When Blogging Becomes Your First Love
At the beginning of the epic book of Revelation, we find letters to seven churches. Each letter begins with a message from the Sovereign Lord Jesus Christ – and each begins with the phrase, “I know.” With complete and full knowledge, the Ruling Christ looks at His Church and says, “I know your deeds… where you live… your afflictions.”
His words are both encouraging and chilling. He knows it all. Nothing is hidden from His sight. The good, the bad, the ugly. With razor sharp accuracy He discerns between reputation and reality, between intentions and actions, between good and bad motivations.
The letter to the church at Ephesus is one that is probably familiar to many of us. He commends them for their hard work and your perseverance, their discernment and stand for Truth, their perseverance and endurance through suffering. And yet… “I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love.” (Rev. 2:4)
Forsaken our first love. The words haunt me.
The Ephesians had started out great. They were fighting the good fight! They were working tirelessly, enduring suffering, standing for Truth… and yet somewhere in the midst of their journey they lost their way. They took their eyes off of their Lord. They started to love something more than Him.
He called them to repent. Losing their first love was sin. Losing their first love was idolatry. If they failed to repent, their “lampstand” would be removed – they would lose influence in their world and cease to exist.
Doing the right thing for the wrong reasons turns the most noble ministry into an idol. Blogging, even when begun for the right reasons, can turn into idolatry.
Let me ask you some tough questions.
- Is your blog lifting Him up, glorifying Him, showing His greatness? Or are you setting yourself up for adoration and receiving glory that is not yours to take? Who are your readers led to love – you, your children, or Christ?
- What consumes your thoughts? Growing your readership? Selling ad space? Getting sponsors for conferences? …or speaking Truth and using whatever influence He has entrusted to you to point to Him?
- Have you sacrificed your children, your marriage, the influence He has entrusted to you in your church and real-life friends on the altar of your blog? We will always sacrifice what is most precious to us to our gods.
- Do you find yourself checking stats, jealously eying the readership of other bloggers, envying the influence God has entrusted to others? Do you fear anonymity and “smallness” more than you fear Him?
As bloggers we have a great privilege. We can sharpen one another, be real with one another, share Truth, model what it means to live whole-heartedly after Christ.
Don’t let your blogging image, even your “righteous Christian mom” image, become more important to you than our Lord Jesus Christ.
If we have lost our first love, it is time to repent. Perhaps some of us need to walk away. Perhaps some of us need to readjust. Perhaps some of us need to take stats and subscriber numbers off of our blogs.
If we do not repent, we might lose our influence all together. We might be leading countless others into the idolatry of self right along with us.
May God search our hearts and keep us true to Him. May we love Him above all else.
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Kristi Stephens is a follower of Jesus, seeking to love Him more and honor Him as a wife, mom, and teacher of God’s Word. She wrestles with priorities in blogging like everyone else and prays that her writing would lead her readers to pursue a closer walk with the Lover of their Souls. You can find more encouragement on your spiritual journey at www.krististephens.com.
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This entry was posted on Monday, April 12th, 2010 at 5:00 am and is filed under Blogimonies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
» Blog Archive » Encouragement for Fellow Bloggers April 12th, 2010 at 8:09 am
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