(upbeat music) We close out the week with an email from an anonymous listener, a young man, who writes in to ask this, Pastor John. I would consider myself addicted to the internet, not to internet pornography, not to video games. I'm addicted to email and Twitter and blogs, and much of what I'm addicted to is solid gospel-centered content and articles that are genuinely interesting and thoughtful and edifying.

I think I may be overdoing it because my attention seems to be taken off the people around me and making a detrimental impact on my relationships. Is this a problem? If so, how would you correct me? And what spiritual forces are at play in my heart? And do you have any strategies to help me with this?

My first thought when I hear that question is that I want to encourage us, I think, to almost suspend or at least minimize our use of the word addiction. I don't mean there's no such thing, but I think it would be helpful if we began to use some other more explicit sentences or words, here's what I mean.

If I were this person, I would say, say this, I read Twitter, Facebook, blogs, news, or whatever to sinful excess. Whatever the activity is, I should say, I'm involved in this to sinful excess. Secondly, let's say I am drawn to do this with an intensity of desire that is out of proportion, perhaps sinfully out of proportion to the value of what I'm reading and the value of other things I may not be doing.

The desire is stronger than it ought to be for something, say, as inconsequential as Twitter and my desire for other things that may be more consequential is smaller. So I have a sinful disproportion of desire. And the third thing I would want him to say or her, I should say, we should say, I am regularly going against my best judgment.

And this is sinful in giving into an intensity of desire against my best judgment. So talking about our compulsions in this way, it seems to me, has the advantage of making some things clearer and being much more hopeful in our ability to address them in biblical ways. It names the problem of sinful excess.

It names the problem of disproportion of desire. It names the problem of contradicting our own best judgment. It doesn't use this almost therapeutic or medical word of addiction that kind of in a vague way covers all these specific sins. So it's hard to deal with sin if it's cloaked with vague language.

So I think we need to get more specific. So let's step back now with that little bit of introduction and talk about the issue of compulsions driving us to Twitter and blogs, even theologically good things. And this could be any other good thing we do compulsively as well. So this is not the question of addiction or compulsion to pornography or gambling.

This is a good thing that's being talked about here. So the question here is not, is it wrong to do, but is it wrong to do it this much? Is it wrong to desire it with this level of intensity in proportion to other things? And is it such that I'm ruining my best judgment by caving?

And why would that be? Why am I not acting in accordance with my best judgment? So in other words, a God-pleasing life of faith and love and holiness is a life, not just avoiding bad things and doing good things, it's a life of doing good things with good motives in proper proportion to other good things.

That's what he's really wrestling with. So here's my strategy. I'll just close with these, I think, three or four ideas. Number one, be saturated with the scriptures so that God's revealed proportionality becomes instinctual. It's very difficult to come up with lists or timeframes about how many blogs to read or how much time to spend on Twitter.

I mean, you just can't do it. It has to become instinctual. The sense of holiness and proportion in the Christian life must become instinctual. I don't know any other way for that to happen, but to be totally immersed in God's proportionality as it's revealed in his word by reading the sweep of scripture over and over again.

Number two, let's pray that God would make us discerning and would overcome blind spots, because a lot of us just don't have even a clue that our lives are out of proportion in this regard. And number three, by God's grace, we should seek to bring the intensity of our desires into balance with the diversity of the good things God gives us to do.

So relationships at home and work and church, as well as all these other good things of reading that we're doing. So bring our desires into balance according to the diversity of good things God has put in front of us. And lastly, we should be in a church with solid biblical preaching and a network of people who will help us see when our lives are out of proportion and help us change.

- Amen, that is golden life wisdom for balance and for deciding between any two good things. Thank you, Pastor John. Well, the weekend is upon us again, and for everything you need to know about this podcast and to send John Piper a question, a very carefully crafted, concise, and specific question, go to desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

Also, as many of you know, the new features in the Ask Pastor John app for Apple and Android devices now accommodates for continuous listening of episodes. Special thanks to Ross Chasey and to our tech team at DG for getting this feature added recently. And of course, thank you to the many financial donors that make it possible for us to get this podcast and these apps to you free of charge.

Well, tomorrow is Saturday. Should it be a day of work or should it be a day of rest? The creation pattern set for us is six days of work and one day of rest, but our economy is largely built on a rhythm of five days of work and two days of non-work.

So which pattern is right? I'll ask John Piper that question on Monday. I'm your host, Tony Ranke. Have a great weekend. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)