Author Archives: reveds

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About reveds

Occupation: Pastor, Ebenezer Presbyterian Church, Lennox, SD Education: BS - Christian Education, Sterling College; MDiv. - Princeton Theological Seminary Family: Married, with Four children. Hobbies: Running (will someday run a marathon), Sci-Fi (especially Doctor Who and Sherlock), Theater, and anything else my kids will let me do.

Oh, Be Careful Little Eyes What You See

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“I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless.”
(Psalm 101:3)

I am a recovering TV junkie.  I never needed a TV Guide, I knew the schedule by heart.  If challenged today, I could probably tell you within the first 5 minutes of each “Law and Order” episode who did it and why.  Same with “Gilligan’s Island,” “The Brady Bunch,” “M*A*S*H*” – name me an 80’s or 90’s TV show, I probably saw it.  I cannot begin to estimate the number of hours wasted in front of the TV; it would be depressing to even venture a guess.

A couple of years ago my family “cut the Cable.”  We were paying for a couple hundred satellite channels, but always complaining that nothing was on.  The price for this “entertainment” kept going up, but the quality kept going down.  That, and I knew that I was watching too much TV, and my children were beginning to follow in my habits.

Since we left TV behind, some amazing things have happened.

We talk a lot more as a family.  Sure, our children are getting older, and their schedules are hectic.  We spend a great deal of time shuttling them from one place to the next.  There’s not a lot of time for TV.  But when we are home, it doesn’t have to be on.

We read more too.  We go outside to play (when outside isn’t covered in snow).  In general, I cannot think of one adverse effect from having disconnected the “idiot box.”

That being said, I read recently that the daily average of television viewing in the US is 5 hours.  That’s 5 hours a day.  The same report showed that while the average American youth will spent 900 hours per year in school, the average youth will watch 1200 hours of TV.  By the age of 18, an average television watcher will have seen over 150,000 violent acts on TV, and been enticed by over 16,000 television ads.

Compare this to recent studies regarding Americans and their Bibles.  A 2013 study by the Barna Group showed that while more than half of Americans think the Bible has too little influence on a culture they see in moral decline, yet only one in five Americans read the Bible on a regular basis, according to a new survey.  The study revealed that 57% of those who have a Bible read that Bible less than 4 times a year.  A year!

Here’s an interesting experiment for you to try:  take a small notebook and right down at the end of each day how many hours you spent watching TV and how many hours you’ve spent reading the Bible.  That should be quite revealing.

My dad used to have a sign above his computer that simply said, “GIGO” which is simply translated, “Garbage in Garbage Out.”  The basic premise is that no matter how sophisticated the computer, what you put in is what will come out.  If you enter flawed and erroneous data (garbage in), the results will be flawed and erroneous (garbage out).

Now I don’t want to equate the human mind to a computer by comparison, but the saying “Garbage In, Garbage Out,” applies to our lives just as much as it does to our computers.  If all you feed your mind is lies, garbage, nonsense – the stuff that’s on the “boob tube” – it stands to reason that you can expect your life to be filled with lies, garbage and nonsense.  How can you “set your mind on things above” if it is constantly being filled with the things below?  The apostle Paul put it this way, “Bad company ruins good morals” (1 Cor. 15:33).  How much time are you spending with your TV?

I know how tempting it can be.  You come home after a long day at work, and all you want to do is “turn on, tune in, and drop out,” to “veg”.  But we don’t, we can’t really “veg.”  The problems at work, the things said about you in the hall between classes, that stuff keeps running through your mind. We hope the TV will drown out all the stress, but it just pushes it off till later, and gives us some pretty terrible advice on how to deal with out issues.  All those voices clamoring for your attention will lead you down the primrose path.

Turn instead to God’s word.  Begin and end each day with God’s Word of truth, the truth that establishes the way you look at the rest of the world.  Begin and end each day with God’s Word of promise, and let that promise be the source of your hope and peace.  Begin and end each day with God’s Word of love, forgiveness, and grace in Jesus Christ, and allow that love to be the strength and source of your love.

Grace and peace,

SDG

PS – I highly recommend reading this – A Stranger in our Home

Ethan’s Aphorisms

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“Hear, O sons, a father’s instruction, and be attentive, that you may gain insight…”
(Proverbs 4:1)

Rather than my usual “devotional” writing this week, I thought I’d share some of the little proverbs that I’ve been jotting down as they come to me in my study time.  I call them: Ethan’s Aphorisms.

  • A pastor should never complain about his congregation.  All their faults and failures may be precisely what God is using in his sanctification.
  • A congregation should never complain about their pastor.  All his faults and failures may be precisely what God is using in their sanctification.
  • Those who leave a church because they don’t get along with the congregation or the pastor eventually find their problems follow them.
  • Rather than complain about something, pray for something.
  • Love covers a multitude of sin. (Okay, that’s not mine, but it is still good.)
  • The lack of prayer reveals a lack of faith.
  • The desire to pray is prayer itself.
  • Distractions in prayer may be promptings to pray.
  • The one who is most ready to live in Heaven is best suited to serve on earth.
  • What you believe has tremendous effect on how you live.
  • How you live ultimately reveals what you believe.
  • If you don’t know what you believe, you don’t really don’t believe it.
  • If you don’t read the Bible, you are likely not living according to the Bible.
  • A husband who will not put his wife before himself will not put Christ before himself.
  • A wife who will not submit to her husband will not submit to Christ.
  • Your child’s relationship with you is a good indication of your relationship with God.
  • A Christian’s trials are never the wrath of a judging God.  Christ has borne that wrath.  A Christian’s trials are the fruitful discipline of our loving Father.
  • That which you cannot live without has become a god to you.
  • Your sin is great.  God’s grace is greater.
  • It is never too late to repent.
  • Lost people do lost things.
  • If you are not aware of a sin from which you need to repent, you aren’t paying close enough attention.
  • The sin you despise in others is usually also found in you.
  • The more time you spend in the presence of Christ, the more you will begin to live like Him.
  • You are either connected to that which brings you life or that that which brings you death.
  • Even just a little sin, a little disobedience, a little death is too much.
  • You are either growing closer to God or further from Him.
  • Those who say they can worship God just as well while alone in nature as they can while with a congregation don’t understand what it means to worship God.
  • What you get out of worship matters far less than what you give in worship.
  • The most important thing about you is not what you do, what you’ve done, what you have, or who you know.  The most important thing about you is that you are loved by God and called His child.

SDG