going viral

James 3:15 – 16

15 This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. 16 For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.

Who do you like on TV? Who do you see on TV or any entertainment that you think : that is cool person, I want to hang out with them. For me: Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington, Bono, Zoey Deschanel, Neil Patrick Harris, Ron Hextall… these are some people I would love to have coffee with. They seem like “down to earth people”, we always say that about actors or performers who make us feel safe and trusting. How many times though, do those people seem so “real” and “down to earth”, but then you hear someone who actually had the chance to meet them and you find out they really are just acting – in real life they are a jerk.

This week during a Draft week interview on live tv a reporter was asking a big named ESPN analyst questions in an interview. He asks one question and the guy being interviewed turned into a complete jerk, “you can’t ask me questions that we didn’t go over ahead of time, what kind of…” he treated this reporter like junk and made it sound like he himself was so important and the other guy was nothing. Just a jerk. He did it because he thought they were taping this interview, he didn’t know it was live! Seriously, when the other guy mentioned that they are live the jerk froze, “live? Uh, can we start over”. No you can’t start over!

See sometimes we put on a front and we pretend to be this kind and gentle person when people are watching (when we are “live”) but then when its back to normal then we are a jerk. This passage here is referencing the verses before that say You might be a wise person, but if you have “jelousy and selfish ambition in your hearts” … you are being false to the truth. You can be a good person, you can be very wise…  but if you are doing it for yourself and not for God, it’s just not gonna last. One day the whole fake charade will come crumbling down and it will hurt, or even worse sometimes we convince ourselves that we are wise and have pure hearts but in reality we are all about ourselves… and sometimes one by one everyone else around us starts to notice it. Getting caught on live camera and going viral lets everyone know at once, but if that wasn’t life and that guy just mistreated the reporter off the air, still that reporter would know that he was fake… and one by one the people around him would realize how fake he really was. Is it like that for you? The more that people spend time with you do they come to realize that you are the real deal or that you are a fake?

1. We are all flawed, we all have areas that we are fake in, and hopefully we are working on that. What is some area that you struggle with?

2. How can you take small steps to making your life real in public and in private?

3. “This is not the _______ that comes down from above, but is _______, unspiritual, demonic.”

4. Take a minute and journal about this.