“For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved.” – Romans 10:10.
You can’t escape technology.
It’s a part of your everyday life. Not in a scary sense like being watched by Big Brother from George Orwell’s classic book 1984. But in the sense that technology plays an essential role in your daily life. The microprocessor would change all our lives — bring computers into our homes and then eventually bring smartphones into our pockets. From the time you wake up to the moment you hit the bed at night, you will live beneath the umbrella of technology. From the lights in your house, the smartphone in your pocket, to the computer on your desk, you benefit from technology. The bottom line is computers bring tremendous blessings to our lives,
The Christian can easily look at God as a kind of supercomputer that exists and inhabits a certain place with the necessary software. As a result, the individual needs to go to a certain place to access Him. The same as we tend to use maybe 10 percent of the capabilities of software packages like Microsoft Word, we don’t expend too much energy getting to know God on a very personal level and as a result, God inhabits a portion of day-to-day lives. God is with us and wants to communicate with us directly. He desires to speak into our hearts; encouraging us, shaping us, convicting us, inspiring us. God is not a simple tool like a computer to be occasionally used.
Imagine your heart is the computer of your life. When you accepted Jesus as your Savior, you automatically downloaded the most powerful, most sophisticated, and most advanced operating system in the universe. You now have access to everything you need to live a joy-filled and abundant life. You now have access to unlimited knowledge and mysteries, to information and resources far beyond what you knew before the new operating system was installed. Using this operating system allows you to find counsel, be encouraged and comforted and the best part, find real solutions to every problem you face.
But then 2020 came along. The pandemic as well as other things are like a computer virus, attacking your operating system. As hard as you tried not to let it happen, some malware can be downloaded into your system. The malware or virus wreaks havoc with the internal operating system: suddenly, your ability to connect to God, to search, to hear, to explore spiritual matters is infected and not working as it once did. You have to shut down the parts infected with the virus, operating at a much lower level. Your heart capacity is diminished and gets full very quickly. You can’t download new things.
The good news is God is with us. No virus can overtake the heart if you don’t want it to. And even though you haven’t been able to access certain parts of your heart, nothing has been lost. It’s all still there. And all of it can be restored. God always has a plan to heal and restore. You can always go to God for support because He is always with us.
Discussion Questions:
- How do you keep “viruses and malware” out of the heart?
- What can we do this week to be better connected to God?