Christians, Beware this Twitter Trap

This article is really nothing more than a rant, but one with spiritual ramifications.

There is a type of Christian believer on social media these days—especially on Twitter—who actively ‘recruits’ followers simply for the sake of growing their ministries. Proof of this is by the many that they will follow, for an hour or day or two, and then unfollow. One moment they are following 600 people, the next moment they follow a mere 60. (How does that work?)

I can’t see much point in recruiting followers; we should follow someone’s tweets presumably for some edification benefit. To follow simply to be followed back, I think, reveals that person as having a lack of integrity. That follower is simply following to be followed back; they have no intent to follow genuinely. And besides, who could possibly follow one thousand or more and not have their eyes spin, with tweets coming in so thick and fast that there isn’t enough time to enjoy the pre-social media life.

A Christian’s Integrated Life

At the centre of a Christian’s life is his or her integrity. That is, the ability to grow our hearts toward Jesus so that we back-up our Sunday-worship facade with a seven-day-a-week devotion to God that is truly integrated.

True integration is a matter of living our lives so honestly that the exterior life merely represents the interior life, for there is nothing hidden.

This is a scary reality, for we risk exposure, rejection, and shame. There are so many these days, and in any day, really, that work hard to achieve a solid exterior life, but privately battle with truly destructive interior lives. We should all relate.

Integration is genuinely our biggest objective of discipleship, in becoming more Christlike. A life where we no longer need to pretend, where we can be devout but also not hide a thing is the life every Christian is called to.

One good test of integrating our spirituality in the battle with the flesh is our ability to shun popularity for popularity’s sake; in the case of some people’s use of Twitter, to not use people. We don’t follow people so they will follow us back. We only follow people if we genuinely want to follow them.

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If we wish to live the true Christian life we must shun flesh desires to be popular and grow our number bases; to recruit hundreds or thousands of followers. Social media is a potential trap for influencers and would-be influencers. In the surge for popularity we leave our relationships with God far behind.

What benefit is there to gain the whole world yet lose our very souls? (Matthew 16:26; Mark 8:36)

The more we reject our flesh desire, the clamour for popularity, for instance, the more spiritual Presence of God we will experience.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.

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