Skip to main content

Fame? I’m Going To Live Forever




   To be rich and famous is the new American dream.  In a recent Pew Research Center poll, eighty-one percent of 18- to 25-year-olds surveyed in a said getting rich is their generation's most important or second-most-important life goal; 51% said the same about being famous.  Author Jake Halpern in his research for his book, Fame Junkies, teamed up with several academics and conducted a survey of some 650 teenagers in the Rochester, New York area.  In one of the questions in the survey, teens were given the option of “pressing a magic button” and becoming stronger, smarter, famous, or more beautiful.  As it turns out, boys in the survey chose fame almost as often as they chose intelligence, and girls chose it more often.  And why wouldn't they think that?

   Maybe, because celebrity is the most celebrated attribute in our nation.  When famous people testify before congress it makes the news, even if they have no idea what they are talking about.  Celebrity’s endorsements carry much more weight than facts.  Any organization that wants to raise money benefits when they can attach a famous face to the cause. 

   Look at the rise of the reality television star.  They need no “skill” but to act the fool.  You don’t have to do much of anything useful to be a star.  And yet they are revered.  They make millions of dollars off their image.  Think about how many of the people that top the news reports, twitter feeds and nightly buzz are famous for nothing more than being famous.

   Why wouldn't you want to be famous!  Your paid well for doing nothing.  No responsibility but creating a buzz.  No physical labor, no office hours, just living off your fame.

   Consider however if you will this passage of scripture:
“and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we commanded you,”
1 Thessalonians 4:11.

     Here the apostle Paul with the authority of the scriptures gives us a command, lead a quiet life.  The word is one that emphasizes minding your own business, and staying at home.  It’s not out on the town, doing the talk show circuit, chasing after a bigger payday.  He encourages simple, honest, manual work, not the glitz and glamour of fame.  A quiet life.

    Fame and riches often led us into temptations and sin.  That desire has ruined many people (1st Timothy 6:9-10). Popularity can corrupt our thinking; when we like to hear our name chanted by the crowds more than being whispered by God.  Chasing after such thing may bring us a big payday, it might get our faces in the papers, and put our names on everybody’s lips, but it won’t help us get to heaven.  When it comes to being adored by the world or chosen by God, I’d rather chose the one that is not fleeting but lasts forever. 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mysterious Ways

    William Cowper didn’t see any reason to live.   He decided that he’d jump off the bridge over the Thames. So, he called a cab to take him there.   But that night in 1763, a thick fog enveloped London. It was so thick the cab driver couldn’t find the bridge and couldn’t even find the way to take William home. In frustration, he ordered the driver to stop and get out to get his bearings. He walked up to the nearest house to read the number and it was William's house. Gone now were William’s thoughts of suicide and instead a new idea came into his head. So, he went in and wrote these words: God moves in mysterious ways His wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps in the sea And rides upon the storm.  You fearful saints, fresh courage take; The clouds you so much dread Are big with mercy and shall break In blessings on your head.     I sometimes wish we could see all the ways God watches over us when need it. There are...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Gift You Give Yourself

    I always hated buying gifts for my Mom. If I got her something like a new set of pans, it was like saying “Here’s something you can use to go make me something to eat”. A gift for her was seemingly a gift for me.   There are however gifts you give that benefit you more than the receiver. For example, forgiveness. When you give it, you are giving it to yourself as much as you are giving it to them. Jesus said that when we forgive others it means God is forgiving us our wrongs (Matthew 6:14-15).  I once read: “ Heaven is where everyone's forgiven. Hell is where nobody's forgiven.  So, when we forgive we pull heaven down into our lives.  When we withhold forgiveness, we pull hell up into our lives ” Give yourself something nice today, Forgive.
Post a Comment
Read more

Why Does A Lion Tamer Use a Chair?

  Ok, I know you have seen the image. A lion tamer enters in the cage of the beast and forces it to obey his commands using a whip, a gun and a chair. Now you can see how the whip and gun could come in handy but you might be wondering why a chair would intimidate an animal as powerful as a lion? Clyde Beatty taming a lion with a chair   It's not that the lion is afraid of the chair -- it's that the lion is confused by the chair. Cats are single-minded, and the points of the chair's four legs bobbing around confuse the lion enough that it loses its train of thought. Casually put, the chair distracts the lion from wanting to claw the lion tamer's face off. The powerful creature could destroy the chair in moment’s notice but instead it is distracted into submission.  It’s not too much different than how Satan controls us today. By the power of God we could overcome anything that he would use to subdue us. We can overcome the evil one (1 st John 2:13-14). ...
Post a Comment
Read more