The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came so that they would have life, and have it abundantly. John 10:10
Do you feel like a kid confined to the back seat of a car, packed in with your bored and restless siblings, traveling toward an unknown destination? A destination that keeps getting further away? That’s how I have been feeling during these challenging times. Up until recently, my strategy has been to pray and keep my head down. But I’m rethinking that strategy. Here is one reason why.
✔ An acquaintance posted a warning on social media from our local Department of Public Health, advising us to stay home this Thanksgiving because we might unknowingly have Covid. And wouldn’t you feel terrible if you gave Covid to grandma?
When I retorted that this grandma was planning on enjoying a gloriously crowded Thanksgiving with friends, family and a number of other enthusiastic grandmas, she shot back with this: Every person is to be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. Therefore, whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. Romans 13:1-2
When I replied that the Nazis regime used that very scripture to secure obedience from Christians, she became offended, protesting that my comparison wasn’t just. But I think it is a fair comparison, because many of the oppressive mandates we currently suffer under carry not only a bizarre political agenda, but also a spirit of death.
Here are some more reasons why I’m rethinking my strategy.
✔ Yesterday, I listened in on a conversation my husband had with the president of one of his clubs. He was making some suggestions on what could be done to keep the club from dying. This president was profoundly uninterested, admitting that she hadn’t left her home since March! In my opinion, she has already died of Covid, because she has stopped living.
✔ A friend reported that his elderly father-in-law, who was isolated in hospital and expected to die of Covid, began to recover when his family was allowed to visit and to touch him.
✔ According to Dr. Douglas G. Frank, noted scientist and statistician, “The total number of deaths is approaching what we NORMALLY see this time of the year.” He writes that “non-Covid deaths … exceeded what the CDC would consider ‘normal.’ These non-Covid deaths are primarily due to large waves of additional Alzheimer’s deaths … due to the poor care we gave to this particularly needy group of our elderly. In other words, we sacrificed these people due to our mitigation strategies.”
✔ Did you know that suicides and death from drug overdoses are up sharply according to the CDC? Here is the headline from the Christian Post:
“More youth are dying of suicide, overdose than COVID-19 during pandemic: CDC director: COVID-19 has put country in ‘state of chronic stress,’ suicide prevention advocate says”
Are you feeling the stress? Have you noticed an increased desire to escape the challenges of this present darkness? Are you longing more than usual to just go on home to Jesus? Is a spirit of death operating in your life? It certainly is operating in the atmosphere.
Historically, Christians have faced disease and plague with courage, nursing the sick at the risk of their lives. Read this. It’s from Biblemesh.com.
“Famine and war had recently afflicted the city of Caesarea, so when the plague hit in the early fourth-century, the populace was already weakened and unable to withstand this additional blow. The populace began fleeing the city, one of the larger ones of the Roman Empire, for safety in the countryside. However, in the midst of the fleeing inhabitants, at least one group was staying behind, the Christians. As bishop of the city and a historian of the early church, Eusebius, recorded in “The Church History” that during the plague,
All day long some of them [the Christians] tended to the dying and to their burial, countless numbers with no one to care for them. Others gathered together from all parts of the city a multitude of those withered from famine and distributed bread to them all.
Eusebius goes on to state that because of their compassion in the midst of the plague, the Christians’ ‘deeds were on everyone’s lips, and they glorified the God of the Christians.'”
This is who we are. Not fear-filled, hiding-in-our-homes, face-covered cowards. We are God’s hands and feet. We are the expression of His mercy and compassion. We are without fear, because no disease, no government, no one—not even the devil—can take our Jesus away from us. And if we die? To quote Paul “to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Philippians 1:21.
Let’s make a choice to stop serving a spirit of fear and death. We are better than that.
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7
Let’s pray: Father God, stir up our courage. Stir up our confidence in you, our Creator. Make of your people an example of fearless living no matter the threat of death. For what is death to your people but birth into a new and better life? Surely, we can walk confidently through any and every valley of the shadow of death, because you are with us.
Forgive us, Father, for bowing the knee to the spirit of fear and death. We reject those evil spirits, in the name of Jesus.
Lord, lift up our heads and make your light so shine within us that the world glorifies the God of the Christians!
In the name of our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.
God bless you and may God bless America.
Susan
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