In heaven there is no Situation Room, there is no Disaster Recovery Plan, and no one is selling insurance! Do you know why? Because God is Unsurprisable! Page after page in the scriptures we are reminded that nothing takes The Creator by surprise.
So then, in the light of that truth, how do we believers (those who call themselves by the name of this Unsurprisable God) handle international crises like the one we're facing now?
Hebrews 10:24-25 says "And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near."
Apparently, despite severe persecution for the early believers, easy targets when they gathered together, the author of Hebrews regards not gathering as neglect. I don't believe that means we should embark on a stoic intentional suicide mission, I'm sure for the early believers they found ways to gather that minimized the risk of getting caught; just as we can find ways of gathering that minimize the risk of spreading this corona virus. It's really not that difficult. If you're sick, stay at home, that's not neglect, it's ethics. Wash your hands, like our mom's taught us when we were five.
It seems incredible to me that we need a community conversation about staying home when you're sick and washing hands. This has always been the case. We have had soap longer than we've had the scriptures!
In heaven there is no Situation Room, there is no Disaster Recovery Plan, and no one is selling insurance!
None of this has taken God by surprise, and He's not about to shut down his plan to reach the world with His love through His Church. His Church has survived intense persecution, it has survived multiple plagues and many oppressive civilizations. Believers have weathered social, political, and spiritual storms and brought God's truth and His love all over the world despite all forms of opposition and countless lives lost to this world; yet gained to heaven. And the Church has done so with a phenomenal optimism and an insatiable joy. The public hysteria we're seeing today is based in one thought, self-preservation; which is an alien concept for those who have already died to themselves.
The truth is that none of us can eliminate all the risk in our lives, we are not God, at some point you and I will actually die of something. That does not mean we should go out looking for it, but it does mean we should act like God is in control because He is. We believe that His plans always work out, and that when we die we go to be with Him eternally because "to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (Philippians 1:21).
What the hysteria is revealing is that the Western World has a collective Stockholm Syndrome, their imaginations have been kidnapped and abused; but mass panic is not the way of the Christian. We have much to look forward to, we have purpose and calling, in this life and in the one to come.
The public hysteria we're seeing today is based in one thought, self-preservation; which is an alien concept for those who have already died to themselves.
There is much we still need to do. We need to help neighbors who are battling for all kinds of reasons; we need to pray that people would turn to God and that He would bring health and healing to this world; we need to give of our time and resources; we also need to stir up one another to love and good works, gathering to strengthen and encourage each other.
The last time I checked this land was the land of free and the home of the brave, surely we are not in need of a South African to remind us of this truth?
"Where are You now, when darkness seems to win? Where are You now, when the world is crumbling?
Oh, I, I hear You say, I hear You say Look up child!"
The opening lines to Lauren Daigle's Look Up Child.
This Sunday we will meet at Purdy Elementary Gym, 10am; and we'd love to have you with us.
