James Curtis

I’ve come to realize the incredible impact that the mass media has on people’s lives. Advertisements are showing us that sex sells…porn is proving this to be true. Television shows are showing us that it’s okay to just be, in the words of Alex and Brett Harris (authors of “Do Hard Things.”), an “Average Teen.” Walk through any public school (as well as most private schools) and you’ll find that sex drugs and alcohol prove to be a very prominent part of almost any student’s life.

In a lot of the same ways, music seems to play a huge role as well. I’ve been known to fight to the bitter end that music has no effect on a person’s life. This has mainly been due to the fact that people try to shove this “Rap causes killing” crap down our throats almost constantly. Maybe we should start posing a better question. My, personal, theory isn’t that all music causes you to do horrible things, it’s this; although I feel as though bad music doesn’t necessarily make you do bad things, it’s very much so true that good music helps you to do marvelous things.

Hear me out on this. If we were to totally re-route our music choices to only those things honoring God, would we become better people? Absolutely not, that’s not the case at all. The point is this, mass media plays an incredible role in our lives. For teens especially, music is the leader in front of the incredible train of that which is mass media. If all you’re doing is listening to “I wanna hump dat booty, I wanna get dat booty, I wanna feel yo booty,” then guess what? you’re probably not going to feel as convicted when you look lustfully at women. Now think about this, if we were to re-rout our music choices, if only for a month-long trial, so we heard stuff like “There will be times where you may not find a reason to stand and sing, but let this remind you time after time, you’re a child of the king,” we may not feel as great about doing such things as looking lustfully at others.

The simple fact of the matter stands at this: Music, whether you’d like it to be or not, is an incredible influence on that which is you. Every question leads to two choices-Honor God (Ya know, that guy who gave His SON so that you may be saved), or feed the ego which is you. As cheesy as this may sound, God calls us to imitate Christ, and every now and then, the question really is as simple as “What would Jesus do?”

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe you’re going to hell for listening to that hit song “Hump dat booty.” The simple fact is, Jesus died on account of He knew all of us were going to make choices such as that, but God calls us to more. He calls us to give up little things for Him every day. Why not start with a huge influence on what you are?