Holy Holy Holy

Like some of you I have recently been attracted to this social networking called Twitter and more specifically Facebook. A lot of you have been on here a lot longer than me (about 8 months for me), but recently I have witnessed some things that have caused me concern and I want to pass those along to you.

I have Facebook like a lot of you to keep up on what my friends are doing and to post photos and sometimes to share what is on my heart. I do get a kick out of the silly meaningless postings about every movement someone makes, but I still try and see the reasons why someone is sharing.

The thing I like about Facebook is the accountability it gives believers. As Christians, we should welcome the access into all aspects of our lives since we ultimately know that the Lord knows our thoughts and sees all our actions. Whether this is scary to you or not that is for you to decide. But the Lord is not a "gotcha" God who is waiting to strike us down for our sins.

I do laugh at the terminology of Facebook when we add "friends" to our list. Most of us hardly know more than three important facts about the person, but ultimately we make the choice to add them into our "personal space." Now again I believe we should allow anyone to see into our lives (aside from security issues) the thoughts and pictures we are sharing about our lives because they are meant to be holy.

"But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy." 1 Peter 1:15-16. The Greek word for holy here is hagios and it means we should be pure from carnality, to be modest and clean.

What I have seen recently has been troubling which brings me to my challenge and it mostly has to do with photos. Are you prepared that when you have your photo taken that in all likelihood that the photo will be posted on the internet where the world can see? This is especially true if your picture is taken with someone else's camera.

Most photos or albums show up in the "highlights" section of my homepage so what I witnessed last weekend was a bit of a shock since it was more like a "lowlight." It was photos from a party and it included lots of photos of women in skimpy clothing, plenty of pics from bars and plenty of alcohol flowing.

The saddest part for my wife and I is the pictures included people who have platforms for Jesus at my church (my heart is to not be too descriptive if you didn't see the photos as well). Now in all likelihood the photos were meant to stay within the group of people in the photos, but on Facebook we all know people love to "tag" people in photos. This makes the photos go out to all the "tagged" persons friends so the audience can multiply quickly.

Needless to say, I felt I had to act and I made a call to someone I trusted and she was also on the friends list and I wanted to make sure I wasn't being a "prude" and she assured me I wasn't and she and her husband would check the photos as well and take the appropriate action. Thankfully, the photos were down later that afternoon before my 17 year-old son and 14 year-old daughter saw them.

One of my warnings besides knowing when we have our picture taken that the "world" might see it is we need to know who our "friends" are because we have now invited them to share their values with us and our friends. When we receive something on our homepage we don't like we have to call the sender to have it removed.

In my story above, I am sure the sender of the photos was being true to their character and I would not have wanted to make that call asking someone to remove their post because it might be considered offensive to my "Christian" friends. The sender was probably thinking that "you took part in all the activity and now you are ashamed?" Not a very good witness for Jesus when we engage in this level of hypocrisy.

Is the point of my post that we do a better job of hiding our bad behavior? On the contrary. God is calling us to live a life of holiness and it should be reflected in all aspects of our lives. This includes our time at pool parties, birthday parties, vacations and office parties. So we need to be careful when we get in front of a camera that we know what we are stepping into. Is the picture taken going to need much explanation? Is the location possibly embarassing? What are other people in the picture wearing or is there much alcohol featured?

My purpose is not to point fingers at anyone or say that no one should have an alcoholic drink. I know I have erred and I am thankful for the grace of God. I know I have probably invited the Enemy to attack based on my calling out behavior, but I feel it is necessary. Judy and I had to confront someone a few days after my story above based on info that started in Facebook. It is not always received with open arms.

May you also not look the other way if you see inappropriate conduct, either written or photos. We are who we hang out with and who we invite into our space and that includes Facebook. The Lord gave me a new twist to a line you may have heard. "If you were on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?" The Lord said to me, "If I was to send someone to look at your Facebook profile, would you be convicted of being my follower?"

Just a thought.