Have you ever seen a 4K television? They’re amazing.
If not, go find one. Now. I’ll wait.
See, told you it was amazing.
I’m a huge video guy. Before I was into web design and print design, I was into video. I remember filming sequences when I was a kid with my friends destroying toys in our back yard with an 8mm camcorder. I remember the first time I saw a high-def TV. So you may be saying to yourself, what is this 4K?
4K (stands for 4,000) is the next resolution evolution in video. Not many companies are doing it yet, but by 2018 I think 4K will be huge. 2014 is going to be big for 4K, according to video guru Alex Lindsay.
When you look at a 4K (sometimes also called UHD or Ultra High Definition), your eyeball sometimes cannot distinguish between what’s real and what’s not. Properly shot 4K footage simply looks amazing on a 4K TV.
If you go back just 20 years, video resolutions were pretty horrible. Try looking at a standard-definition TV even nowadays and seeing what it was like. And SD today looks much better than SD from the mid-90’s.
Why? It’s all because of resolution.
Resolution is what drives what we see. From a retina Macbook screen to an iPhone 5 screen to a 4K TV, we’re looking at resolutions all day long.
It’s time for a higher resolution for this new year.
(See what I did there?)
In 2014, bring things into clearer focus. I have three suggestions for some atypical higher resolutions that we can make for the new year.
I. Focus on what’s important.
If you were really honest with yourself, what would stay and what would go in your life if you had to trim everything down? What TV shows or movies would you stop watching? What books would you start reading? What relationships would you renew?
Sounds cheesy I know, but every new year (and every new day, in fact) is a perfect excuse to focus more on your relationship with Jesus. How well do you know him? How much do you read and study about him? If we are to be call “Christians”, which means followers of Christ, why aren’t we following him as much as we like following our favorite sports teams, athletes, books, TV shows and movies? Sports and TV shows and movies won’t get you to heaven - Jesus Christ will. Focus on what’s important.
Colossians 3.2 and Hebrews 12.2 encourage us to focus on Jesus, what’s really important. All other things in our lives are secondary to following and doing the will of our Savior.
II. Make every pixel in your life display Jesus.
Those new UHD/4K televisions I was talking about? They allow you to see things with such clarity and focus that your eyeballs can’t distinguish real life from what's on the screen.
What if we were able to do the same thing with Jesus? What if we were able to live like him in every aspect of our lives, unable to distinguish “church life” from “real life?” What if our “real life” encompassed everything Jesus taught us? What if we were able to live out His message every single day, with no one being able to tell a difference no matter where we were?
You see, to be a true servant of Christ requires that kind of commitment. This only being a Christian on Sundays and Wednesdays doesn’t work. Sure, you may be able to fool a lot of people, in fact, you may be able to fool everyone - but you can't fool God.
Any screen you look at is made up of pixels. Ever seen an old 8-bit Nintendo game? They didn’t have many pixels to work with, so games didn’t look as good as they could. Fast forward 25 years to the release of the Xbox One last month. A racing game called Forza looks amazing, even on a “regular” HD TV. The cars look like real cars. It’s unbelievable.
Any video or computer engineer knows that the more pixels they can push, the better clarity of the image. That’s why those retina screens in Apple products look so good, because they cram as many pixels as they can into such small packages to make them clearer and clearer.
What if every “pixel” or piece of our life reflected the image of Christ? (Matthew 5.16) Every screen you look at is nothing more than a collection of pixels. Every life we look at is nothing more than a collection of choices. Small, itty-bitty choices that make up the whole picture of our lives. What does that look like? And when people look at the “pixels” of your life, does the picture look like Jesus? Or something else?
III. Give people the “Wow!” factor in 2014.
Some things you just remember, and they stick in your head. Maybe it was the first time you saw a movie you loved. Or maybe you visited a place that stuck with you. Regardless of what it is, it was a “Wow!” moment for you.
I’m such a nerd. I remember the first time I saw a Macintosh computer. Wow. I remember the first time I saw a high-def television and a 4K television. Wow. I remember the first time I held an iPhone. Double wow.
Will people look at your life and say, “Wow. They are really living that Christian life!” or won’t they? The true way of Christianity is attractive, and there’s so many people that call themselves Christians that look nothing like what a true Christian should look like, and that turns people off in a big way.
If you were to go to a movie and accidentally go into the wrong theater, you’d be turned off by that. I came to see The Avengers and ended up seeing some romantic comedy. That’s not what I wanted or intended to see.
People look at Christians and expect to see something great. And when we’re hypocrites and we don’t live out Christ (or at least try our best to), people are turned off by that.
We do not seek the praise of men, but we are to be a sweet smelling aroma to those who are lost (2 Corinthians 2:15ff). Our job is to make disciples. And to do that, Christianity must look appealing. It must look like the better way of life that we know it is. People need to look at us and say “Wow, what a servant.” If they don’t, they won’t see Christ as He truly should be.
Again, I know I reached on some of those illustrations, but I hope I conveyed to you the idea to not have the typical New Year’s resolutions this year, but to have higher ones this year.
Make 2014 all about Christ and see how far He will take you.
