What If God Hit The Factory Reset Button?
“And God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopherwood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and outside with pitch…” (Genesis 6:13-14)
Lately my cellphone has not been working properly. Out of the blue it froze up one day to where I couldn’t turn it off manually. It seemed to have a mind of it’s own, either giving me a black screen, or one that would display my screen and go black within seconds or it would display the screen but not do anything. I couldn’t even turn it off manually. Eventually it rebooted by itself because I didn’t realize I could turn it off another way. Technology is great but sometimes it can be very irritating especially when it decides to do things on its own without your approval!
Sometimes people can be the same way. We can be great, but then there comes a moment where we have “hiccups” that sets us out of order. We then can’t seem to get back to where we were and before you know it we are freezing up, going blank and not working properly. We allow situations and difficulties to get the best of us. Just like with phones and computers, we can download a virus through other peoples words or actions or through situations in our lives that gets into our system and make our insides go crazy and stop working. For humans, all it has to be is something that someone has said or done and it can shut us down. Some people are like computer hackers, they hack into our system through an open door (a weakness we have) and are able to upload a virus into us through their words or actions. They know what affects us and will continue to hack away at us until we fail and are defeated. Many times we can recover, but sometimes we can’t and when it gets to the point where we become ill by this virus, we must start over, working our way back to a good working order. This means going back to the basics.
In John 3:3 it states the following:
“Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
There’s a good reason why Jesus told Nicodemus that he must be “born again” in order to see the kingdom of God. It’s because Nicodemus couldn’t enter the kingdom in his old ratty, dirty, filthy way. He had to reboot, start over, do a factory reset. He had the knowledge about God being that he was a teacher of Israel, but in some ways he failed to apply what he knew. Even Jesus was surprised that Nicodemus was a teacher of Israel yet didn’t know about what Jesus was telling him:
Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things? Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?(John 3:10-12)
What is a factory reset and why must we do it? It’s quite simply resetting our phones or computers back to their original state when we first got them, when they stop working properly. It’s starting over from the beginning in order to work properly. As Christians, we must sometimes go back to the basics of the Word of God when we become so spiritually ill due to a weak area of our lives that we have not overcome yet. But if we remain alert and seek the Lord for answers and help, He will provide the antidote. There isn’t anything God can’t cure both spiritually and physically, we’ve just stopped going to Him.
God hit the factory reset button on the earth once already because we simply stopped working due to sin. Thankfully He’s promised not to do this again! However, He did give Noah notice in advance and instructions on what to do. Noah listened, obeyed and he and his family were saved. When we come to Christ and accept Him as our Savior and obey His commands, we too are saved.
Now, there’s two ways to do the factory reset on your device…the easy way or the hard way. The easy way is by backing up everything you have or that is of importance on your phone or computer to another place, just in case something goes wrong. That way if you ever have to reset your phone or computer you can easily restore the back up and you will have what you need such as contacts, important documents, pictures, etc. Or you can do it the hard way and just hit factory reset without saving anything and completely start from the beginning which means it will take a lot of time and work to get your phone or computer back to where you had it. Why would anyone even do that as opposed to backing things up as a safety precaution? Because they fail to pay attention to the warning signs when there are problems with their devices. They complain about the problem but they don’t think to back it up “just in case”, putting it into storage. That way if anything goes wrong, they will have what they need on hand when they have to reset their device.
Sadly, people do the same thing in their lives. There are some who pay attention to the warning signs God gives them and they prepare for emergencies by “backing up” the important things they have and putting it into storage. This can simply mean putting extra food, important papers, emergency supplies in storage “just in case”. That way in case anything happens, they have what they need to ride out the storm until it’s over. Then there are those who may see the warning signs, even complain about what is going on, but fail to heed those signs and never do a “back up” by preparing and putting things into storage just in case. They feel it’s just another hype that will pass as all the others did. They know the truth, and some even see it and teach it, but don’t heed it. Then there are those who are oblivious to the warning signs altogether, allowing themselves to be distracted by so many things that are not important that they fail to see what’s really going on. Then when the storm hits, they get swept up in the flood or they are left with nothing and must try to survive while in a critical state of emotion.
Spiritually we must do the same. We must stay in God’s word, applying it to our lives every day, storing it within us so when the day comes when we may not have our Bibles, we will have the Word of God within us to get us through the storms of life. That Word is our nourishment and the more we have of it, the more it will nourish us, keeping us healthy and strong, through the most difficult times of our lives. We must store it in the recesses of our minds so we can pull it out when needed. If we fail to do so, however, we will starve when disaster strikes in our lives and can spiritually die.
So I ask you…what if God were to press the factory reset button on us? Could you survive it? Would you be prepared both spiritually and physically for it? Sometimes we have to go back to the beginning when we stop working properly. Just like rehab. Some people must learn how to eat, walk and even learn how to live all over again when they have had a tragic accident or trauma in their lives. Just as we teach babies how to do all of these things, so must we learn when we’ve stopped working properly.
Although I had to reset my phone to it’s original state, this gave me something to think about when it comes to life. Would I be ready if God were to hit the factory reset button? Am I prepared both spiritually and physically? Many Christians have been warned by God to prepare both spiritually and physically but have we allowed ourselves to become so distracted that we’ve failed to listen. Or have we listened and obeyed? How about you?
“Lord, I want to be ready both spiritually and physically in case you hit the factory reset button. Show me the areas in my life that I need to change in order to be prepared. Help me to renew my mind by storing your Word in my heart on a daily basis. Help me to prepare as much as possible so I can be ready in season and out of season. I ask this in Jesus name…Amen.”