If It Bleeds, It Leads

The title comes from the world of journalism. Blood and gore catch the attention of an audience. It’s not just the blood and gore of murder, catastrophe, or natural disaster that gains our attention; it is the blood and gore of broken lives, broken political systems, and the potential of a future filled with the never-ending promise of disaster.

A fear-based message wrapped in a morbid sense of curiosity is not from God. Proverbs tells us our future will be like the light of dawn that grows brighter and brighter until the full day. Jeremiah quoted God saying our future is filled with hope and a plan to prosper us. Under the ever-expanding revelation of God upon the Earth, things are actually getting better, not worse. The statistics reveal that reality. A message of hope and redemption is contrary to the pitchmen and women in the news and, unfortunately, some in the Church whose product sales depend on you and me perpetually living in need of our next fix of death and disaster to feed our fear-based habit about the future.

If you turned off your television or put down your smartphone for a year and did not listen to any reports from the “If It Bleeds, It Leads” crowd when you reengaged your device, you would hear the same dark prophecies. The only things that would have changed were the names and places. 

We have been called to live in hope, not fear. Fear, and the resulting doubt, and despair that comes with that message are not on Heaven’s menu. God is not the purveyor of these things, and we should not consume them or promote them without discernment. If we do, we will exchange a message of hope for a message of fear and become spokespersons for another kingdom.