Hobbies

Webster’s dictionary defines a hobby as “a pursuit outside one's regular occupation engaged in especially for relaxation.” God knows we need to relax from time to time and just have fun, but we need to have clean and godly fun, not worldly. sinful fun. So is it wrong for Christians to have hobbies? Not necessarily. Hobbies themselves are neutral and are neither right nor wrong. The key is the attitude of the person participating in the hobby.


Hobbies – from Sports to Art    or DIY of building/making stuff  – can bring lots of enjoyment into your life. But if you devote more attention to your hobbies than God intends, the rest of your life will suffer.  Spending too much time and energy on your hobbies could lead to your estrangement from family and friends, and even from God.

Examine your life.
Reflect on your life honestly, and ask God to show you how you may be devoting too much attention to your hobbies at the expense of what’s more important (such as your Family, friends,Job).


Recognize where the problem lies
– not with your passion, but with your priorities. It’s healthy for you to be a passionate person; God made you that way. So it’s okay to feel passionate about your hobbies. What’s problematic is getting your priorities out of order from God intends them to be. It’s unhealthy to run after your hobbies with such intensity that you neglect the other things you should be prioritizing

Identify what’s motivating
you to devote so much attention to your hobbies. Consider if you’re hoping to get closer to any of these from pursuing your hobbies: respect, fun, self-validation, challenge, rewards at unpredictable times, a sense of belonging, happiness from fulfilling dreams. Then consider if you’re using your hobbies to try to get away from any of these: shame, loneliness, chaos, boredom, or disappointing others. Then ask yourself two key questions: “Does my energy for a certain passion spring out of a healthy, ordered heart?” and “Does my passion signal that there is a problem inside?”.

Notice if your passions are causing pain
. Even though most hobbies are good, you'll have to Examine if its Pleasing to God , Does it cause Problem or Neglect to others.

Confess your brokenness to God. Pray about each of the sins you’ve committed because of devoting yourself too much to your hobbies, accept God’s forgiveness, and ask Him to help you learn how to recognize what decisions are best for your life and empower you to make those decisions going forward.

Shift your focus from performance to grace.
If you’re using your hobbies to help you feel valuable as a person and worthy of Glory of God, recognize that your true value comes only from the fact that you’re one of God’s children, and that God’s love for you is complete and unconditional. Embrace the grace that God offers you to live each new day, knowing that God delights in you no matter how good you are at any particular hobby.

Live to please God alone.
Rather than basing your decisions on what happens to feel good to you at a certain time or on expectations and pressures from other people, choose to make decisions according to what you believe God wants you to do. When you focus on being faithful to God in everything you do, you’ll be able to figure out how to best incorporate your hobbies into your life.


your Family
Your Family needs to know that you love them more than you love your hobbies in order to feel secure. If you devote more attention to your hobbies than to your Family, you’re inviting conflict in your relationship. But if you invest lots of time and energy into your family, they will feel loved and will likely then generously support you pursuing your hobbies in balance with the rest of your life.

your Friends

invite your Family or Friends to join you on hobby-related activities when possible this would build relationships ,they would encourage you and hold you accountable as you try to change how you pursue your hobbies so your life is in the right balance.

Commit to active participation in a local church.
Don’t neglect church because of your hobbies. You’ll find adventure and become your best self at church when you make a commitment to relationships with imperfect people there (through both good and bad), and you’ll grow closer to God in powerful ways that wouldn’t be possible without participating in a church community.

Be fully here now.
Develop a habit of giving the people in your life your full attention when you’re with them – free of distractions related to your hobbies – so you can build the kind of relationships with them that God wants you all to enjoy.

Choose to serve others whenever possible
. As you move forward with your life in a better balance, remind yourself often to model your lifestyle on the one that Jesus lived – one of service to other people. That’s the kind of life that will lead to the fewest regrets, because loving well means living well.

Paul wrote this, “And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father” (Colossians 3:17). He also wrote, “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). The true barometer for our hobbies should be whether or not they glorify God, whether or not we see them as gifts from God for which we are thankful, and whether or not they draw our attention away from Him. So much of our entertainment today is rooted in sin, glorifying it and feeding the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes. We have to be careful that our hobbies are not rooted in sin.

Hobbies can be wrong if we have them to escape from God or have them with the wrong attitude. We can participate in sports and enjoy the camaraderie and exercise sports provide.

But if we enjoy these activities with an attitude of thanksgiving to God and participation in them does not hamper our relationship with Him, then the sport or hobby is a positive influence in our lives.


The temptation with hobbies is to use them as an escape from life and consequently from God. They can rob us of time, become idols in our lives, and distract us from our “regular occupation” of glorifying God in everything. We have amazing freedom in Christ, but Paul offered this caution: “For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another” (Galatians 5:13).

Again, hobbies are not necessarily wrong, but when they consume us and take our eyes off Christ, then they are definitely wrong. Even the most innocent hobbies that consume us are encumbrances that we must lay aside because they slow us down in our race, which is the Christian life (Hebrews 12:1). A good test is this: how important is this hobby to me? Is the Lord alone enough? If it were stripped away from me, would I still be content in Christ? So, yes, Christians can have hobbies, but we have to make sure they never replace Christ. That is the temptation, and we must be sure to avoid it.