I was a rebel when I watched things my parents said not to. I felt like a cool kid, when in reality I was watching stupid things that I understand now why my parents said no. There are ratings for things as a reason. Thinking your cool for watching a PG 13 movie when your not 13, that was totally me, isn’t as cool as it appears. Now-a-days media has gotten so twisted that I have to be careful that with just one click I don’t open up something gross! Media is such a cool thing, but also something we have to be careful with at the same time. I’m all about technology, I think it’s so neat, but like we’ve been talking about, there are voices out there trying to get us. What appears to be “user friendly”, if you will, on the outside, may not be so friendly on the inside!
Unfortunately, there are too many things to count that if Jesus was sitting next to me……it would just be soo awkward. Media like music and tv shows…..are filled with things that would displease God. I find myself watching movies and TV shows and some of them you really have to be careful with. I’m not at all saying that I watch terrible things……but to God aren’t the questionable ones just as bad as the terrible ones. All sins are equal in His eyes. Although, some have worse consequences. I guess what I’m trying to say is sometimes I watch things or listen to songs that are “questionable” and I justify it with…”Oh. It’s not that bad, plus, that kid over there…..look what he is watching! It’s way worse than what I’m watching. So, my show is okay” That;s not right! I need to just say NO this is not what God would want and turn it off. Another thing about media now….you have to be careful you don’t even look at something displeasing to God…even by accident! Plenty of times I’ve been doing a project for school and typed something as simple as ‘brownie’ and the most disgusting pictures can pop up. The world is sooo messed up now! We need to always be on guard.
Have any of you guys ever been to the movies with someone, and a really awky scene comes on and your like “woah dont need to see this!” or it’s just something you feel uncomfortable watching? I get like that a lot. I think that uncomfortable feeling comes from God. I know some of the stuff in movies, music, Internet, & tv are pretty influencing.. All of that stuff is easy to memorize! Like a bad song- I may hate the actual meaning of it but because it’s catchy I sing to it. Weird how that happens right? I think media voices are definitley a strong one in my case. I love technology! It’s so amazing how innovated out world has become since it began with Adam & Eve. I think the moral of this lesson is to just be careful what were allowing into our heads. Let God in, and ignore the bad influential voices that wants us so badly!!
Today what I got was that we have access to a lot of stuff and the questions we need to ask, is this honoring to God? the other thing I got was that in verse 3 the psalmist says to just get it out of here, and dont put yourself in a compromising position.