Maybe You Will Lose Control

I read this commentary post from John Piper today titled Beware: The Bible is about to threaten your smartphone focus. It has a banner at the top of the post that says, “Man shall not live by facebook alone.” I am copying the full text here in this post because it is an awesome reminder.

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Beware: The Bible is about to threaten your smartphone focus by John Piper
Are apps a threat to God-focus? Yes. But it works both ways. Fight fire with fire.

If you are reading your Bible on your computer or your smartphone or your iPad, the presence of the email app and the news apps and the Facebook app threaten every moment to drag your attention away from the word of God.

True. Fight that. If your finger offends you, cut it off. Or use any other virtuous violence (Matthew 11:12) that sets you free to rivet your soul on God.

But don’t take mainly a defensive posture. Fight fire with fire.

Why should we think of the Facebook app threatening the Bible app? Why not the Bible app threatening the Facebook app, and the email app, and the RSS feeder, and the news?

Resolve that today you will press the Bible app three times during the day. No five times. Ten times! Maybe you will lose control and become addicted to Bible! Again and again get a two-minute dose of life-giving Food. Man shall not live by Facebook alone.

I’m serious. Never has God’s voice been so easily accessible. The ESV app is free. The Olive Tree Bible Reader app is free. And so are lots of others. Let the Bible threaten your focus. Or better: Let the Bible bring you back to reality over and over during the day. –John Piper commentary posted on www.desiringGod.org
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I don’t have a smartphone, because clearly I am not smart enough for one, nor do I have a facebook account, because clearly I am too hip for facebook. But I do have obsessions that I get my fix from and they are blogs. Now almost all of the blogs that I read regularly are focused on faith and are of great benefit to me in terms of my faith and they help me grow in Christ which I desperately need. However, why go to a person’s commentary on it, when I can go directly to the source. I have a bible as close as I have my computer. Shouldn’t the Word of God trump one person’s opinion of the Word of God?

So here is what I have decided. Before I go and check the blogs I read for updates, I am going to open my Bible and ground myself in God’s word. Will you join me? Before you open facebook or check your twitter updates or read blogs or turn on the television (and the list can go on forever) will you open up the word of God and see what He has to say?

I loved these two lines from Piper:

“Maybe you will lose control and become addicted to Bible!”

“Let the Bible threaten your focus. Or better: Let the Bible bring you back to reality over and over during the day.”

Father, be our strength as we try to control all obsessions outside of our obsession with you. We know that in Christ we have the power to do this and it is in his name and for your glory that we pray this.