S6 EP7 | What Company Are You Keeping - Including On Social Media?
They say you become like the 5 people you spend the most time with.
I believe that’s true. But I would add to it…
Show me the social media accounts you “creep” most - and I bet I can tell you what you struggle with - or how you are encouraged!
The Bible is full of warnings about the company you keep. Is it time for you to do an audit?
Want to go deeper on this topic?
Carla’s signature 1:1 coaching program - The 4 Pillars of Thriving - is now available! Book a discovery call to find out more.
Choosing Your Online Company:
Ever heard the saying "you become like the five people you spend the most time with"? Consider how this applies not just to real-life interactions but also to your online presence.
Reflect on the top five social media accounts you regularly engage with. Are they uplifting, or do they breed comparison and envy?
Biblical Insight:
Drawing inspiration from 1 Corinthians 15:33, Carla emphasizes the biblical truth that bad company corrupts good morals.
Proverbs 22:24-25 warns against making friendships with those given to anger, emphasizing the influence of our social circles on our behaviors and attitudes.
Guarding Your Circle:
Challenge yourself to evaluate the conversations and dynamics within your inner circle. Are they life-giving, or do they contribute to negativity?
Proverbs 27:17 reinforces the importance of being in a circle that sharpens and uplifts you spiritually.
Intentional Curation:
Audit and edit your social media and real-life circles. Surround yourself with people and accounts that challenge, encourage, and inspire growth.
Seek out authentic relationships with wise and uplifting individuals, as per Proverbs 13:20.
Be intentional in your relationships, both online and offline. Audit your circle, seek wisdom, and be authentic. As you curate a life-giving circle, you'll find yourself growing into the person God has uniquely created you to be. Don't be afraid to seek out those who will challenge and uplift you on your journey.
Affirming Truth - I will audit and edit my real life and social circle so that I may grow into the woman of God He is calling me to be.
Key scriptures:
1 Corinthians 15:33: "Do not be deceived: 'Bad company ruins good morals.'"
Proverbs 22:24-25: "Make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man, lest you learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare."
Proverbs 27:17: "As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend."
Proverbs 13:20: "Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm."
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TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Carla: Hey friends, welcome to Affirming Truths. I'm your friend and host, Carla Arges. This show is a safe place to share our struggles, grow in faith, and root our identity in Christ. My hope is that you will leave each episode feeling encouraged in your journey. Subscribe so you don't miss an episode and it would mean the world to me if you would leave a review.
[00:00:30] Carla: I am so glad you're here. Let's get started. Hello friends! Welcome to Affirming Truths. It's Carla. I am so glad you're here. Anyone else in the midst of, like, some serious... spring allergies. That is me. So I'm sorry if I sound a little congested. I have these beautiful lilac bushes on my property. Beautiful, but [00:01:00] absolutely deadly for my allergies.
[00:01:02] Carla: So They are in full bloom, which means I'm in full congestion, but that's okay. That won't stop me from bringing you a good message today, a message that's going to challenge you, and a message that is going to, I hope, cause some reflection, and if needed. Some change. All right. So have you guys ever heard the expression you become like the five people you spend the most time with?
[00:01:34] Carla: This is something that I heard years ago. And upon reflection, I I really agree with that. And I have conversations with my son in that vein as well, as he's in high school and forming friendships and trying to find his place. You become like the five people you spend the most time with. [00:02:00] Now, for a lot of us, we'd be like, Oh, that's great.
[00:02:02] Carla: We have, I have great friends. You know, I spend time with, you know, my Bible study group. I spend time with my Christian friends, but I want you to consider that how we actually spend our time. Nowadays is often less in the presence of real people and often in the presence of online accounts, right? In this whole social media world, we tend to engage more online.
[00:02:37] Carla: And not even engage. There, there's a type of voyeurism that happens online. We don't even actually engage, but we watch, we study, we compare, don't we? And I want you to think about what are the top five accounts you look at regularly? Not that you necessarily follow, not that you [00:03:00] necessarily Engage with, but what are the top five accounts you look at regularly in first Corinthians 1533?
[00:03:11] Carla: It says, do not be deceived. Bad company ruins good morals. Hmm. How much, how many of us tell that to our kids, right? And Hmm.
[00:03:32] Carla: That the type of accounts that we view can corrupt us as well. Are we viewing accounts that cause comparison? That cause us to feel less about ourselves? Do we look at accounts that cause envy? And covetousness, do we look at accounts that cause us to last? Like, what are we looking at? What type of [00:04:00] social media company are we keeping that is corrupting us from inside?
[00:04:08] Carla: You see, when Jesus came, he didn't come to abolish the law. He came to fulfill it and to bring more depth to it. The law said, do not kill. Jesus said. Don't even think about killing the law said not to to, um, have covetousness and, and have extramarital affairs. Jesus said, if you even look at someone the wrong way, there's sin, right?
[00:04:36] Carla: Um, Jesus. Brought it more to our heart attitude, to the battle that's in our mind than our actual outward behavior. So maybe you think, well, I'm not, I'm not going to kill anyone, Carla. I'm not, you know, having affairs. I'm not doing this, but what is your heart? What is the mind [00:05:00] and how are the accounts?
[00:05:02] Carla: That you're surrounding yourself with feeding you. And this goes for people to misery loves company. If you find yourself often complaining or gossiping, if you find yourself often dissatisfied with life, can I challenge you to look at who you're hanging out with and what type of conversations happen there?
[00:05:27] Carla: Because women that have their heart set on God, women that are in the posture of. Giving praise, giving thanks, following after God. Women of, of the, of the church. And I mean, capital C church. I don't mean in your particular church. Our sisters in Christ that are really going after God. The conversations are different.
[00:05:55] Carla: They encourage us. They challenge us. They uplift us. [00:06:00] Misery doesn't love company and the company of strong women that collaborate and raise each other up and hold each other to high standards. Misery doesn't love that company. So you either are going to find new company or you're going to get out of your misery.
[00:06:19] Carla: Because you're going to start to become like the people that you're hanging out with. You're going to start to become like the social media accounts you consume. In Proverbs 22, 24 to 25, it says, Make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man, lest you learn his ways and untangle yourself in a snare.
[00:06:47] Carla: Don't hang out. With women, there are gossips. That are complainers, that are, are stuck in victim mindset and not wanting to [00:07:00] change. Don't, don't associate with so called women have faith that are always, why me, why me, why me. And that may sound harsh, but you have to guard your inner circle, knowing that good produces good and evil corrupts.
[00:07:25] Carla: Evil corrupts. You know, sometimes the argument was Jesus was a friend of sinners. Yes, he was, but what was his inner circle? His inner circle weren't the ones continuing, continuing in sin. His inner circle was not the ones who were willingly doing sin after sin after sin again. His inner circle were people that were concerned with him, that brought him up, that, that he could commune with, that he could rest with, that he could do life with.
[00:07:59] Carla: That [00:08:00] was his inner circle. Right? Like, look at any of the greats, what are their inner circles like? Right? What was Moses inner circle? What was Joseph's inner circle? Those are the things that we have to ask ourselves. It's not that we don't evangelize, it's not that we don't love others, but who we intentionally decide to give our free time to outside of speaking over others, the love of Jesus.
[00:08:39] Carla: It matters. It matters who we spend our time with. It matters who we spend our time with. In Proverbs 27, 17, it says, As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend. Do you have friends that sharpen you for the kingdom of God? [00:09:00] Are you following social media accounts that sharpen you for the kingdom of God?
[00:09:08] Carla: Really ask yourself that question, because again, I go back to the fact of if you are currently living in a life where complaining and gossiping and comparing and not feeling good enough. Is your everyday existence or a big part of your everyday existence? I would say you do not have the right circle.
[00:09:37] Carla: You are not consuming the right media. You are not intentionally spending time with the right people. And when you are with the right people. Are you being yourself or are you trying to quote unquote, keep up? That's what I want to ask you because when [00:10:00] you enter in those circles that can elevate you and challenge you and sharpen you, you have to go authentically.
[00:10:10] Carla: You have to go showing who you are, and I struggled with this for a long time. I had, and I'm still getting over it, honestly, but I had a huge fear, a fear of interacting with Christian women. Um, I had this story that I told myself that I wasn't Christian enough. I had this story that I told myself that if they knew my past, they would never accept me.
[00:10:39] Carla: Um, and it really is stories that the enemy planted in my head that I gave life to, that I ruminated over. So I would either A, avoid Christian women altogether, or B, I would try to Present myself a certain way [00:11:00] so that I would be accepted so that I wouldn't be judged. Um, I would try to put on who I thought I needed to be in order to belong in those circles.
[00:11:13] Carla: Well, friend, God doesn't want you to be anyone other than who he created you to be. And the beauty about finding a good life giving circle is that they want your flaws and they want your imperfections because they want the space to be flawed and imperfect too. And you come together in beautiful community.
[00:11:36] Carla: And you build each other up. And I have found I have been curating my social media really differently. Really differently. If it is not something that challenges me or encourages me in the Lord, for the most part, I don't look at it. You know, apart from recipes sometimes, if I want an idea for a meal where I'm specifically [00:12:00] searching that out, but I'm curating my feed full of these.
[00:12:04] Carla: Beautiful Christian author women, these beautiful, uh, Christian coaches that encouraged me in my own walk as a Christian author, my books on Amazon, um, that encouraged me in my walk as a Christian coach. And it's just made all the difference. Now, remember, iron sharpens iron. That means you can't have people in your circle that are always agreeing with you or, or, or saying yes to you.
[00:12:34] Carla: You need a circle that calls you to hire, that is willing to say, wow, God made you better than how you're showing up today. Not in judgment, but in love to pull you higher, to pull you higher, to be the woman God's called you to be. Right? And so I really want you to [00:13:00] take an honest look at how you feel and how you think and how you speak throughout your day and trace it back to who you spend the most time with and what accounts you spend the most time on.
[00:13:18] Carla: It will make a world of difference in your life to surround yourself with life giving truth speaking women of God. My affirming truth for you today is I will audit and edit my real life and social circle so that I may grow into the woman of God He is calling me to be. And I want us to look at Proverbs 13 20.
[00:13:46] Carla: Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm. The companion of fools will suffer harm. [00:14:00] Get wise women in your circle, seek them out, be real, be authentic, pray for God to create opportunities where you can meet these women. And get into authentic relationship with them, that is part of living the Christian life that is part of being able to rise into who God is creating you to be, and he has created you to be.
[00:14:31] Carla: So much. He has created you to bring life to others. He has created you to be an ambassador for heaven. He has created you with purpose to take ground for the kingdom, to be an inspiration, to be an encouragement, to be a bringer of light and truth. You can't be those things to others. If you're not them yourself.
[00:14:57] Carla: All right, friend. All [00:15:00] right. My prayer for you is that you would have the courage to seek life giving friendships, because I know it takes courage, I know it does. And that you would find them, and that you would grow in and through them. Alright, bye friend.
[00:15:23] Carla: Thanks for joining me today. I hope we're already friends on social media, Instagram at Carla Arges or at AffirmingTruths. Can't wait to see you back here next week. Bye friends!