CORONA VIRUS AND CHRIST (DAY 6)

Sovereign over All

Ephesians 1:11 AMP 

The coronavirus pandemic is a “bitter providence.” To describe some of God’s works as bitter is not blasphemy. It is not a disparagement of God’s ways but a description. 

The sweetness of God’s word is not diminished in the midst of this bitter providence—not if we have learned the secret of “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Cor. 6:10): 

The same sovereignty that could stop the coronavirus, yet doesn’t, is the very sovereignty that sustains the soul in it. 

Knowing this makes all the difference. So is it true?

God is all-governing and all-wise. He is sovereign over the coronavirus. And this is good news—indeed, it is the secret of experiencing the sweetness of God in his bitter providences.

God Is Sovereign

Saying that God is all-governing means he is sovereign. His sovereignty means that he can do, and in fact does do, all that he decisively wills to do. I say decisively because God, in a sense, wills things he does not carry through. He can express desires that he himself chooses not to act on. In that sense, they are not decisive. He himself does not let such willing or desiring rise to the level of performance. But there is no force outside himself that can thwart or frustrate his will. 

When God decides for a thing to happen, it happens. This is part of the very essence of what it means to be God: “I will accomplish all my purpose” (Isa. 46:9–10). God does not just declare which future events will happen; he makes them happen. Which means, as Job learned from hard experience, “No purpose of yours can be thwarted” (Job 42:2). Or as Nebuchadnezzar learned from his merciful humiliation, “None can stay his hand” (Dan. 4:35).

As the psalmist says, “Whatever the Lord pleases, he does” (Ps. 135:6). Or as the apostle Paul sums up, God “works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph. 1:11). “All things.” Not some things. And “according to his will,” not according to wills or forces outside himself. 

In other words, the sovereignty of God is all-encompassing and all-pervasive. He holds absolute sway over this world. He governs wind (Luke 8:25), lightning (Job 36:32), snow (Ps. 147:16), frogs (Ex. 8:1–15), gnats (Ex. 8:16–19), flies (Ex. 8:20–32), locusts (Ex. 10:1–20), quail (Ex. 16:6–8), worms (Jonah 4:7), fish (Jonah 2:10), sparrows (Matt. 10:29), grass (Ps. 147:8), plants (Jonah 4:6), famine (Ps. 105:16), the sun (Josh. 10:12–13), prison doors (Acts 5:19), blindness (Ex. 4:11; Luke 18:42), deafness (Ex. 4:11; Mark 7:37), paralysis (Luke 5:24–25), fever (Matt. 8:15), every disease (Matt. 4:23), travel plans (James 4:13–15), the hearts of kings (Prov. 21:1; Dan. 2:21), nations (Ps. 33:10), murderers (Acts 4:27–28), and spiritual deadness (Eph. 2:4–5)—and all of them do his sovereign will. 

Sent by God

The coronavirus was sent, therefore, by God. This is not a season for sentimental views of God. It is a bitter season. And God ordained it. God governs it. He will end it. No part of it is outside his sway.

Therefore, as we ponder our future with the coronavirus—or any other life-threatening situation—James tells us how we ought to think and speak: “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that” (James 4:15). 

If he wills, we will live. If not, we won’t.

For all I know, I may not still be living by the time you read these words. I have at least one relative infected with the coronavirus. I am seventy-four years old, and my lungs are compromised with a blood clot and seasonal bronchitis. But these factors do not ultimately decide. God decides.

And that is good news, as we’ll see in the next reading.

Shalom. 

CORONA VIRUS AND CHRIST (DAY 5)

The Rock Is Righteous

1 Samuel 2:2 AMP 

If God is going to be our Rock, he must be righteous. An unrighteous Rock is a mirage. The very thing that a global pandemic shakes is our confidence that God is righteous, holy, good. If God is not righteous in the midst of it, we have no Rock. 

So we need to ask, What is the holiness and righteousness and goodness of God? Because if we don’t know what they are, how will we know if this coronavirus outbreak has made them crumble?

God Is Holy

The root meaning of the Old Testament word for holiness is the idea of being separate from the ordinary. And when applied to God, this separateness implies that he is in a class by himself. He is like a one-of-a-kind diamond, supremely valuable. God doesn’t depend on anything else for his existence. He is self-existent. So he needs nothing and depends on nothing. He is complete. Perfect. Therefore, he possesses the greatest value as the source of all reality and all value. 

God’s infinite height above all other reality does not mean that he is a loveless, solitary mind. God exists as three divine persons. But these three are one—one divine essence. There is one God. Not three. But this one God exists in a mysterious and true unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—each of them eternal and without beginning. Each of them truly God. 

This perfect Trinitarian fellowship is essential to the fullness and perfection and completeness of God. It is essential to his transcendent worth and beauty and greatness—that is, it is essential to his holiness. 

God Is Righteous

But the Bible also speaks of God’s holiness in terms of morality. To be holy is not only to be separate and transcendent, but also to be righteous. 

This forces a question that will have great implications for how we view the coronavirus in relation to God: Since righteousness implies doing what is right, and doing what is right implies compliance with some standard of rightness, what standard does God’s righteousness comply with? 

The answer is that the standard of God’s righteousness is God. He cannot act in a way that would deny his own infinite worth and beauty and greatness. This is the standard of what is right for God.

This means that the moral dimension of God’s holiness—his righteousness—is his unwavering commitment to act in accord with his worth and beauty and greatness. Every affection, every thought, every word, and every act of God will always be consistent with the infinite worth and beauty of his transcendent fullness.

God Is Good

God’s goodness is his disposition to be generous—to do what blesses human beings. The transcendent fullness and perfection of God—his holiness—is like a fountain that overflows. This is why he is disposed to be generous. God is not needy. Therefore, he never exploits others to make up for some deficiency in himself. Instead, the impulse of his nature is to give, not get.

But his goodness is not disconnected from his righteousness. It is not bestowed in a way that would deny his infinite value and beauty and greatness. 

What we have seen here will keep us from jumping to the conclusion that God’s fingers in the coronavirus discredit his holiness or righteousness or goodness. The coronavirus, therefore, does not point to unholiness or unrighteousness or lack of goodness in God. 

Our Rock, in these troubled days, is not unrighteous. He is not unholy. “There is none holy like the Lord . . . ; there is no rock like our God” (1 Sam. 2:2). Our Rock is not a mirage.

Shalom. 

CORONA VIRUS AND CHRIST (DAY 4)

A Solid Foundation

Psalms 119:152 AMP

It matters little what I think about the coronavirus—or about anything else, for that matter. But it matters forever what God thinks. He is not silent about what he thinks. Scarcely a page in the Bible is irrelevant for this crisis. 

My voice is grass. God’s voice is granite. “The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever” (1 Pet. 1:24–25). Jesus said that God’s words in Scripture “cannot be broken” (John 10:35). What God says is “true, and righteous altogether” (Ps. 19:9). His word is, therefore, a firm foundation for life. “You have founded [your testimonies] forever” (Ps. 119:152). Listening to God, and believing him, is like building your house on a rock, not on sand (Matt. 7:24). 

His word is the kind of counsel you want to heed. “He is wonderful in counsel and excellent in wisdom” (Isa. 28:29). “His understanding is beyond measure” (Ps. 147:5). When he gives counsel about the coronavirus, it is firm, unshakable, lasting. “The counsel of the Lord stands forever” (Ps. 33:11). “His way is perfect” (2 Sam. 22:31). 

Therefore, his words are sweet and precious. “More to be desired are they than gold: . . . sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb” (Ps. 19:10). Indeed, they are the sweetness of everlasting life: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). 

Therefore, in the best and worst of times, God’s words bring unshakable peace and joy. Surely it must be so. My prayer is that all who read these words would share the experience of the prophet Jeremiah: “Your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart” (Jer. 15:16). 

And mark this: the sweetness of God’s word is not lost in this historic moment of bitter providence—not if we have learned the secret of “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Cor. 6:10). We will see more fully later what this secret is. But here it is now in a single sentence. The secret of “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” is this: knowing that the same sovereignty that could stop the coronavirus, yet doesn’t, is the very sovereignty that sustains the soul in it. 

Indeed, more than sustains—sweetens. Sweetens with hope that God’s purposes are kind, even in death—for those who trust him. 

No man can comfort our souls in this pandemic the way God can. His comfort is unshakable. It is the comfort of a great, high Rock in the stormy sea. It comes from his word, the Bible.

Shalom. 

CORONA VIRUS AND CHRIST (DAY 3)

God Will Decide

James 4:13‭-‬15 AMP

People would often ask me before my cancer diagnosis, “How’s your health?” And I would answer, “Fine.” 

I don’t answer that way anymore. I say, “I feel fine.” There’s a difference. 

The day before I went for that annual prostate exam, I felt fine. The day after, I was told I had cancer. In other words, I was not fine. So even as I write these words, I do not know if I am fine. I feel fine. Way better than I deserve. For all I know, I have cancer right now. Or perhaps a blood clot. Or the coronavirus. 

What’s the point? The point is this: the ultimate reason we ought not to say, “I am fine,” is that God alone knows and decides if you are fine—now. To say, “I am fine,” when you don’t know if you are fine, and you don’t control if you are fine, is like saying, “Tomorrow, I will go to Chicago and do business there,” when you have no idea if you will even be alive tomorrow, let alone doing business in Chicago. 

Here’s what the Bible says about a sentence like that: 

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” (James 4:13–15) 

The Rock I stand on (and want you to stand on) is the Rock of God’s action in the world now, and forever. “If the Lord wills,” the Bible says, “we will live.” That’s about as involved now as you can get. Not just, “Whether you live or die, you will be with God,” but also, “God will decide if you live or die—now.” 

And not just live or die. He’s even more involved than that. “If the Lord wills, we will . . . do this or that.” Nothing is excluded from “this or that.” He is totally involved. Totally. This health, or that sickness. This economic collapse, or that recovery. This breath, or not. 

Which means God, in effect, is saying to us in this crisis, “Fear not. Whether you live or die, you will be with me. And in the meantime, while you live, nothing will happen to you—nothing!—that I do not appoint. If I decide, you will live. If I decide, you will die. And until you die at my decision, I will decide if you do this or that. Get to work.” 

This is my Rock—for today, tomorrow, and eternity.

These short readings are my invitation for you to join me on the solid Rock, Jesus Christ. What that means will, I hope, become clear. 

My aim is to show why God in Christ is the Rock at this moment in history—in this pandemic of the coronavirus—and what it is like to stand on his mighty love.

Shalom. 

CORONA VIRUS AND CHRIST (DAY 2)

The Rock Is Solid Right Now

We started this series yesterday with my cancer diagnosis and 1 Thessalonians 5:9–10:

God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him.

Someone might read that and say, “Religious people like you can find hope only in the by-and-by. If they are safe beyond the grave, they have what they want. But this ‘word of God’ they talk about offers little involvement right now. God got everything started in creation, I suppose, and makes happily-ever-after endings. But what about in between? Where is he now—right now, during this coronavirus outbreak?”

Well, I guess I do put a really high value on joy in the presence of God after death for unending billions of years. As opposed to, say, endless suffering. That seems reasonable to me. But the Rock under my feet (the one I would like you to share) really is under my feet now. Now!

The coronavirus pandemic is where I live. Where we all live. And if it weren’t the coronavirus, it would be the cancer just waiting to recur. Or the unprovoked pulmonary embolism from 2014 just waiting to break off and go to my brain and turn me into a mindless man who will never write another sentence. Or a hundred other unforeseen calamities that could take me—and you—down at any moment. 

The Rock I am talking about is under my feet now. I could say that the Rock is under my feet now just because hope beyond the grave is present hope. The object of hope is future. The experience of hope is present. And that present experience is powerful. 

Hope is power. Present power. Hope keeps people from killing themselves—now. It helps people get out of bed and go to work—now. It gives meaning to daily life, even locked-down, quarantined, stay-at-home life—now. It liberates from the selfishness of fear and greed—now. It empowers love and risk taking and sacrifice—now. 

So be careful before you belittle the by-and-by. It just may be that when your by-and-by is beautiful and sure, your here and now will be sweet and fruitful.

Shalom. 

CORONA VIRUS AND CHRIST (DAY 1)

Come to the Rock

1 Thessalonians 5:9‭-‬10 AMP

Playing the odds is a fragile place to put your hope. Odds like 3 percent versus 10 percent, youth versus old age, compromised health versus no history of disease, rural versus urban, self-isolated versus meeting with friends. Playing the odds provides little hope. It is not a firm place to stand.

There is a better way. There is a better place to stand: a Rock of certainty rather than the sand of probabilities.

When Cancer Came

I recall being told on December 21, 2005, that I had prostate cancer. For the next several weeks, all the talk was about odds. Odds with waiting to see. Odds with medications. Odds with homeopathic procedures. Odds with radical surgery. My wife, Noël, and I took these numbers seriously. But in the evening, we would smile at each other and think, Our hope is not in the odds. Our hope is in God. 

We did not mean, “It is 100 percent certain God will heal me, while doctors can only give me odds.” The Rock we are talking about is better than that. Yes, better than healing. 

Even before the phone call from the doctor telling me I had cancer, God had already reminded me in a remarkable way about the Rock under my feet. After my usual annual exam, the urologist had looked at me and said, “I’d like to do a biopsy.” 

Really? I thought. “When?”
“Right now, if you have the time.”
“I’ll make time.”

What God Says

While he was going to get the machine, and while I was changing into the typical unflattering blue gown, there was time for me to ponder what was happening. 

So he thinks I may have cancer.

As my future in this world began to change before my eyes, God brought to my mind something I had read recently in the Bible. 

God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. (1 Thess. 5:9–10) 

Awake or asleep—that is, live or die—I will be alive with God. 

How can that be? I am a sinner. I have never lived a day of my life—not one—without falling short of God’s standards of love and holiness. So how can this be? 

It’s because of Jesus. Jesus alone. Because of his death, there will be no wrath toward me. Not because of my perfection. My sins, my guilt, and my punishment fell on my Savior, Jesus Christ. He “died for us.” That’s what God’s word says. Therefore, I am free from guilt. Free from punishment. Secure in God’s merciful favor. “Live or die,” God said, “you will be with me.” 

That is very different from playing the odds with cancer—or with the coronavirus. This is a firm Rock under my feet. It is not fragile. It is not sand. I would like it to be a Rock under your feet in these anxious times.

Shalom. 

CORONA VIRUS AND CHRIST

Introduction

Beloved, glory to the Father of our LORD JESUS CHRIST who through His only begotten Son reconciled us unto Himself, that we who were once in  darkness and condemnation might come into the light and be heirs of His kingdom through faith. To Him alone be all the glory, Amen.

Beloved, I'll like to remind us that this present pandemic has a lesson to teach everyone - Everything around us  is temporal The world is failing, human wisdom and understanding, science, technology are leading astray. We are fighting against something we can't touch or lay our hands on, but the thing's hand is on countries, states, cities, villages and families of the world. It affects the rich and poor, giving respect to neither king nor slave. Wisdom of the wise ain't yielding salvation neither is the wealth of the rich yielding protection from death, yet we are trying our best to live each day and to help others as we live each day. 

But Sir/Ma, have we ever ask ourselves this question, "is there no other place we can run to?". This is one of the things I will like us to focus on even as we are all going through this season of CORONA VIRUS. For this reason, I'll like to point to us a place we can run to, the place is called "THE ROCK Of AGES". He's the shield to those who know and trust Him. You might want to ask why I used "Him" for The ROCK OF AGES, Its because, The ROCK of AGES lives forever and He will be with people that trust HIM with their lives. 

Therefore, join me as we together go through a devotional titled "CORONA VIRUS and CHRIST" BY JOHN PIPER. Don't just read but  prayerfully study and meditate with your faith in Jesus Christ.  As you read it, God will remove every chains and fetters  of sickness, disease, virus and any form of health challenge in your life in the name of Jesus Christ our Mediator. Amen.

Shalom

Prayer Changes Things (Day 5)

Miracle Rain. 

1 Kings 18:41‭-‬45 HCSB

Life is hard for the villagers who live on a hilly terrain in the Yunnan Province of China. Their main source of food is corn and rice. But in May 2012 a severe drought hit the region and the crops withered. Everyone was worried, and many superstitious practices were carried out as the people attempted to end the drought. When nothing worked, people started blaming the five Christians in the village for offending the spirits of the ancestors. 

These five believers gathered to pray. Before long, the sky darkened and thunder was heard. A heavy downpour started and lasted the whole afternoon and night. The crops were saved! While most of the villagers did not believe God sent the rain, others did and desired to find out more about Him and Jesus. In 1 Kings 17 and 18 we read of a severe drought in Israel. But in this case, we are told, it was a result of God’s judgment on His people (17:1). 

They had begun to worship Baal, the god of the Canaanites, believing that this deity could send the rain for their crops. Then God, through His prophet Elijah, showed that He is the one true God who determines when rain falls. Our all-powerful God desires to hear our prayers and answer our pleas. And though we do not always understand His timing or His purposes, God always responds with His best for our lives. 

Through prayer, we draw on the power of the infinite God.

Shalom

Writer: —Poh Fang Chia