Are you a Thermostat or a Thermometer?

If you are on any form of social media lately, there seems to be a trend whenever something news worthy happens. People post videos or leave comments stating their personal opinion on what is happening. But do we really understand the impact that have not only on our own lives but on the lives of people around us or who visit our social media sites?

When you think about these things and your life, are you a thermostat or a thermometer?

A thermometer is affected by its surroundings, depending on the temperature, it either goes up or down.

A thermostat affects its surrounding. It controls the heat or coldness.

Do you merely react to what is happening around you or do you have some sort of impact on it.

In the Bible we have two clear examples of who were thermostats and one who was a thermometer.

Noah and Mary, the mother of Jesus were thermostats. Despite where they were living, and things were definitely a whole lot worse than the world we are living in, they remained unaffected by things happening around them. They refused to be influenced by their environment. They held on to their moral upbringing and remained uncompromised in their faith.

Lot on the other hand was a thermometer. Living in the land of Sodom, definitely an evil place and not one you would want to live in. He was not happy there. He could have been a leader among the people living there and influenced things going on, but he didn't. He compromised. When the angels came announcing the destruction of the city, he had a hard time being convinced it was time to go. Even though he was spared, along with a handful of his family members, he wasn't strong enough to influence the lives of people around him. Even his wife took a sneak peek and looked back to see the destruction and faced the consequences of her decision to disobey the angels warnings.

It shows there is no power in a uncompromised life.

We often complain about how we are based on what is happening around us. Our job as Christians, however is to permeate and effect the culture around us.

When you walk into a room as a Christian, it should impact the people there. They should know you are a Christian. Not in a pious or self righteous way, but you should affect conversations.

So what does your social media sites say about you?

Would someone who stops by your page for the first time know without a doubt you're a Christian, or it is difficult to tell?

Do you stay positive when the negative things are happening all around you? Do you refrain from being impacted by what is happening around you and stand firm in your faith? Do you complain about how things are so bad in your life or are you making positive changes?

Might be time to move from becoming a thermometer and become a thermostat instead. Let's make a positive change both in the messages we are reflecting on our social media sites and even what is happening in the world. We can be the type of change that influences people not being influenced by what is happening.

I love how The Message translates Romans 12:1-2, "So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you."

From the NIV, " Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will." 

For some of us, it might just be the time to adjust our thermostats!!! I think now, more than ever, we have the ability to reach out to people and influence the positive change in our culture. Social media makes the more popular than ever before. 

And when you walk into a room and people change because you are there, count it all joy! You are impacting them in a powerful way by the how your life is a witness to them. 

The best compliment I received on my Facebook site by someone I "friended" is that it is so positive. It's encouraging and uplifting. That is just what I mean when I say how our lives and social media can have impacts on people we don't even realize. What does yours say about you?