BP 148
In the age before computers, the word “firewall” referred to a literal wall in a building designed to prevent the spread of a fire. Today, of course, we most often reference firewalls when we are talking about computer security. TechTarget defines a firewall as “a network security device that prevents unauthorized access to a network. It inspects incoming and outgoing traffic, using a set of security rules to identify and block threats.”
In this post, I will be focusing on the aspect of a firewall that inspects and prevents incoming traffic only, and not traffic to a computer network but to the human soul. Specifically, I will look at why threats by the dark intruder known as sin are often able to penetrate your defenses. Following is a list of reasons why the Sin Firewall in your heart does not do its job–why it does not keep out sin as reliably as you would like.
– The first and most identifiable reason your Sin Firewall is not very functional is that you are not a believer. The only weapon you have within you to oppose sin is your God-given conscience that tells you what is right and wrong but has little power to fight sin. In other posts, I have described this situation as nice Dr. Jekyll attempting to stand up to evil Mr. Hyde (see Robert Louis Stevenson’s book, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde). If you only have Jekyll and Hyde inside of your soul and do not have God’s Spirit indwelling you and empowering you to keep sin out, then your Sin Firewall will be paper fending off fire. Sin will rout your soul like Hannibal routed the Roman army at the Battle of Cannae on 2 August 216 BC. It may have been the most humiliating defeat in the history of the Roman Empire.
– You are not in the word regularly. I know so many of us during different seasons in our lives, including me, have felt beat over the head with the Bible and Quiet Times and Devos, etc. until we almost feel like doing the opposite. Sadly, we sometimes throw out the baby with the bathwater. We resist reading God’s word when we should resist the overzealous and maybe even controlling tactics of some people around us who keep badgering us about the importance of being in Scripture. Sometimes, however, the other person is challenging us fairly with valid truth and we resist it simply because our flesh rises up and says, “You’re not the boss of me!” Whatever is leading you to resist reading God’s word, do your best to get past that resistance. Remember what David said in Psalm 119:11: I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” God’s word is an amazing firewall against sin—especially if you have stored it up like ammo in your soul. If you’re not in the word regularly, sin will more easily penetrate your firewall. Like it or not, this truth is absolutely true.
– Self-reliance instead of God-reliance will leave you with an ineffective firewall. Pride and/or lack of trust lives in a self-sufficient heart. Jesus in John 15:5 is the One who said, “Apart from me, you can do nothing.” Instead of white knuckling the steering wheel of sin resistance, ask God for help. Even the Lord’s prayer addressed to your Father in heaven says, “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Lead us. Deliver us. Help. I can’t do it alone, Dad.
– Making provision for the flesh instead of casting off darkness will undermine the integrity of your firewall against sin. Romans 13:12ff says, “The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” If you indeed have the Spirit of God in you and wish to obey Him, but you invite temptation past your firewall, you are opening the door to doing the very thing you do not want to do.
– If you are alone much of the time or not participating in community with other believers, you will be more vulnerable to sin. God made you not to be alone but to be with other brothers and sisters. There is truth to the old saying that united we stand, divided we fall. Satan is dying to divide and then conquer. Please choose not to be alone.
– On more of a psychological level, if the psycho-spiritual-emotional rebar that holds your self together never developed in childhood due to an environment that was not conducive to the development of a self (survival was the top priority), your Sin Firewall will only be as strong as your self-resiliency and may be easily penetrated. If this is true, you will need to do some deeper psychological work to form and strengthen the rebar in your soul that will lead to a sturdier firewall that can resist most assaults (as you rely on His strength).
– Unresolved emotional baggage from the past such as anger, bitterness, even self-hatred will weaken your firewall and allow sin to more easily kick in the door of your soul. Unhealed strong emotion will lead to a volatility in your soul that will make you vulnerable to sin.
– Young coping skills will compromise your firewall. What are some of these more immature skills? Feeling sorry for yourself instead of moving toward others for comfort. Believing both that you are unlovable and that others will never love you. Blaming others for your problems instead of owning your responsibility will leave you weak, undeveloped, and dependent on others to be permissive with you.
– Believing wrongly may weaken your firewalls. An example of a false belief might be that life should be easy and have no suffering. If you believe such a lie, you may forget that God commands you to flee sin and resist the devil. Your Sin Firewall may then be highly underdeveloped or almost nonexistent. You will be a babe on a battlefield, wondering why God is not taking care of you.
– If you have a basic defiance against and opposition to authority, you will have a weak firewall. If you are resistant to authority as a reflexive response, you will not develop your own authority against sin and so will be soft against the sin that assaults your firewall.
– Swimming in the waters of this culture will weaken your firewall. A strong sense of morality can be a great ingredient in the battle against sin as long as it is not legalistic. If you tend to see (as the current culture does) morality as stigmatizing people or judging them instead of growing them or challenging them to be responsible for themselves, you will not be strong in your battle against sin. If you need to be treated with kid gloves instead of occasionally receiving a loving but blunt nudge, you may be resistant to developing the strength needed to say no to temptation.
– Hanging around others who do not have strong firewalls against sin may lead you to be heavily influenced by them. What does Scripture say in 1 Corinthians 15:33? “Do not be deceived: Bad company ruins good morals.” In this post, we say that surrounding yourself with people who have weak firewalls corrupts your firewall.
– A general lack of discipline in your character will certainly leave you vulnerable to attacks on your firewall. If you are not practiced at saying no to temptation and have a poor ability to say no to immediate gratification, you will be overrun by sin. If you don’t have a strong firewall around your heart that is good at saying no, everything will get in. Your heart will be like a castle without a wall.
– If you don’t have a genuine desire to grow–not really–but just want to be taken care of and pitied and take life easy, you will remain a child. A child’s firewall will have little strength to stand up against adult sin.
– Mental illness such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, EDs, OCD, can complicate your fight against sin. Move toward others so you are not alone with these complicating factors. Seek professional help as needed.
– When your Sin Firewall is broken through, condemning yourself and withdrawing from God’s mercy and grace can lead you to be riddled by such a crushing weight of shame that you fall into a deep depression, and you won’t even care anymore if you fight back. These seasons will leave you unprotected and lethargic about resisting sin because you feel or believe you are so bad that you feel like giving up. God certainly can’t love me anymore so why even love myself?
– Closely related to the point above, hating yourself will possibly lead you to invite sin into your life so you can confirm to yourself and others what a mistake you are. Such a practice can lead to self-destructive and risky behaviors. Instead of suicide by cop, it is suicide by placing yourself in sin’s path even to the point of death.
– Remember that you are a house divided against itself. It is “normal” to struggle in this fallen world. See Galatians 5 where it says, “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.” You have been in a war since the day you were born—even before that–on the outside but also on the inside. Armor up, set your mind on the things of the Spirit, stand on the truth of His word, and fight side by side with your spiritual family against sin and darkness.
– Don’t forget the five second rule: If you open your firewall for more than five seconds (maybe even less), the odds are that sin will get in. Don’t linger around sin. Don’t massage it. Don’t flirt with it. Run.
– Develop an awareness of Satan’s lying, murdering presence in the attacks on your firewall. If you do not recognize his voice and possibly even confuse his voice for that of God, you will experience confusion, accusation, and despair, resulting in a compromised firewall. Satan strives to bury you under shame that self-condemns or projects onto God and others while the Spirit induces guilt within you that prompts constructive godly sorrow and invites you to run to His throne.
– Never underestimate the power of sin to steal you away from God. Know how much you will miss if you settle for lesser affections that are as fleeting as smoke instead of practicing affection for the most beautiful being who has been forever.
This list is not exhaustive, so feel free to add to it.
So, keep strengthening your Sin Firewalls. But know this . . .
There is something even more important than the firewalls.
Keep cultivating your affection for Jesus. Look at Him. Practice His presence. The most effective firewall is not hating sin but loving Him. Of course, these two can and will co-occur. And yes, the more we love Him, the more we will hate sin. But the main point is that the Sin Firewall grows strongest when you seek Him first, when you love Him more than your sin.
Don’t obsess about your sin. Instead, desire the One Thing of Psalm 27.
One thing have I asked of the LORD,
that will I seek after:
that I may dwell in the house of the LORD
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD
and to inquire in his temple.
Desire Him. Pray for a desire to desire Him. Love Him with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. It is a lifelong journey–an eternal lifelong journey! So do not fret when all you see is darkness. Run to Him and the people He has given you with skin on.
Morning will come.
