Following Instagram or Following Jesus?

 

It’s very easy to get access to information. That’s a big reason why we follow people on Instagram. We desire to change, grow and to be inspired by listening to people on social media. We might show love and support and purchase their books, attend their gatherings or conferences. We might even binge watch all of their content in hopes of becoming a changed person. A major reason as to why we listen to motivational videos as soon as we wake up or listen to podcasts. And there is nothing wrong with doing these things from time to time but it can be a bit discouraging when we put our faith in all of it and we see no results or we see no improvements. Sometimes we consume so much we forget to get up and actually produce.

 

Instagram is a phenomenal platform to influence, impact, and inspire people but it can also become a deadly trap of comparison. You’re far away from your goal and one scroll on Instagram and you see that one person has accomplished theirs. Let’s just say your goal is to work out and lose weight. Your Instagram feed may consist of beautiful women and men that are in shape who are flaunting their bodies. Showing a lot of skin or being at their next photo shoot.

 

You show some love by hearting the pics but on the inside, you are feeling extremely bad about yourself because you haven’t taken that step towards your goal yet. You decide to do the right thing by unfriending those people and exchange them for people who are more encouraging and uplifting but sometimes that’s still not enough because you still haven’t taken that ultimate step. Also, now your focus is no longer on your goal, your focus is on their numbers. How many views they’re getting, how much money they’re making selling their products or courses. How many followers they have.

 

You end up fantasizing that you can do it too. That you can lose the weight and start showing people your results in hopes of getting the same amount of followers but here’s one thing.

 

You still haven’t taken that step.

 

So, you get discouraged and never start at all leaving you stuck in a loop of scrolling on Instagram listening to podcasts, videos, highlight reels, on a sugar rush high of feeling good one minute but then feeling terrible the next, because of the comparison trap.

 

And that’s extremely toxic.

 

Especially when it takes place every day and night for hours upon hours.

 

We place a lot of our faith in Instagram followers more than we place our faith in Jesus and His transformative power of the Holy Spirit. They are literally a duo ready to tag team and make a fool out of your enemies that are constantly distracting you. The enemy of social media, the enemy of comparison, the enemy of depression, the enemy of anxiety…YOU NAME IT!

 

Here’s one thing about people on the internet.

They change. They lie. They steal. They’re wearing a façade. A large majority of them are fakes and frauds!

 

They don’t know who they truly are. They’re doing exactly what most people are doing by scrolling on social media, listening to podcasts, taking courses, reading self help books comparing themselves, and looking at what’s trending. Just to get on social media to copy and paste. They base their courses and Instagram posts off of what someone else did or has told them through this cellular device. It’s never authentic.

 

When we follow someone on the internet more than we follow Jesus that person could potentially crush our souls. We could be rooting for them or supporting them, and they could all of a sudden commit a sin, do something wrong, say something disrespectful or full of hate speech and if that causes us pain, devastation, or to be hurt and angry that means that we put too much faith in that person.

 

We esteem that person so high we convinced ourselves that everything they say or do is never wrong. We put our entire trust in them. We convince ourselves that they could do no wrong or any harm to us. And the last thing we should do is put our faith in a person to take us places that only God Himself can.

 

When we follow someone, we trust that they will take care of our souls or feed our souls. Jesus says that He is our Shepherd, and we are his sheep. Everyone who is a leader is accountable for their sheep, and if they haven’t been trained by the original Shepherd themselves, they aren’t qualified to be a Shepherd over us.

 

We take a lot of influence from worldly influences who don’t know they’re identity in Christ and haven’t been made right with God, so they come into agreement with a lot of false beliefs a huge one being that there are many ways to God and it’s okay to call God the universe. Other beliefs include that it’s okay for Christians to practice occult practices such as witchcraft, tarot, the law of attraction, manifestation…anything New Age. A lot of that is mixed up in teachings of influencers on Instagram and unfortunately saved Christians as well.

 

Because the truth is everybody just wants to be somebody and as humans our natural instinct is to copy or to trust that what everyone is saying is godly. But we have to weigh everything by the scale of the Word of God and test the waters before we go swimming in it, being careful to not let anything drown us because our souls are on the line.

 

Everyday humans are changing their opinions, beliefs, thoughts, actions, and words because we’re following someone else or or a lot of people and trust them to feed us the right nutrients as well. When in reality God is the only one who knows exactly what we need when we need it. Following Jesus will never lead us astray because His soul is being fed by God Himself and Jesus pours into us straight from God’s cup filled with the truth, unchanging thoughts, beliefs, and principles that will heal our souls.

 

And God is so good, a great Father that He gives us ideas straight from His throne in the mighty heavens. He leads and guides us to be unique and express ourselves in the way he designed us to be because there’s only one of us. I learned that from my Bible study teacher, that there can’t be many copies of me. God didn’t create me to have clones or to be a clone. We shouldn’t copy what we see on the internet when God has literally designed us to become the trendsetter. It’s okay to support and have fun doing trends but it’s not okay to copy trends to get supporters and followers because it’s not authentic and it’s not who you are.

 

You can be on Instagram portraying to be a minister you follow but God called you to be a dancer. We have to be careful friends.

 

Following Jesus is more sufficient than following men on social media or in person especially when they’re influence doesn’t come from the influence from up above. Not saying you should shut your ears to everything and everyone but when we have more Jesus in our soul, we’ll be able to detect when someone else is feeding us junk food or soul food. The most beautiful part about it is, we’ll be more confident in who God made us to truly be. When we focus on God, we come to know ourselves and who he created us to be. A lot of us have dance skills, art skills, a gift of singing but we put it away in our closet next to the Skelton of dry bones and go outside of ourselves into a world full of people who don’t know themselves putting on a suit that was only meant for Frozone from the Incredibles to wear.

 

“HONEY WHERES MY SUPERSUIT!”

 

Always clueless as to where your suit is when in reality it was never your suit to begin with, yours is in the closet of creativity you left behind with the skeleton. God has given us the power to create and the first thing we do is trade it for the next trend that the person didn’t even come up with themselves.

 

We follow people on Instagram who are selling plungers and think it’s our calling but God called us to preach the gospel and draw His people back to the Heavenly Father so they too can know Jesus for themselves. A great way to do it is by tapping into what He’s already given you, His Christ-like character. And we can only follow Christ in order to know who He is before we step out into the lost world of Instagram. Standing firm in His foundation not letting anything move or sway us off our feet.