Tuesday, December 18, 2001
Dear Family:
We have all experienced the spam and slam on the internet. I joined the presidential prayer team several months ago and wondered why I never heard from them. Well today I received two spam. One was a porn site the other a notice from the presidential prayer team that their letters to me were blocked by Juno.com. The amazing thing is that Juno really gives you no choice for blocking the porn that you receive. You only have the choice of level of security. If it is set too low you will receive every piece of trash in the world, but if you set it too high you do not receive any of the automated requested email.
Today as I studied in I Peter, I realized that Satan is quite accomplished at hacking. He has pretty well mastered the internet. I struggle getting things to work the way I want them to work yet he is able to go and do just about anything anywhere. As I read I Peter 5:8-9, I couldn't help but think of the unwanted email I get on a daily basis. These email present me with choices. I can open them, watch them, read them, sign up to receive more or report and delete them. It dawned on me that all day everyday Satan is bombarding me with his spam and slam. He is trying with every fiber of his might to hack into my physical and spiritual life with his porn, anger, frustration, impatience, criticism, doubt, hurt and pain. His goal is to crash my system and infect it with a virus that will wipe out my memory and operating system.
1 Pet 5:8-9 Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. (NAS)
Those who would hack into our computers always look for the weakest area and usually find it in the mail express areas. They also look for the cookies file where the memories of where we have been are stored. The one where they really get us is in the temp files. Those are the files we seldom ever look at or consider. They linger around and the next time we restart the computer temp files can become an automatic program that wills its self to run automatically each time we do a specific thing on the computer. They can become permanent if not found, deleted or uninstalled. To protect ourselves we are constantly looking for the newest firewall or anti-virus. Some worms and viruses even become immune to the antivirus so we must up date them daily.
The principle of the worm or virus we see on the internet is a perfect picture of the battle our spiritual life has daily. Satan looks for our weakest point to attack. Some of the battle involves our memory, some our bodies, some our desires, some the fantasies of our mind. Life is a matter of war and the war is for control of our mind and body.
I want to address some of the causes and effects of certain spiritual viruses.
Cause:
Just as the computer virus attacks the memory of our computer so does the virus of sin attack our memory. When I honestly look back at the sin in my lives, I find some sin that I enjoy, some give me great temporary satisfaction but always come with a heavy price. I enjoy eating things that taste good to me. I am almost a slave to anything sweet and the sweeter the better. I enjoy fried foods, fatty foods and bread is to die for. Bread and cream gravy are the very best. Whole milk and real butter are beyond words. But all these contribute to the destruction of my body. I know they are unhealthy yet I continue to indulge in them. Each time I become hungry I think of all the tasty things I want to eat, it is not a part of my being to think in terms of the necessity of food for my body but rather the satisfaction of my taste and the filling of the void in my stomach. My taste and desire for personal satisfaction become the determining factor.
The virus sometimes erases memory and sometimes it mutates and fills up the memory with garbage so that the computer is locked up and cannot operate. Satan does the same with our memory. He clutters our mind and thoughts with things from the past things that should have been forgiven and forgotten but no, there they are controlling how we think and controlling how we interact with others. Junk from the past that should no longer take up space in our minds or clutter our thinking or destroy our relationships with ourselves and/or with others is there taking up space and cluttering up our minds. Relationships are destroyed by junk from the past that clutter our thinking. There are memories and regrets that should have been cleaned up and deleted from our memory.
Effect:
The taste I have and the foods I like that satisfy my taste effect my body mass with fat or cellulose which puts a strain on the bone structure of my body. It effects the quality of the blood in the vines of my body and over works my heart. I know that food in itself is not sinful but my choice of the type and quantity is.
Regardless of the sin we entertain in our lives affect our lives. Sin affects the way we feel about our selves and the relation ship we have with others. Someone has said that hospitals are full of people whose minds and bodies are falling apart because of guilt, fear and hate. Guilt over what they have done in the past, fear of past and/or present hidden things. Fear of being rejected or unloved by family or friends, fear that others will see the thing we fear as we imagine those things to be. Hate is one of the most devastating. Hate is the inability to accept and/or forgive the actions of others. In far too many cases we are hurt by someone or something and we force that hurt onto those around us. We tend to pass that hurt to others who just happen to be there. Guilt, fear and hate have greater lasting effects on the body and mind than just about anything we put in our mouths.
Mark 7:15 "There is nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him; but the things which come out of him, those are the things that defile a man. (NKJ)
Jesus said we are defiled from within not from without. It is not what we put in our mouths but what we put in our minds that corrupt our thinking and cause us to react with anger, fear, lust and guilt. It is these things which Satan continually throws at our minds that produce our heartache and pain. We look at other people and hate the things we see in them that remind us of us. We search for faults in others in order to make their faults greater than ours. We then seek to persuade bystanders to agree with us on our findings to reassure ourselves. If we can knock others down then we think we somehow stand above them. This virus is contagious and addictive.
When we get a virus on the computer we scan for the virus and remove it. If we can't remove it we simply reformat and reinstall the operating system clean.
The Bible uses many words which correlate with this thought. One of the greatest is forgiveness. It is essential that we learn to understand what forgiveness means. I remember when I discovered Psalms 103:12 for the first time.
Ps 103:12 as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. (NIV)
When I discovered this verse I was completely overwhelmed.
Someone has said that everything that has ever happened and every word ever spoken is recorded in time and space. It is said that someday we will have the technology to retrieve all of history from time and space.
Psalms says that when God forgives, He puts our transgressions as far as the east is from the west. Just how far is that? It is erased from history, that's how far it is. It is forgotten, it no longer exists, it is gone forever. It can never, never, never ever be recalled. Is that how you forgive others? Is that how you forgive yourself? Guilt and hate are products of a lack of understanding forgiveness. You cannot feel guilt for something if you have been forgiven by God and yourself. God forgot it, shouldn't you? Replace the guilt with gratitude. Christ washed it out of history with his blood on the cross. He took the guilt and shame to the cross with him and it was nailed to that cross in him. You are free from that guilt and shame. If you must cry, cry tears of joy. If you must shout, shout with joy. Hold your head high. Be proud. Your freedom has been purchased by the blood of the Son of the most high God and creator of the universe. You are that special, you are that loved. Why in the world would you not hold your head up and sing praises to him forever and ever?
God loves all his creatures enough to offer this same forgiveness that he gave you and me. How can we not forgive others with the same forgiveness God has given us? Are we better than them? How can we believe, "He died for me," but not for others? We can't! He loves them with the same love and bled the same blood for them.
Love ya
Dad, Dad2, Mr. T and Chuck
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