Fish or cut bait? Why not both?

Many of you know I make video games for a hobby, and I ship them in little boxes to other Atari enthusiasts all over the world. This week, when I went to the post office they were refused at first. I don't usually put on a return address, but this time I had to make sure they had it, and the one that was going overseas I had to be extra declarative about. Beefed up security, in case I was a mad bomber I guess. They didn't look to see if the return address I used WAS my address, they just wanted to make sure I had one. So I could still just say “Mickey Mouse, 1 Pluto Lane, Disneyworld, MA” and I don't think they would have caught it. They just went through the motions of being secure.

At work, often we have to deal with paranoid customers. They want systems that are ultra ultra ultra secure, that can't possibly be broken into. Well, I know only one way to do this. Put your machine in a bunker, with no connections to the outside world, and bury it under a few tons of concrete. See, if a computer is hooked to any kind of network at all, it can be compromised. If a computer can be touched, physically, by anyone other than you it can be compromised. So remove all networks, and put it underground and bury it. Then it will be secure. Completely useless, but secure.

We are Christians. We have been told to go out into the world and preach Christ. We can't do that if we go live in a cave somewhere, cut off from the world. We can't allow ourselves to be “too secure”. True, we don't want to be compromised by the world, but we can't just remove ourselves completely from it. How can we reach those that need Christ if we have no interaction with them? And yes, this means we will be tempted, and we will stumble. But we can't allow ourselves to become useless.

We are Christians. We can't just hide behind that, like a shield. We can't put forth some token effort and say it's “good enough”. We can't just go through the motions. We can't do something halfway. It's not going to work when we avoid almost every appearance of evil, or some of it, or a smattering of it. We can't just do things in ignorance, believing that since we don't know something is a sin or not we can't be held accountable.

We are Christians. We need to virus check our lives, to root out the evil that comes in when we interact with other people day to day. We need to be diligent both in keeping ourselves completely pure, and in doing all we can to reach the lost. We must compromise, not on the truth but on the way we use the time God gives us. We can't just study, and never teach. We can't just teach, and never study. We must do it all!!!

Ecclesiastes 12:9-14 And moreover, because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge; yea, he gave good heed, and sought out, and set in order many proverbs. The preacher sought to find out acceptable words: and that which was written was upright, even words of truth. The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd. And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

Thessalonians I 4:9-12 But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another. And indeed ye do it toward all the brethren which are in all Macedonia: but we beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more; And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you; That ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that ye may have lack of nothing.

Timothy II 2:14-15 Of these things put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers. Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Revelation 3:15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.