In case you haven’t noticed, you are walking around with a very valuable piece of real estate in your pocket. Almost every single organization on the planet is doing it’s best to lay claim to this land and build a foundation upon which it can construct a structure of engagement and influence that will convince you to make yourself at home. They will do all the work for you; all you have to do is lease them the property.

I am referring, of course, to the screen on your phone, the five to six inch piece of glass that has become one of the most influential platforms in the history of mankind. Most of you will probably remember when you had to wait for a news broadcast or even something called a newspaper to find out what was going on outside of your own personal experience. In those days, it was much harder to be swayed by unknown outside influences. They simply did not have enough time with an individual to effectively monopolize one’s attention and thinking.

This, of course, is no longer the case. Now, most of us can find out whatever we want to know whenever we want to know it and keep finding out more about it until we get distracted with wanting to know something else. It is no longer difficult to influence us because we are now proactively engaged with trying to find things by which to be influenced. And, unfortunately, this shift doesn’t seem to be working out very well for us.

If we were primarily godward focused people constantly committed to enjoying our purpose of displaying God’s greatness in all he puts before us, these devices could be great tools to reinforce and assist our endeavors. This real estate could be filled with structures of support and monuments of testimony that call us away from unholy influence and beckon us to righteous renewal and behavior.

This, however, does not appear to be the case. Instead of intentionally filling the landscape with a design determined to aid our sanctification, I get the feeling most of us have a “for lease” sign in the yard. We flip through the offers on our social media feeds waiting for one to grab our attention and then, with a click of the thumb, sign the rental agreement without even stopping to wonder who we’ve just invited on our property. And just like that, what could have been a lush life-giving scenery of support and solace gets paved over into a parking lot of pundits, polemics and perversion.

This, however, does not have to be the case. Afterall, it is your property. You can choose who will populate it and, in this case, you do not have to honor the current leases. You are free to evict and invite new tenants.

If you are interested in doing so, allow me to recommend a listing agent … the Apostle Paul.

In his letter to the church in Rome, Paul appealed to his brothers and sisters writing, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12: 2).

What if you started using what may very well be the most influential piece of technology in the history of man with Paul’s appeal in mind? Instead of mindlessly scrolling through media feeds to see if some random post may break you away from your boredom, what if you proactively populated your phone and it’s media feeds with things that would break your attention away from this world and prompt you to transformation by the renewal of your mind? How different could your life be if you populated your landscape with monuments, schools and gymnasiums that supported you in being better formed and sculpted in the image of our glorious God?

If you are interested in finding out, we have some possible tenants you may want to consider:

Grace Fellowship Pastors Blog: www.forgodsfame.org/category/news/

Grace Fellowship Instagram: @forgodsfame

Grace Fellowship YouTube: www.youtube.com/forgodsfame

The purpose of our social media content at GF is to spread God’s fame by making disciples of Jesus Christ. We focus on creating and sharing content that exalts our Lord and helps people better enjoy and emulate him. We are not concerned with getting you to follow us (share, like and subscribe) because we are myopically focused on getting you to follow Jesus. If you want that kind of influence from people who know and love you, consider leasing us a lot on your property. We’ll do our best to best to steward it well.