I have a love/hate relationship with all social media…Facebook especially

1. I love the opportunity to gives to easily communicate with family and friends
2. I hate how it tends to take up lots of my time
3. And more than that, I hate how it encourages communication thats about my experiences
   

Facebook (and all social media for that matter) is meant to easily share our experiences or thoughts at the press of a button. Now there’s nothing wrong with sharing experiences, especially if you live overseas like me. But it’s easy for all online communication to be about what’s going on with you.

In my humble opinion this is dangerous since as your experiences or funny stories get lots of likes or comments, you begin looking for more stories or experiences that will get responses. Over time, this will lead to online communication that is geared only to getting attention online.

the true danger with this is our communication both online and in person should be for edification, or drawing people closer to the Lord. Not how many likes or comments we can get.

This may seem to be a small change to online communication, but trust me it isn’t. Making our goal education forces us to ask questions before sharing a post:

1. Is what I’m sharing just trying to boost my own self-confidence with others likes or comments
2. Is what I’m sharing gong to start drama (a political statement)? (I do occasionally post on political issues, did a few weeks ago, but its quite rare for that to happen since Facebook is the absolute worst place to have a political discussion)
3. Will this draw others closer to God?
4. And will I regret sharing this in an hour?
   

Edification also affects the material we share itself:

1. It focuses on Scripture instead of my own opinion
2. It gives God glory instead of myself
3. It helps and encourages fellow Believers in their spiritual walk
4. And it displays a humble, but honest presentation of Gods truth
   

I am not saying we can’t share personal opinions or experiences online. But social media and its ability to reach many people is a gift from God . Do we really want to spend that gift sharing out funny experiences (what I often do) instead of Gods truth? The door of religious or personal freedom online seems to closing slowly, I don’t want to waste it on things that don’t matter.

So friends let me urge you in love….

Make your Facebook feed about the glorious Gospel of Christ instead of your experiences or political views.

That is the only thing that truly matters