TV: Worship or Not?

I plan to never have TV in my house when I grow up. Now, please don't stop reading right here. I know you may be thinking, "Yup. My guess was correct. Noelle is crazy!" Yes, that may be true, but I still want you to continue reading! I have already talked about music: it is a tool that can be used to glorify God, or just pass the time. And sometimes that passing of time includes listening to things that we would never listen to if Jesus was sitting by us! I don't know about you, but I have become more horrified with what is shown on TV every day. Though we don't have cable at my house, I have heard about shows, and occasionally seen some, where they do not glorify God at all! Even kid shows have bad language, and sometimes have topics that aren't even appropriate for older kids! You might find me bias right now, and I admit that I am not a fan of TV. But when the Bible commands us, "Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you." (1 John 2:15), we should think seriously about how we spend our time! Does it show we love the world or God? "No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money." (Luke 16:13) I realize Jesus is talking about money, but I believe He lets money respresent everything in our life that is put above Himself. Everything that we spend more time on and more energy on. God made us to have a relationship with Him. To be absolutely adored by Him, and for us to absolutely adore Him. Do you spend more time watching TV than pursing your relationship with your Creator? "Now, hold on a second Noelle. God knows I love Him! Why then do I have to put aside what I want?" "Then, calling the crowd to join His disciples, He said, "If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow Me." (Mark 8:34) Did you hear that? Turn from your selfish ways. Boy, does Jesus know us well! He knows that we have selfish ways, things that we love even though we know they don't bring glory to Him. I have them, you have them, every single one of us has them! Things we would rather do than spend time with God. Yes, I realize that sounds really awful of us. I mean, why would we want to do anything other than be with our Savior? Yet many of us feel that way. "Sure, I believe that Jesus died for me, and I love Him. But really! Spending every moment worshipping Him and spending time in His presence: isn't that a bit ridiculous? Let's look at Mark 8:34 again, "Then, calling the crowd to join His disciples, He said, "If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow Me." (italics are mine) Jesus, the very Son of God, (Who, by the way, never lies) said if we are a follower of Christ, we need to turn from our selfish ways. What would our day look like if we had only one thing on our mind: "How can I serve and glorify my Creator today?" Would we use our free time differently? I think so! God wants us to be completely His. Not halfway His- halfway whatever we want to be. 100% His. God has been showing me areas in my life where He is not my main priority. Areas where I am doing what I want, not letting it be about Him. I challenge you to look over your life: what do I spend most of my time and energy on? Now, for all of you that are in school, I do not mean you need to stop putting effort into school! God has blessed you with being able to have an education, and I believe we need to not take that blessing and ruin it! But besides school and other responsibilities, what are we spending our free time on? Let me ask you this question: If you had a day where you were free from all responsibility, how would you spend your time? Chances are, not too many of us would say (with complete honesty!), "I would spend my time reading the Bible and talking to God. I would probably spend a couple of hours writing cards to some people in our church who are sick. Oh! and I would shovel the snow off my neighbors' driveways." More common answers would include such past times as: TV, computer, video games, and movies. Keith Green reminds us that, "If your heart takes more pleasure in reading novels, or watching TV, or going to the movies, or talking to friends, rather than just sitting alone with God and embracing Him, sharing His cares and His burdens, weeping and rejoicing with Him, then how are you going to handle forever and ever in His presence...? You'd be bored to tears in heaven, if you're not ecstatic about God now!" (Found in SetApartGirl magazing May/ June 2011) To tell you the truth, the first time I saw this quote, it made me extremely uneasy. I really didn't want to think about it because I was sure that God was wanting me to change something in my life. I am just positive God meant for me to read that quote. Because a few months after I read it, I began to see just how correct that quote was. What does it say about our relationship with our Savior if we would rather be doing something else than spending time with Him? If you love someone, then you want to spend every possible second with them, right? Then shouldn't that be true about our relationship with our Lord? My point on this post is not to create a list of rules about what you can or cannot watch, or how much time you should spend watching TV. I instead encourage you to ask Jesus to show you what in your life is hindering your relationship with Him. If you let Him, He will show you that spending time in His presence is extraordinary.