Just Continue That Thought...

A thought by Craig Groeschel (2015-10-27) from his book, #Struggles: Following Jesus in a Selfie-Centered World (p. 181). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) That is so important for us to realize isn’t it? Craig here is this book is dealing with the power of technology and of how it can be so addictive. Craig shares, “The power of Christ in me should be stronger than anything else in my life. I will not be mastered by an addiction to food. I will not be mastered by material possessions. I will not be mastered by an addiction to looking at things that are inappropriate for me to see. I will not be mastered by what other people think of me. I will not be mastered by technology. But sometimes I am.” Is that true of you too? He then says, “I love technology, but I have to stay mindful to refuse to be mastered by it. Christ in me is stronger than any addiction in me. Christ in you is stronger than any addiction in you

A thought by Craig Groeschel (2015-10-27) from his book, #Struggles: Following Jesus in a Selfie-Centered World (p. 116). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) This is so important for us to realize.   Craig says, “The Bible is more than clear that we are deceiving ourselves if we think we can flirt with lust and not contribute to our soul’s destruction. Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, warned his son of the temptation of following the wrong type of woman, ‘Keep to a path far from her, do not go near the door of her house’ (Prov. 5: 8). Notice he didn’t say, ‘You can look, but don’t touch.’ Or, ‘Here, son, make sure you wear protection.’ No! Solomon essentially shouted, ‘Are you crazy?! Stay away! Don’t even get close to the edge of sin!’ Oddly, in our culture, many people want to do just the opposite, to see how close they can get to trouble without crossing the line. But God’s Word teaches us to stay as far away from

A thought by Craig Groeschel (2015-10-27) from his book, #Struggles: Following Jesus in a Selfie-Centered World (p. 82). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) I know we for the most part want to connect with people.   We really want some friends but do we really want to share our weaknesses to get them?   I don’t think so but Craig says this is the way we really connect. He says, “When we’re always filtered, when every selfie shows only our best side, we may impress some people some of the time. They may think, ‘Based on this tweet, I really like this guy.’ But that’s not real. You’re not really connecting with them. They’re not connecting with you. We want so badly to connect with others, and we think the best way to do so is by showing off our strengths. But it doesn’t work that way. Here’s why: We actually connect with people through our weaknesses. We may impress them with our strengths, but we connect through our weakness

A thought by Craig Groeschel (2015-10-27) from his book, #Struggles: Following Jesus in a Selfie-Centered World (p. 70). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) I know you know what a selfie is but for those who don’t Craig says, “You can take a picture of yourself, and if you need to touch it up a little, you can apply a filter. Most smart phones now have filter tools that let you fix those little problem areas. You can change the color saturation, brighten the image, soften it, or make it black and white. You can even get rid of red-eye and erase that second chin! You can even change the color of your eyes and raise your cheekbones.” He also said, “As of October, 2013, on various forms of social media, people had posted forty-one million pictures that included the hashtag #Selfie somewhere in the caption. You read that right: forty-one million.   And that number continues to explode. The selfie hashtag has since grown more than