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Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus\u2026 (Philippians 2:3-5)

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In the unregulated wild west of the internet, mob and vigilante justice is an increasing reality.\xa0 Sometimes aspects of this reality fly under the name cancel culture, sometimes trolling, sometimes value signaling, political correctness, polarization, etc.\xa0 But, whatever one calls it, it has all grown in the new social arena enabled by our smartphone, social media, and internet age\u2014brand new cultural capacities that have grown with lightning speed over the past few decades.

But my point is not to decry these things.\xa0 Sometimes the ideas and actions that have flowed under these labels have been positive: giving voice and power to folks long marginalized, for instance.\xa0 At other times: slander, gossip, rage, bullying, stalking, and shaming have been closer to the reality marking these trends.\xa0 All that simply to say that it\u2019s a whole complex set of issues that resists a label of either completely \u201cgood\u201d or completely \u201cbad.\u201d\xa0 What it is, is completely new.\xa0 The capacity to launch out a thought, an attack, a response, a defense, a revelation, a picture, a video, all in real time, but without always having real contact with the people or situations addressed.\xa0 \xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0

And that\u2019s why what I actually want to talk about isn\u2019t this new smartphone driven capacity we posses, but rather, our character as the people who use it.\xa0

Our capacity has grown more quickly than our character as a society when it comes to determining the means to righteousness, justice, and peace through our new instant, global system of social media.\xa0

But continually we find again and again in scripture that it is our character God is interested in.\xa0 That is, not what we can accomplish, but how we go about accomplishing it.\xa0

In Jesus taking on our humanity and coming to earth to live, teach, die, rise, and ascend: he not only accomplished what God intended, but he did it in God\u2019s way.\xa0 The word took on flesh: the talk took on the walk.\xa0 The means matched the ends.\xa0

And as we are conformed to Christ through the power of the Spirit, it is just this character of Christ that is being formed within us and that Paul continually implores us to put on.\xa0 \u201cHave the same mindset as Christ Jesus\u201d he says again and again.\xa0 And what he means when he says it, is that we are called to humble submission.\xa0 Firstly to God, but also to one another.\xa0 Not looking to our interests, but that of others. \xa0Not assuming that we have all the answers and the righteousness of justice on our side, but rather being humble enough to remember that we too have sinned, and that we might not have the whole picture.\xa0 Indeed, that we might have a lot more to listen and learn than to tell.\xa0

How different might our social media interactions or real life interactions look with that posture?\xa0 Seek today to join God in the work of forming the character of Christ within you as, in your relationships with one another, you take on the same, humble, loving mindset as Christ Jesus\u2026\u201d \xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0

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