Jon says,"The love of our own glory is the greatest competitor with God in our hearts. And sometimes we can cloak this idol in a pious disguise."
I think he's hit the nail right on the head. And as I read, I couldn't help thinking about my own motivation for blogging. Most of my blog posts, on purpose, highlight the work of pastors who have encouraged me. My desire is to help others find these men - John Piper, Tim Keller, CJ Mahaney, Mark Driscoll, Matt Chandler, and others - and their ministry so that they can learn from and be blessed by them in the same way that I have.
However, to be completely transparent, I do often look at my blog stats (i.e., number of visitors, popular posts, incoming links) and contemplate how I can increase my numbers. All bloggers, of course, want people to visit their site; they want others to comment on their postings and they want their blog addresses listed on other blogs. Essentially, they want their blogs to be recognized by others. They want to be noticed. I want to be noticed.
I wonder how much that desire, the desire to be known and recognized, motivates the social networking movement in our culture? Do people have a desire to be connected or do they instead simply have a desire to glorify themselves, their careers, their families, etc.? It's like those Christmas letters that many people send out at the end of every year. I don't write those things because they're almost exclusively, in my view, about self-glory. But does the same idol motivate me to visit and update my facebook page or to maintain my blog?
Jon Bloom points us to Matthew 21, where Jesus unmasked the idol of self-glory with a single question:
The Jewish religious leaders asked Jesus, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?”
Jesus, sitting, leaned back a bit and squinted up at them. The tension was thick.
Then he answered, “I also will ask you one question, and if you tell me the answer, then I also will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John, where did it come from? From heaven or from man?”
This was a stunning counter. They faltered. The crowd began to murmur. Their hesitation was humiliating.
They huddled for a quick conference. “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘From man,’ we are afraid of the crowd, for they all hold that John was a prophet.” How had Jesus managed to flip the dilemma horns around on them?
They decided not to grab either horn. “We do not know.” It was a politically expedient lie.
Restrained anger flashed in Jesus’ eyes. “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things."
The question the Jewish leaders asked, taken by itself, was not wrong. They were supposed to guard God’s truth and God’s people. That’s why Jesus was willing to answer it. But his prerequisite question revealed that their apparent truth-guarding was a sham.
John the Baptist’s love for God’s glory and truth had cost him his head. Jesus’ love for God’s glory and truth would get him crushed by God’s wrath. Jesus’ question was designed to reveal whether these leaders loved God’s glory and truth more than public approval. If they answered him straight, he would give them a straight answer to their question.
But they were “afraid of the crowd.” In other words, they loved their positions and reputations more than they loved the truth—more than they loved God. So they “exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature (themselves) rather than the creator” (Romans 1:25).
Do we seek to glorify our Lord and Savior through blogging? Do we seek to use facebook and other social networking sites to connect with others and other a glimpse into our lives as followers of Christ? We should pray about our true motivation for particpating in social networking and, if it's self-glory that we're seeking, ask ourselves if it is something that deserves our time and effort.
HT: Desiring God
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