Reverend’s Reverie - take a look at the whole picture

24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. (Mt 16.24, ESV)
Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ!
Recently, I was letting my nerd-flag fly and was talking with a couple of people about Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. They had been watching the new series that Amazon had put out called The Rings of Power. I will go ahead and confess that I have not watched this series myself because due to Amazon’s stances on a variety of issues, we as a family have decided to no longer support them financially by using their services, but I digress. In our conversation, I asked them what they thought of the show. They replied they were quite surprised to see a variety of choices they had made with actors and other
miscellaneous aspects.  
Suddenly, the conversation took the turn I was expecting, especially from a show produced by Amazon. They said, “Did you know Elrond was gay?”  For those reading this who are not familiar with Lord of the Rings, Elrond was one of the main elven
characters in Tolkien’s fantasy world.  They went on to tell me that J.R.R. Tolkien had written into his magnum opus all kinds of underlying LGBTQ-Z themes, and they were happy to finally see them brought out into the open. 
 First, they obviously know very little about Tolkien. Tolkien was a devout Christian, and he would be weeping in heaven over the thought that his work was being used in such a diabolical way. In fact, Tolkien was so well known for his Christianity that even C.S. Lewis, another famous author and contemporary of Tolkien, credits Tolkien for his conversion from atheism to Christianity in his The Most Reluctant Convert. Of one thing, I am sure; Tolkien is
innocent of the crime against God and humanity that Amazon is accusing him of in their production of The Rings of Power.
This caused me to reflect on the words of C.S. Lewis when he wrote, “Christianity, if false, is of no
importance, and if true, of infinite importance, the only thing it cannot be is moderately important.”
These are words that we need to consider very carefully. If we hold that Christianity is true, then the Word of God is of infinite importance. It should be the one thing that has the final say in all aspects of our lives. Yes, allowing God’s will to be the will and guide for our lives might be inconvenient, it might cause us to deny ourselves of things we desire, but as Lewis said, the only thing that the Word of God cannot be is
moderately important. 
This may cause us to decide not to support a company like Amazon who produces material standing directly against the Word of God; a company who agrees to pay $4000/year/employee to help fund abortions for their employees.  There are many companies that fall in this category.  Should we, as Christians, be supporting companies like Amazon, Chobani, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Disney, Levi & Straus Co., Netflix, Starbucks, Tesla, etc. Perhaps, we should consider where we spend our resources wisely.  
Christ said, “Take up your cross and follow me.”  Those words are either of no importance or of infinite importance. What I promise they are not, is moderately important. 
In His service.