Restore Factory Settings

Have you ever done a “factory reset” or formatted your phone so that all the information you stored on it is gone? Forever! It is such a scary process. Well, it was for me. I got a new phone and I want to sell my old one because I need the cash to buy Microsoft Office for my Notepad. I’ve been using LibreOffice and although it’s user friendly I have been having issues when I save my work and send it. If I receive documents that have been save in ‘Word’ I can open them but I can’t edit them. I end up redoing and it just wastes my time. So, I formatted my phone. A big part of my life was on that phone. I saved recipes and quotes and passwords etc. etc. Pressing the button that said ‘Are you sure?’ was quite a moment. What if I look for something and I forgot to copy it off my old phone? What if? What if? I’m just going to have to say it’s too late now. Pressing that button was like erasing a part of myself.

When we accept Jesus to be our Savoir He says that He removes our sins as far as the East is from the West. (Psalm 103:12) Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:17 – ‘Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.’ That is quite profound. It means that everything that we were before we invited Jesus Christ into our hearts has been formatted. Factory settings have been restored. We become the blank canvas or the restored cell phone and we are ready to receive a new simcard. This simcard I see as the Holy Spirit leading and teaching and guiding us. Just like the apps which are downloaded. These apps determine the way in which the phone is going to be used. Just like the Holy Spirit who will tell us which way to take. Isaiah 30:21 ‘Your ears will hear a word behind you saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” …’

Once the format has been performed, everything that existed on the phone is gone, forever. If I tell myself I used to have Facebook or Pinterest or whatever on my phone it won’t bring them back. If somebody tells me their number was stored on my phone it will serve no purpose at all because it isn’t there anymore. Everything has effectively been removed as far as the East is from the West. Just like our sins if we give our lives to Jesus. It won’t do any good to remind yourself or even be reminded by someone that you used to do things which made you a ‘bad’ person. Those things don’t exist anymore, and they don’t exist in the mind of the One who really matters. God is not going to judge you on those things because He had formatted them on the cell phone of your life. You are a new creation and you should be living as one. Not like someone who is defeated, but like someone who has everything to live for.

Pride

I was doing some research on Deborah who was the lady who was a prophetess and judge way back before the Israelites had kings.  I actually wanted to see if I could find out anything about her husband. The poor man only gets mentioned once. I suppose the mere fact that he is mentioned in the Bible already puts him into a hall of fame. How many people who lived more than 3000 years ago are actually still remembered today? His name is Lapidoth which means flame. There isn’t much written about him on any of the websites and commentaries I looked at but I found something very intersting about Deborah. In Judges 5 she and Barak sing a victory song. In verse 7 she praises herself by saying that village life had ceased until she arose. In the one commentary which was written by Jewish Rabbi’s they speculate that because of the pride she showed by praising herself, God took away the spirit of prophecy from her. 

Now if that was the case I am very, very glad we don’t live in the time of the Old Testament. Those were tough times.  Deborah sat under a palm tree and was the judge. People came from all over the place so that she could sort out their problems for them. Barak refused to lead the army to war if she didn’t go with him.  What kind of a wimp was he? So Deborah goes to war with him but she tells him that because he needs a woman to hold his hand, so to speak, his enemy will be “sold into the hand of a woman.” And that’s how it happens, almost like the twist in a soap opera, Sisera flees, Jael tricks him into having a rest in her tent, and drives a tent peg through his temple! The stories told in Judges are hair raising and better than a lot of action movies I’ve watched. Coming back to Deborah, I would have thought that she had something to boast about and was perfectly justified in saying what she said. 

Maybe being justified is not what its all about, and we love justifying ourselves.  We love giving reasons for our actions and making it allright to have done something even when it really wasn’t allright at all. Pride is the root of a lot of trouble today. We are to proud to admit when we make a mistake; we don’t want people to think that we are less than perfect so we pretend. We would rather live fake lives and smile fake smiles than admit we are less than perfect and perfectly human. When people actually do say they have a problem it also gets blown totaly out of proportion by putting outrageous post on social media.

Let us not fall into the trap that Deborah fell into and try to praise ourselves and make us look better than we really are. Let us talk less and listen more, let us make time for each other, let us stop and chat and not always be in such a hurry. Let us try to put the needs of others before our own. Let us try to make the world a litlle bit better by not being too proud to ask for help and not too busy to offer a helping hand to someone in need. Let us use the time that we have been granted here on earth to make it a better place and who knows, maybe 3000 years from now someone will know your name.