ASI Scandinavia 2015: Experience His Power

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ASI Scandinavia

Lifestyle

Jonathan Karlsson

Navigate In a Digital World

I'll just begin this presentation with...

My younger brother is very much in a similar position where I used to be.

But 1 popular thing that he is saying a lot is, and I meant this not just in him, but in many other people that I meet, they think that Christianity is something boring, something that is not interesting or that has any attraction in it.

And that when you become a Christian you can not have any fun anymore.

I don't know if anyone has heard of that.

But that's what I would like to investigate also a little bit in this topic or in this presentation.

Let me just share with you 2 quotes before I go further.

Because there is a balance in amusement even for Christians And this might come as a shock to some people, but this is actually what Ellen White says.

Says, there are persons with a deceased imagination to whom religion is a tyrant, ruling them as with a rod of iron.

Such are constantly mourning over their depravity and groaning over supposed evil.

They are chilled by the innocent laugh from the youth, or from anyone.

They consider all recreation or amusement a sin, and think that the mind must be constantly wrought up to such just such a stern severe pitch.

Oh you can't have any fun being a Christian.

You need to be always serious, never laugh or you know have this attitude and they say all recreation and all amusement is sin.

Then she says, others think that the mind must be ever on the stretch to invent new amusements and diversions in order to gain health.

They learn to depend on excitement and are uneasy without it.

How many extremes are there when it comes to amusement?

We think, oh yeah, the farther away from amusement we are, the better off.

It says, There is a distinction between recreation and amusement.

It says, recreation tends to strengthen and build up.

So that's recreation, it's basically to recreate yourself, to build yourself up.

Amusement on the other hand is sought for for the sake of pleasure and is often carried to excess.

So she makes a contrast between amusement and recreation, but she doesn't say that it is necessarily purely evil that amusement is purely evil understand she says it is often taken to excess and that word excess means it is going too far right next sentence you can see this not a right next sentence there is a great need of temperance in amusement, as in every other pursuit.

So, You know, you can have fun as a Christian.

You can do something that is of an amusement.

But we need to remember that there needs to be temperance in that.

And that it doesn't give us energy, but it actually takes energy.

So if we spend time in amusement then we also need to spend time in recreation to help us recover from the amusement.

And she says the character of the amusements should be carefully and thoroughly considered.

So there are different kinds of amusements, correct?

Some that are good and some that are not, and we need to thoroughly investigate what's the tendency of this amusement.

He said, every youth should ask himself, what influence will these amusements have on physical, mental, and moral health?

Will my mind become so infatuated as to forget God?

Shall I cease to have His glory before me?

So in this outset, I just want to, or in this presentation, I would like to explore this balance.

How can media be used in an appropriate I'm going to speak specifically about media as an amusement.

How can that be appropriately used but not taken to the excess?

And I'm not claiming to have all the answers, but I would like to explore this together and feel free to comment yourself if you have other insights.

I grew up in a Christian home on the Swedish countryside.

3 young boys at that time and there was 1 more boy that came later on.

And I lived out in the countryside and had a very good childhood I must say.

We picked blueberries and mushrooms out in the forest.

We went biking and building tree houses in the forest.

Well, I'm actually this 1 over there in the red shirt.

We went fishing also with my father and other activities, skiing and all of these things.

This is, many of these things I would consider innocent activities that many of them might be even recreational activities but this this was beneficial I believe my Growing up out there in the wilderness.

We have here again my first Bible at the age of 10.

And I had a great spiritual interest and a desire.

And That's the 1 I read for my devotionals.

And it's very, I was very inspired and I even underlined as a 10 year old boy, I was reading about Moses and everything that was happening.

So my mind was interested in God at an early age.

Then we moved to Africa, to Uganda, and that was also a very good place for me.

We're chasing chameleons and having all kinds of animals.

Here you see a monkey and an antelope that we used to have.

This was a great environment for us to grow up in.

And Elowai says in this whole page 501 that, in this age, life has become artificial and men have degenerated.

While we may not return fully to the simple habits of those early times, we may learn from the lessons that will make our seasons of recreation what the name implies.

Seasons of true upbuilding for body and mind and soul." This is an interesting quote also because she says that we can't really go back to the simple life that, you know, it would be the ideal maybe.

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