No. 355 - IS YOUR "VIRUS" PROTECTION UP TO DATE?

No. 355
Jim Davidson...NEWSPAPER COLUMN
IS YOUR “VIRUS” PROTECTION UP TO DATE?

As a unique, one-of-a-kind individual, if you believe in a Holy and Righteous God, and the vast majority of all Americans do, I have something to share with you that could make a tremendous difference in your life. What is even more exciting for those of us who have children and grandchildren who tend to emulate us, is that over the coming years what I am going to say could make a positive difference in their lives as well. Almost by accident, or was it providential, I discovered a concept that has helped me see very clearly the importance of what I am daily taking into my mind, and how this affects the choices I am making.
It all started with a phone call a couple of weeks ago. A friend, whose husband was out of the country, called me because she was having a problem with her computer. You guessed it. She had a virus. It came to a head when she sent out a virus-infected e-mail and someone wrote her a nasty letter and called her some bad names. Most of us who work on computers have learned that most viruses come with a message that has an attachment. The general rule is, if we don’t know the sender of the attachment, just click “delete” and do not open it.
This method works most of the time, but it is not fool proof and unless we have an updated anti-virus protection program. Sooner or later we are going to get one anyway. I was blessed recently when my friend Robert Love came up and installed the very latest Anti-Virus protection program called “Norton Utilities.” Now, when e-mail comes in or goes out, a little window pops up and shows me that the e-mail is being scanned for a virus. I can truthfully say that this has saved me a lot of grief and I would recommend this to anyone.
As I was talking with my friend whose computer had the virus, I learned that she thought the program that came with the computer was sufficient, but it did not have the updated program and there in was most of her problem. She finally took it to a computer store and had one installed. It was during this time that I recalled something that Robert Love had told me several months earlier. He said, “Your computer will be a little slower because the “Anti-Virus” program is always running in the back ground.”
When I thought about his comment, a light came on in my mind and I realized what one of my personal habits had been doing for me. Before I tell you what it is, I might add, this will do the same for any person. After making many poor choices and wasting a good portion of my life, I found the Lord and began to seek ways to serve Him. When the invitation came for me to teach a young boys Sunday school class I realized that I did not know the Bible. As of this writing, this was 17 years ago and, in addition to studying the Bible, I made the decision to read it all the way through once each year, from Genesis to Revelation.
Here is the concept I mentioned earlier. Just like the Anti-Virus Protection Program that is always running in the background of my computer, the Word of God that I have read all the way through for 17 straight years, is always running in the background of my mind. Without going into detail, the Law, the Justice, the Love and the Truth of God’s Word is always there and running to filter everything that comes in and everything that goes out. This is not to say that I always do the right thing, because I don’t, but I do know right from wrong by God’s standards and that is very, very important in today’s times.
As you ponder what I have been saying, here is a fitting quote from an unknown author that a friend gave me the other day; “We may think we’re on the side of angels, like Traudl Junge, Hitler’s clerk typist, who learned of the Holocaust, only after the war; not knowing that she was working for the most evil man who ever lived.” (Jim Davidson is a motivational speaker and syndicated columnist. You may contact him at 2 Bentley Drive, Conway, AR 72034.)