Building a Firewall

ByMarjie

A few weeks ago  I realized my website had been attacked by malware and other Internet creepy crawly things that infiltrate your site to destroy it.  So I called my IPage (that’s my hosting site) technical support team and said, “Help!  There’s a creepy crawly thing on my site and I can’t get it off.”   Actually, it wasn’t really creeping and crawling.  It was just a link that didn’t belong and it didn’t go anywhere.  So technical support checked it out and did a scan on my site.  Oh, my.  There were buggies everywhere!

I didn’t have any protection for my website.  I thought, My site has no valuable information – no credit card information, no social security numbers,  no bank account info – nothing of worldly value or importance that anyone would want.  So I didn’t invest in any type of malware protection.

That changed rather quickly.  I authorized the technician to add Sitelock to my account.  Within thirty minutes, I received an email that said that Sitelock had cleaned up my site and it was now free of all malware and other bugs.  The technician told me that they’d been seeing a lot of those kinds of problems lately.

Well, I got to thinking that protecting my site from malicious bugs is no different than protecting my computer from viruses.  The first thing we do when we buy a new computer is install anti-virus protection because there are malicious people out there who spend all their time developing some type of virus that will totally destroy computers.  I’m a writer, so the information on my computer is valuable to no one but me, but some nutcase out there will send out a virus that will corrupt my files or destroy my hard drive.  So why would I not suspect that they would attempt to destroy my website for the same reason?

Then it occurred to me, our brains are personal computers, and we have an enemy who continuously sends out viruses that will corrupt our files and destroy our hard drives.  How can our hard drives be destroyed?  Through our actions, such as alcohol use and drug abuse.  How can our files be corrupted?  Through our attitudes, such as bitterness and envy and hatred and unthankfulness. 

And just like we all invest in an anti virus program for our computers, and I invested in a program to protect my website from future attacks, we also need to invest in a virus protection plan for the most valuable computers in our lives – our minds.  The devil’s attacks are relentless, and if you don’t have virus protection, your files will be corrupted and your hard drive destroyed.  What is this virus protection I’m talking about?  The Word of God. 

Now think on this.  Sitelock has three levels of investment:

  1. For a tiny investment, they will scan my site regularly and alert me to any problems.
  2. For a moderate investment, they will scan my site regularly, ward off any attacks, and keep my site clean.
  3. For a large investment, they will scan my site regularly, ward off any attacks, keep my site clean, and  build me an impenetrable firewall.

You see, the bigger the investment, the greater the benefits.  Now, Sitelock is a financial investment, but the Word of God is actually an investment in your relationship with God, coupled with prayer.  And the greater the investment, the greater your protection against the viruses that the enemy is sending against you.  When you invest quality time in prayer and in God’s Word, it’s possible to be protected by a firewall.

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