You are what you eat! So, let me get this straight, what goes into your stomach will influence who you are? What do you think about this comment – ‘we are all influenced by what we watch, read and listen to’. Do you agree or disagree? I put this question to few people a couple of weeks ago. It troubled some those whom I asked, but seemed to resonate with the others. What do you think?
In my opinion, we are simply more than what we eat. In actual fact, I believe we are all greatly influenced by what we watch, read or listen to. We tend to emulate our heroes, people who we hold in a place of great respect, envy or admiration. We might want to have our hero’s style, fashion, look, physique, language and so on.
Reflecting back a few years, the person I held as a hero was Australian cricketer, Brett Lee. I wanted to play cricket like him, speak like him, look like him and have all the girls like him. Sadly, I even tried to style my hair like him to which I sadly failed. At this point you are either thinking “What a loser”, or you are in some way resonating with me. I guarantee that if you thought hard enough, I’m sure you would be able to identify a time in your life when you tried to be like your hero.
We all like to be made small!
Why do we try to emulate our hero’s? Have you ever asked yourself that question? I will come back to this question in a moment, but for now, I would like to slightly change topics and gears and move to something else.
I live in Sydney, Australia and I frequent the Blue Mountains quite often. They are a magnificent sight of grandeur and beauty. They dwarf and embarrass us in size, yet millions of tourists flock from around the world to see this spectacle. This is not limited to the Blue Mountains, but also other spectacles like the Alps, the Grand Canyon, the African Savannah, the galaxy and the list goes on. Why is this the case? Why spend loads of money to see some big rock?
Let me answer to the above question by posing this notion – ‘We find joy in witnessing great and glorious things’. We all enjoy witnessing the beauty and the grandeur of the amazing sights of this world. It is hardwired into us. This relates closely to the initial section of this article, in that we want to observe great people, sights and events. These could be sporting moments, movies, performances, monuments, landmarks and so on. Witnessing these events or sights brings us joy.
Alright, you may be asking ‘so what’? By now, you may have realised (from reading other sections of this blog) that I am a follower of Jesus – a Christian. I believe that God created the universe, which includes all of us. With this in mind, God must have created us for a purpose with a set of skills and instincts to fulfil his purpose. So how does the pursuit of great events and things tie into God our creator’s purpose?
The bible, which I believe was written by God through people, claims that we were created to live in relationship with God. The bible describes God as being a magnificent and grand being (Deuteronomy 5:24; Psalm 3:3; Psalm 8:1-3; Isaiah 6:2-4; Revelation 4:7-9 – the bible is full of these quotes!), to which we were designed to find joy and pleasure in witnessing his fulfilling and satisfying glory and give him praise (Psalm 19:1; Psalm 27:3-4; Psalm 71:8 – again the bible is full of these quotes!).
We are creatures who find joy in witnessing and observing glorious things, because our creator God designed us to seek his glory and magnificence. When we observe greatness on this earth, we should want to turn and praise God because His hand is/was at work in it (Psalm 29:2).
In summary, God is glorious and he created us to witness his glory and find joy and meaning in this. This is evident in humanities thirst to experience grand events and sites. So let’s turn our attention back to the question posed at the beginning of this paragraph, why do we emulate our hero’s?
We reflect what we worship!
If we were created to live off the metaphorical ‘fuel’ of God’s glory, then the praising God would be on our lips right? Correct! Humanity, according to the bible, was created in the image of God (to reflect him like a mirror):
Then God said, "Let us [God] make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth” (Genesis 1:26).
According to the bible, we were created to reflect God’s character on the earth. Humans are therefore, reflectors or mirrors of God on this earth.
Sadly, as the bible moves on, humans reject God and seek to live without him (this is called sin) (Romans 1:22-24). Rather than reflecting the glory of God, we reflect the glory of our selected gods. And I believe this is evident in the way that we emulate our hero’s. In my case, this was Brett Lee. I witnessed his glorious bowling speed and ability to attract the opposite sex, which lead me to reflect and worship my god – Brett Lee.
What we worship will inform how we live
The word worship is quite misunderstood in the culture I live in. Essentially, the word means, according to the Macquarie Dictionary – to attribute worth to something or someone. Continuing on with my example, I worshipped Brett Lee. I attributed worth to him. To change gears again, what is it that engaged me in the pursuit of worshipping my god/s.
My goal in this article is to examine the nature of media and how it influences who we are and how we live. From what I have expressed thus far, humans are created to seek out and find joy in glorious things (God’s glory more explicitly). We are created to reflect that which we glory in (God’s image). Due to sin, we seek to glory in things other than God. So how does this all link in with the media?
The media influences society in what is normal, acceptable and fashionable (interesting article on Media Influence). We receive a constant barrage of stimuli from the media each day. This includes, but not limited to, what we should eat, wear, dress like, think about, invest time in, spend our money on, who we are as citizens, what to believe etc.
Our lives are informed by the media, whether it be print, audio or visual, it impacts and influences who we are and what we believe. Generally, we don’t worship the media, but the media displays for us a plethora of things that are glorious and attractive, to which we respond in worship (remember the meaning of this word). This worship then informs who you are and how you will live – it is your god.
I want you to think about who you are as a person, or were, and consider your beliefs and lifestyle at that time and then compare it to the people you find intriguing each day. Do you see a correlation? If you do, this or these things are your gods.
Glory, joy and rescue
God created us to worship and glory in him. God hates when his creation finds glory in things other than him (Isaiah 42:8). Worshipping these things will be our undoing and practically, destroy us as we are not created to find joy and pleasure in glorious things that are not God (Romans 1:22-24). These things cannot sustain our joy and pleasure and were not designed to do so. Jeremiah, an Old Testament (section of the bible) prophet puts it this way – rather than seeking the fulfilling pure waters of the glorious God, we find unfulfilling joy in drinking from the toilet (Jeremiah 2:11-13). Rather than worship God, we worship his creation.
The bible urgently expresses our destruction if we hold this lifestyle. To live in opposition to the creator and owner of the universe is a cosmic crime. God has set in time a day where we will all be judged according to the way we have lived. If we have gloried in God, we will have eternal life, if we have worshipped things other than God, we will suffer eternal hell.
Take a look at this world. Do you think any of us have worshipped God? I am guilty as charged. My god was Brett Lee, a mere man. For this reason, God put off his glory and became a man (Philippians 2:5-8) to rescue us from our plight. Even this act demonstrates the glorious nature of God (Psalm 21:5). Jesus (God) lived in perfect obedience to his Father, bringing glory to him and experiencing the joy that came with this, even at the point of his death (Hebrew 12:2). Jesus died the sinner’s death, the most inglorious death on a cross to pay the penalty for our rejection of God.
The bible calls us to turn from our God rejecting lives, accept Jesus death for our sins and live for God (Ephesians 2:8-10). There is nothing we can do to be forgiven except to accept Jesus death on our behalf. Jesus was than resurrected from the grave, defeating our greatest enemy, death, and he now reigns in heaven, in glory and power.
We all find glory in great things. We all reflect what we find glory in. We all seek joy. Jesus offers us all these things! I plead for you to turn to him. He is speaking to us all. He has given us a great library of scriptures called the bible to let us see him and his world rightly. We can either listen to the preaching of the anti-God media, or we can listen to the voice of God through his scriptures.
I will close with these questions. Take a look at your life. What does it reflect? What do you worship in your life? Who or what is your god? Is it Jesus?
