Virus

Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don't see many of "the brightest and the best" among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn't it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture over looks and exploitsand abuses, chose these "nobodies" to expose the hollow pretensions of the "somebodies"? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have-right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start-comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That's why we have the saying, "If you're going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God." 1 Corinthians 1:26 (The Message)

For the last month or so I've had a terrible time with viruses on one ofour home computers. I asked the smarter people around me, gained their advice, and tried what they told me. I beefed up the defenses, I combed through the hard drive and deleted; I did all kinds of checks and yet still the nature of the beast seemingly prevailed. At last, I started over. I cleaned the slate and started over from scratch. Now the old laptop hums along. Yep, the bells and whistles are gone. No fancy games played on this machine, no hi-def video, not much of anything but what it does suits me just fine-it is a tool that allows me to share these encouragements with you!

You know... we were infected with a virus a long time ago. A man named Adam chose to follow his way of thinking, his natural inclinations, and his nature and he breed little Adams-you and me. As time went by the virus (sin) only got worse. Men and women tried to cover it up, tried to call it different names, or they just gave into it and eventually came to worship it. The lessons of old were forgotten or buried under the deceit of dust and time.

People lived and died, the virus directing their course. (Romans 5:14)

Another Adam came, his name was Jesus and he knew how to rid people of the virus. He told them to start over, start new, and to start with Him. (1Cor. 15:45)

Maybe you've got hard-drive (heart) problems that just won't go away. Maybe you are stuck on religion or too much of it is stuck on you... maybe your world is falling apart and there's no way you can fix it. Or maybe your faith in Christ is like a six year-old virus-filled laptop, clattery and noisy but with very little power or reliability.

For any problem, for every problem Jesus Christ is your answer.