I learned the hard way the importance of backing up your work when using a computer. My first computer predated any Apple IOS, Windows, DOS and used CP/M. It was in the early 80s that I had a portable computer. It was the size of a suitcase and weighed 22 pounds, but I was so fascinated to see how much it could help in preaching.
I had spent many days writing a thirty-page document and somehow it crashed, and I lost it—using CP/M was not easy. I could not believe I had not saved it as there was no backup and all those hours of work were wasted. I learned the hard way the importance of backing up important items.
Backing up documents today is so easy because modern computers are programed to regularly backup your documents, or you can so easily set that process as a default action. If we did not have this, life using computers would be so frustrating. I know from experience!
There is a spiritual application of the importance of having backups. To see this, consider what the Bible says about faith. Our relationship with God is determined by our faith. All men in every age who have found eternal life found it through faith. The Old Testament shows this when it says, “The just shall live by faith” (Hab. 2:4), and the New Testament shows it when three times it affirms, “The just shall live by faith” (Rom. 10:17; Gal. 3:11; Heb. 10:38). Yet our faith has a “backup.”
Without faith it is impossible for even one person to please God (Heb. 11:6). What we may overlook is that there is a backup to that personal faith we have in God. What is the basis of faith and what is the source of faith? Read carefully what God says, “So faith comes from hearing and hearing from the word of God” (Rom. 10:17). Faith is not “a leap into the darkness,” foolishly hoping that there will be a landing place. Faith is based on the infallible, inerrant and perfect revelation of the will of God for man. In fact, the teaching of the word of God is called “the faith” (Acts 6:7; Gal. 1:23). Our personal faith comes from the faith! We have a “backup.”
The backup to your faith can never be wrong because that “backup” is from a God who cannot lie. We have a grave responsibility to never let our personal desires become the basis of our faith. The backup of our faith is the word of God, and we must be able to express that faith in the precise language of our faith. Hear these sobering words from Paul, “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves” (2 Cor. 13:5).
By the way, there is a backup to your backup because your backup, the Bible, is backed up by the blood of Jesus (Matt. 26:28). His blood sanctifies every word in it!