"And whatever you do or say, let it be as a representative of the Lord Jesus, all the while giving thanks through him to God the Father." Colossians 3:17
Yes, yes, yes we need to be able to talk about what we are going through, our celebrations, our struggles, our sorrows...BUT!
When those conversations are constantly centered on SELF and not on God, I think we begin to exalt our SELF, focus more on our SELF and take the spot light off of Christ and place it on our SELF.
We are attention-needing people and we make it known. Think about all the things that have been created so we can feed the attention self needs- Blogging, Facebook, twitter, email, TV, plastic surgery, products to look younger, how to lose weight, our clothes, bigger houses, cars, our jobs etc.
Please understand I am not saying these things are wrong. I am saying if they consume you, and you spend more time focusing on them then you do on Christ...well yes I believe it is wrong!
The more I study the word of God, the more I realize how little Christ focused on His actual "self." Every word Christ spoke, every action, every miracle, even His every thought was placed on His Father.
"Don't you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I say are not my own, but my Father who lives in me does his work through me. Just believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Or at least believe because of what you have seen me do." John 14:10-11
Jesus never spent His time talking about "self" instead He talked about what was most important, our faith in Him. Brethren, if anyone should talk about themselves it is definitely the Creator.
Here is what I am learning. Maybe if we spent more time actually talking about Jesus and His word and less about ourselves, maybe, just maybe more lives would be impacted for Christ.
I remember having the conversation with Brother Tilley about starting a blog for my writing, the thought kept running through my head, "As long as it does not become about me."
I have been down that road with Facebook. It started out specifically for our college Sunday School class and ended up being about me. God shut that down! The conviction was strong and He was relentless, thus ending it in a way I never expected. But I obeyed and am glad I did, otherwise I would probably still be focusing on the "me."
Today it seems as though everything is starting to involve more and more of the "me" in us, and less and less about the Lord.
We have to be willing to give up things that take the place of the Lord; whether it be blogging, email, Facebook, twitter, where we place our attention, or even adjusting our speech so our conversations don't revolve around ourselves.
I just wonder how we can live out Colossians 3:1-2; 17 if we are always talking about ourselves and throwing God in there every now and then. vs 1-2, "Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits at God's right hand in the place of honor and power. Let heaven fill your thoughts. (We can't do that if we are always thinking about ourselves) Do not think only about things down here on earth."
Whether we accept it or not, when we spend more time talking about ourselves and placing the attention on ourselves through our actions and speech, we are minimizing the Lord and magnifying the "ME"
Seriously, I am trying to figure out why we don't talk about Jesus more and ourselves less. I mean if you really think about it, our lives are not at all as cool or as exciting as Christ's life!
Hearing and talking about Jesus never gets old and something good ALWAYS comes from His name!
Talking about "you" well....it just gets old and people don't get to know Jesus when we talk about our SELF!
So whatever you do or say, let it be as a representative of the Lord Jesus, all while giving thanks through Him to God the Father.
A good way to evaluate if you are self- focused is what you spend a lot of time doing and what you post, write, email, blog, your actions and how your conversations are with others.
Jesus You should be the topic of conversation 24/7! You should be what we think about 24/7. Hasten the day Lord when you return and it is all about You for eternity. Amen
