WEDNESDAY DEVOTIONS (3-25)
Bob Young writes: “EVERY person in our church needs to pray several times a day that church members be exempted from dying from this disease. First, because we all love the Lord; second, we don’t want our church extinguished. Take this very seriously. The second wave of the 1918 flu epidemic is what took huge numbers of people.”
I am continually appalled every time I read about God punishing us by sending the Coronavirus. I admit we can read in the Old Testament where God’s wrath was against the wicked and He killed them, as in the flood. The concept of heaven and life after death was only beginning to be revealed in the OT and most believed that you got your rewards and punishments in this life alone. That meant that if were “good” you were blessed materially in this life and if you were bad, then you were cursed. But as the OT progressed, especially with the prophets, God revealed more and more of His true nature, His love and His true self and the concept of heaven. You can find the concept of heaven from beginning to end of the OT but it takes a careful reading and it was certainly not central.
John 1:17-18, “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side he has made him known”. Jesus Christ has fully exegeted Him (made God fully known). God is about life and not death. God is against disease, death and evil of any kind. God is love and wants all of His children home with Him in heaven. To blame death on God is to deny our Lord Jesus Christ who came to save people’s lives and not to take them. God hates the coronavirus and He will defeat it. It is not His will that any should perish. God is our hope from the disease, not the cause of the disease.
Death came into the world in the Fall, with Adam and Eve. It was not God’s will and He has been out to defeat it and stop it ever since. But disease, brokenness, and the dying process are in the world and we all will have our share of them. Don’t blame them on God; He is the answer not the cause.
2 Corinthians 5:17, “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (NRSV). This is a particular hard verse to translate. The KJV has, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” Some people have used this verse and others to claim the “Eighth Day” of creation has begun. I am not sure that is a good analogy but it has a lot of truth in it.
When Jesus was resurrected from the dead a new creation did begin. A new age, a new time like no time ever before in all of creation. One had been resurrected and if one had then more are to follow. So the age of the resurrection has already begun in Jesus. You could easily call it a new creation, or the 8th day of the old creation.
Paul takes it a step further than the resurrection of Jesus. He says that if there is one person who has become a real Christian then the new creation has begun. There are billions of Christians today in the world—billions, not counting all the Christians of ages past and the Christians of the future. If anyone of them is for real then the ages have begun to change, heaven has started, the Kingdom of God has dawned in this world. It is not complete but with every person who becomes a Christian for real it comes brighter.
Yes, we still live in the old age of evil, murder, sickness and death, that’s true, but it is also true that we can live as well in new creation, the new age, the dawning Kingdom of God. So that a Christian is a part of this world, because the body is made of the clay of the earth and a Christian is also a citizen of heaven at the same time.
If it is true that we have dual citizenship then Christians should pray, as a part of God’s Kingdom, for the good of this age. We have influence in heaven! James 5:16, “The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective” (NRSV). It is time that we Christians use our influence in heaven. We know that God does not want any to perish but all to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9) so we know that praying for both the physical and spiritual wellbeing of all humans is in God’s will.
As people of the “Eighth Day” we have a huge advantage over the world who does not know God. God hears our prayers, He sees our tears and He knows our hearts. The world needs our prayers as never before. This virus is not just an American thing; it is affecting the whole world.
Christians, use your influence: pray for the Church, pray for the Christians and never forget to pray for those who do not know Christ. God gives us more than just prayer—He gives us a brain. In Genesis 1:28 God told humans to “fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over it.” In other words, use our God given brains to use the earth for the benefit of humanity. Use the elements of the earth and make medicine and life.
God usually will not do for us the things that we can do for ourselves. He will not do your homework for you, etc. He gives us brains to figure things out for ourselves. We are still a part of the earth and this world so we, as Christians, must be actively working for the good of humanity.
To ask God to do something for you that He has given us the brains to do for ourselves is sin; it is to tempt God (Luke 4:12, Deut. 6:16). So if we are not doing and working to help stop the virus and just praying, we are tempting God and sinning against Him. We, as Christians, must do our part in the fight with the Devil’s virus.
So, as Christians, we must use our influence in heaven as Children of God in prayer and use our common sense to help stop the virus. Failure to do either is pure sin and evil.
Jim
