Independence from the status quo is popular in today’s culture.
If there are socially common practices, it seems that culture is determined to practice the opposite.
We think that we are original, and that we are in control of our lives.
It makes us feel free and powerful!
Most choose to turn from the traditions of their family and the principles of religion, in order to feel unrestrained or controlled by those around them.
They think that the mindsets of those around them are forcing them to conform to similar thinking, while popular culture is encouraging free-thinking and independence.
I understand, people don’t want to be controlled.
How do I break this gently…
Popular Culture is controlling you!
It seems like they are leading you to a liberated lifestyle, where you are the boss of your own destiny.
In reality, you are just part of a current, flowing in the same direction…
Usually headed for a cliff.
You think that you are in control of your life, but you are blind to your dependency on society to validate your decisions.
Requiring acceptance before you can make a choice.
Clinging to the thought processes of people who are successful, in your opinion.
Following trends because it brings you attention.
Mindlessly agreeing with things that popular influencers say, even if you don’t fully understand.
Staying comfortable within your like-minded group of people and judging those who don’t think like you.
This sounds an awful lot like religious behavior, yet that is exactly what popular culture is doing to those who follow it.
Popular culture
is a
Religion!
I know that it sounds crazy, because popular culture promotes freedom from religion, but they are only referring to confirmed religions.
Religion is defined as this:
A belief in and worship of a divine power or powers. Religion involves practices that are believed to achieve a desired result. In most religions, that favorable outcome is usually associated with the after life; however, some practices offer success, prosperity, peace, wealth, love, protection, etc.
Religion is basically a belief that there is a higher power and if you do as the higher power commands and worship the higher power, you will have immeasurable gain.
Popular culture is the worship of many gods and they promise a type of ‘heaven on earth.’ If you follow the current and accept their beliefs, you will feel validation and acceptance.
It seems that their principles lead to high self-esteem and confidence, but it actually leads to self-absorption and conceitedness.
They claim that we should love one another, yet they are more concerned with everyone accepting them.
When it comes to those who don’t follow popular culture, they are no longer eager to be accepting.
The religion of this modern time is the belief in the false gods and goddesses of popular culture, who cry out for worship and promise a lifestyle of wealth, purpose and comfort.
They lead you to believe that following them will lead to prosperity and pleasure, and it certainly might, but it will only last for a moment.
The popular culture has false gods, which means that none of them are actually God.
They can’t control anything, they just crave the feeling of power and control.
There is a God who is above all.
He actually holds supreme authority!
Though popular culture offers temporary pleasures, God is the Master of eternity.
Any gain that is achieved by following popular culture, is still subject to the Creator of the universe.
Today’s culture will lead you down a fast moving, seemingly free-flowing stream of water…
Remember, water only rushes down stream.
You may think that you’re in control of your destiny and you are controlled by no one, but you hand control over to the popular beliefs of your time.
Society controls you and provokes you to accept certain ideologies if you are to achieve the life that you desire.
The religion that you thought you ran away from, came to you in a form that you welcomed with open arms.
“Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?”Romans 6:16 NKJV.
I don’t want you to be imprisoned by popular culture!
It may seem like the road to liberty, but popular culture will surely not lead you to freedom; it will lead you to becoming a slave to society.
There is a story in Jeremiah 38:14-21, that explains this concept perfectly.
We see Jeremiah deliver a message from God, to the king.
God is giving Zedekiah the key to surviving the battle in front of him.
Surrender does not make any sense in human understanding, but God was going to protect them, if they let Him.
Zedekiah heard Jeremiah’s message but feared the opinions of his people more than the words of God.
Zedekiah said to Jeremiah,
“I am afraid of the Jews who have defected to the Chaldeans, lest they deliver me into their hand, and they abuse me.”
He feared that the people he led, would turn on him if he were to do as God told him.
He loved the good attention that he was getting from Israel, while they were a prosperous nation; nevertheless, he is fully aware that they will discard him if he takes one wrong step.
Jeremiah assures Zedekiah that God will protect him and deliver him out of any destruction, but Zedekiah still fears the culture instead of God.
Because he fears what popular culture could do to him, more than he fears the consequences of rejecting God, he soon finds out who is truly in charge.
Zedekiah was so afraid of what popular culture could control that he forgot that God is ultimately in control!
He let popular culture control him and it led him to his own demise.
I urge you to not let popular culture do the same to you.
I guarantee that listening to the God who created all things in existence, will lead you to a life so abundant that you cannot even imagine it.
Don’t be afraid of what culture can do!
It can try and keep you from opportunities or make you feel rejected, but you are fully accepted in God’s eyes!
If God is for you, it really doesn’t matter who is against you!
“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”Romans 8:31-39 NKJV.
Are you unintentionally letting other people determine your ideologies and decisions?
Read more about this method of control and learn how to put a stop to it, in the post:
HOW TO PUT AN END TO PEOPLE-PLEASING
Photo by Kai-Chieh Chan
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
