Don’t You Be Blown In the Wind!

By Pastor Tim Burt

Ephes. 4:14 “Then we will no longer be like children, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching forever changing our minds about what we believe because someone has told us something different or because someone has cleverly lied to us and made the lie sound like the truth.”

Have you ever noticed that the weather report comes to you from your media source without bias? The weather reporters are not interested in giving their emotional input or bias about how they feel about the weather. They just give you the facts that are available to them.

With most of the news and media sources around the world – that is not true. Newspapers often do much reporting with their personal bias built in. Most media sources have a bias and agenda in some of what they do. If a newspaper does not like a particular political party or candidate that reflect their views, their bias will show it. Someone at the top will make sure that happens. They may follow legal guidelines for equal time and the rules that would keep them from fines or trouble, but their bias is there and comes out. That is true from newspapers, to network news and television, and beyond. The powers of media that many years ago worked to stay neutral and let people create their own opinions based on fact, have moved from reporting, to working to influence views from their bias positions.

We live in a country with a legal system that is built on the foundation of “innocent until proven guilty.” Media sources don’t feel they have to play by the same rules. They will report, build discussion panels, and express formed views about the innocence or guilt of people before a case has ever hit a courtroom. A person might be proven innocent, but is toast in reputation by the time the media has finished with them – and this before they’ve had their day in court.

Famous figures are photographed and made the object of public display over where they eat and who they are eating with. This leads to public national broadcasting of their lunch with bias speculation as to whether they are having an affair with the person they had lunch with.

People that constantly subject themselves to taking in this kind of information will find themselves thinking and talking about things they really don’t care about. Do you really care who Paris Hilton was out partying with last night? Does it add anything to your life? Is it truly any of your business? Can you believe you are even thinking about it? Maybe even talking about it? Do you really care about every squabble that Hillary and Obama argue about?

Here is even a better question. Do the sources of information that are trying to sway you to a particular belief or view hold your moral values and love for God? Does their opinion on behavioral boundaries and lifestyle match those that Jesus teaches us? If not, why let them influence or even touch your thinking? Why let them have any input into your life?

In Ephesians 4, the Apostle Paul that God’s goal for those that mentor us in ministry is to Christians grow up and mature becoming productive members of the body of Christ that learn how to reach, teach, and touch others with the love of God. God has given us His Word that we should grow up in spiritual maturity and become productive members of the body of Christ reflecting His love.

Verses 14 and 15 go on to say, “Then we will no longer be like children, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching forever changing our minds about what we believe because someone has told us something different or because someone has cleverly lied to us and made the lie sound like the truth. Instead, we will hold to the truth in love, becoming more and more in every way like Christ who is the head of his body, the church. “

Media will teach us that sex before marriage is okay. That making fun of the President is okay. That homosexuality is just an alternative lifestyle. That abortion isn’t the taking of a life. That defending your country against terrorists is an act of aggression. The media will desensitize us to crime and murder and senseless violence. It will make profanity a part of normal communication. Does God agree with all this? When the world of opinions fly, people get discouraged and think, “There is no truth – it’s all a matter of perspective and opinion.” When someone comes to that conclusion, Satan has won. Wrong from right becomes blurred. There are no more absolutes. That leads to this conclusion. “People can do whatever they want as long as it doesn’t affect anyone else.” That’s a myth because everything everyone does affects someone else – eventually!

So what do we think? We let God become the anchor of our thoughts so we aren’t tossed to and fro like children. God wants to be the anchor of our soul and the primary input to our counsel – the advisor on how we think.

Ephes. 4:17-31 says, “Live no longer as the ungodly do, for they are hopelessly confused. Their closed minds are full of darkness; they are far away from the life of God because they have shut their minds and hardened their hearts against Him. They don’t care anymore about right and wrong, and they have given themselves over to immoral ways. Their lives are filled with all kinds of impurity and greed. But that isn’t what you were taught when you learned about Christ. Since you have heard all about Him and have learned the truth that is in Jesus, throw off your old evil nature and your former way of life, which is rotten through and through, full of lust and deception. Instead, there must be a spiritual renewal of your thoughts and attitudes. You must display a new nature because you are a new person, created in God’s likeness—righteous, holy, and true…”

World views, morals, and believes shift with the wind. Don’t you be tossed to and fro. Make God’s Word the anchor for all you believe and for how you live. He never changes! Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever.

In His Love,
Pastor Tim Burt
http://readfreshmanna.blogspot.com/