In recent years we have seen an epidemic of high profile people committing terrible acts. Preachers, politicians, prominent entertainers, powerful business people. It seems the news is always new and yet always the same: leaders whose lives do not match their labor.

This is nothing new. It is as old as sin. But our age of technology and medium of social media has brought it to the forefront. God has always known about the wickedness of man’s heart; now everyone else knows too.

What is the lesson for us?

There are many truths to be realized…Be sure your sin will find you out. A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches. Great men are not always wise. Sin when it is finished bringeth forth death. The flesh is weak.

A thousand eternal truths connect to the current climate and culture of our day. But there is one that stands out to me. As I watched yet another news report of a well known and respected personality who had lost his family and found disgrace, I heard the bottom line. Someone who knew him well observed that all of his trouble came because of “what he did when the cameras were off.”

How incredibly sad. How incredibly profound. Life is not about what we are when the cameras are on – when everyone is watching. We are what we are in the dark when no one else is around.

The words have rung in my ears. Am I the same person “when the cameras are off?” Are you?

We are not what we say we are. We are not what others think us to be. We are what God knows us to be.

He sees in the secret place. He is present when others are not. He knows our heart. He watches us “when the cameras are off.”

If you see a man who is blessed, remember that he is not blessed because of what he is on a platform – he is blessed because of what he is personally with God. The same is true of chastening and sin’s consequences. The problem is not usually public first; it is private.

“Some men’s sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and some men they follow after” (1 Timothy 5:24).

By the grace of God I want to be the same person when the cameras are off. May the Lord help us all to keep a single heart and avoid a double life.