A loving father once gave his son, Alan, a state-of-the-art computer. He told the young man that he could use the computer for any good purpose, but he cautioned him not to open any unsolicited e-mails.
Alan was delighted! He was able to work from home and could access anything he wanted from the machine. With one touch of a button he could place orders for food, clothing or other merchandise, he could retrieve information about anything he wanted, and he could communicate with friends. It was wonderful!
One day Alan received what seemed like a really generous offer via e-mail. He read that if he logged on to a specific website he would be able to access a lot more information than he was already receiving. He didn’t know the author of the e-mail, but the offer seemed so good that Alan ignored his father’s warning and logged in to the website. Suddenly his computer started to malfunction!
Alan realized immediately that opening the forbidden e-mail had caused a major problem. His beloved computer was infected with a powerful and deadly virus and was no longer perfect! Alan tried to hide the problem from his father, but the older wiser man knew from the guilty look on his son’s face that he had been disobedient. The father was angry, but he didn’t take the computer away from his son. He simply told Alan that he would have to work with it the best way he knew how.
Life became very difficult after that. The virus had slowed the computer down terribly. Sometimes, despite Alan’s best efforts his work was suddenly deleted, and he would have to start all over again from scratch. At other times it was interrupted by annoying, unsolicited pop-up messages. This went on for months and months. Alan figured out a way to rig the computer so that the programs worked, but it took three times as long to get anything done. He could do nothing but work with the defective computer because he needed it for everything. He could not live without it, but he knew that his father would not replace it and give him a new one. He felt doomed. How would he be able to get anything done right again?
After several more agonizing months had gone by Alan’s older brother, Jay, came by for a short visit. He knew all about computers and how they worked. He took one look at Alan’s computer and sat down at it. He knew that it was Alan’s disobedience that had caused the computer to malfunction, but Jay loved his brother so much that he didn’t scold him. He decided to fix it. Using the most powerful anti-virus software on the market, one that he had created himself, Jay had the computer working like new again in no time! Before leaving to return home Jay told Alan that his computer was fixed, and that it would work just as well as it did before the malfunction.
Alan heard the good news that his older brother gave him and he was happy, but he still felt a bit skeptical. He had become so accustomed to working with a rigged machine that it seemed strange that he could now work so effortlessly again. Could he really trust his brother’s word? Was the computer really virus-free?
Alan and his computer represent you and your life. Through disobedience of the first Adam sin entered the world, and mankind was cursed to live and work in a world that was defective. But when Jesus came to earth, shed His blood (the anti-virus software) and was resurrected He paid the penalty for your sin. Now you and I have the opportunity to live as God originally intended us to live.
Your Choice
Like Alan in the story you have a choice. Will you continue to try to fix your broken life on your own, or will you believe that Jesus died, was buried and resurrected to cancel the power and penalty of sin over you? If you have never done so before, will you accept this wonderful gift of salvation that Jesus gave to you?
The work has already been done!
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.” – John 3:16-18
"Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this from God who reconciled us to Himself through Christ..." - 2 Corinthians 5:17, 18
