I was panicking. Paper kept flying out of the backside of the printer. What on earth was going on? How did this happen? All I wanted to do was print my program off using the gigantic communal card reader in the computer lab.
A crowd had gathered to witness the spectacle that I was at the center of. I am pretty sure there was a siren blasting, along with a flashing red light. Or perhaps that’s just what it felt like. I had no idea what to do. How do I shut this thing off? Hundreds of sheets of paper were printing off – this machine was out of control.
Why you ask? That’s exactly the question I was asking? Well, as a first year computer science student it seems I had inadvertently discovered what was known as “an infinite loop”.
Finally, after a prolonged period of letting me sweat, a fourth year student with a knowing grin and a chuckle in his voice informed me that I had not been the first person in the history of programming in Fortran to create an infinite loop. The printer would automatically quit after a certain number of pages had been printed.
I hated computer science and programming. Fortran, key punch cards, a card reader, one central printer, DOS based computers – it was ridiculous. I had no idea what use computers were. At least, that was my mindset in 1980. That all shifted in 1984 when I began working with Apple computers…
Wow – what a different world! It was a seismic shift from DOS to the Apple user friendly operating system. This was not a system upgrade – it was a totally new operating system that revolutionized life as we knew it.
Our pastor recently helped me to see a spiritual application of this metaphor: Jesus did not come to provide us with a system upgrade. He didn’t come to make us more patient, or more loving, or more generous, or any manner of “system upgrades”. He didn’t come to simply tweak us up to make us a better version of who we are. We were not simply plagued by a little bug that needed to be remedied.
No, Jesus came to provide us with an entirely new operating system. He came to give us a new heart, not just do a little upgrade of our old heart. He came to change our citizenship from the Kingdom of Darkness to the Kingdom of Light. He came so that through His death we might live, and that dying to ourselves we might live in Him.
If you are looking to Jesus to provide you with a system upgrade of sorts you are not seeing the incredibly powerful and profound transformation He can create in you. He came to completely rewire us.
How does He do that?
Well, we die so He can live in us. Unless we surrender our life to Him and die, we cannot live in Him. Paul said that he had been crucified in Christ so it was no longer Paul who lived, but it’s Christ who lived in him. And, the life that Paul lived in this world he lived by faith in Jesus who loved him and gave His life for him.
It’s Christ who lives in us. That’s not a system upgrade – that’s a whole new operating system!
It is Christ in you that is your hope of Glory. God takes away your heart of stone and gives you a new heart.
We die. We surrender. We say, “Jesus, I don’t just want an upgrade. I want you living in me. I want your life, not mine. Help me to die to myself so that you might live in and through me.”
On an ongoing basis we need the Lord to help us to wholeheartedly surrender to Him and His will in and through us: to die to our own expectations, plans, rights, privileges, hopes, dreams, false beliefs and sin so that Christ may more fully dwell in us.
Thank you Lord you did not come to simply provide us with some system upgrades, but with a complete new operating system. Help us to die to ourselves that we might fully live in you.
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”
“To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”