Schools are closed, and I am working remotely from home, because I am non-essential staff (what a humbling statement to type). All non-essential businesses in PA are being urged to close for the next two weeks. The economy is showing the effects of this situation already, with the Dow Jones falling yesterday 10+%, which amounts to a pretty large deficit for many 401Ks and overall investment portfolios. Oh, yeah, it also dropped significantly last week.
What do we make of this? Is this situation scary to you? When you listen to the news, do you get any sense of fear rising up in your heart? I can be honest that, yesterday, I found myself experiencing fear in my heart for the first time in this COVID-19 season. Here are some thoughts I had: what if this crashes our economy? What if businesses shut down for a long period of time, and the economy suffers drastically? What if I lose my job and have no way to pay our bills? After all, we are just now getting to where we are so close to eliminating all of our debt except for our house payment. And what about that, if I lose my job, how will we keep our house? How will we afford to pay even the mortgage?
Stop. That's what I had to remind myself yesterday. STOP. But not just STOP, but STOP and LOOK. Can you see what is missing from the blog post so far? It is the same thing that was missing in my thoughts yesterday. The same ONE. God. I'm so grateful that, while He is sometimes missing from our thoughts, He is NOT missing from our reality or our situation.
HE IS HERE.
Romans 8:31, "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?"
He is for us?
How can He be for us? How, because of our sinfulness, would God want to be for us?
God is for us, because He sent Jesus to the cross to die in our place. This kind of gift and offering up of His Son for us was unmerited. We didn't deserve it. But God chose to do it.
Remember Romans 5:6-11: "God shows His love for us in that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
So, God chose to love us and demonstrate that love by sending Jesus to die for us, so we would be freely forgiven and not experience an ounce of His wrath against us for our sins.
That's why we can say: He is for us.
What about provision?
Romans 8:32, "He who did not spare His own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?"
Paul connects God's amazing provision of Jesus for our salvation with other needs for provision. If God gave us Jesus, then what would He withhold? That is very helpful. Thank you for saying that Paul, and thank you God for inspiring Paul to say that.
Now, the word for "all things" is a generic word which means "all" and we add the word "things" in our translation to fill it out to reflect what is inherently meant in the statement. God will provide all things for us.
But, I want to stop us from looking any further and directly at the idea of provision. Just hold fast for now on the truth that we have promises from God that we will be provided for, okay? Trust me here...
See, it is so easy to start talking about promises of provision and miss out on the promises of the Provider. Then we can be distracted by going into a discussion about being rich because we live in the US and we have much more than the rest of the world, which, indeed is true. And then naturally go to the: so don't worry, because you are already richer than most of the world. You do not have anything to worry about. That lands as well in our hearts as much as someone throwing a brick at us. Boink! (and people who get bricks thrown at them often times end up with stitches, if not worse).
But, instead of trying to rationalize this (which doesn't normally work for our hearts), we must recognize that as Christians in the US, not unlike our brothers and sisters across the world, we face trials not just of the physical kind, but of the heart kind. We fear not having certain things, because we are used to having them. And this fear can grip our hearts in a way that steers us away from trusting in God and His character.
When faced with these kinds of temptations about provision, my knee jerk reaction is to go to scripture passages that talk about God providing for us (i.e. Matt 6:25-34, etc). And that can be helpful.
But, first, I want to, no, I need to, be reminded that my loving Jesus is here. Yes, I need to know the promises of provision, but I, more importantly, need to know the ONE who makes those promises. And I need to know that He is here with me, and that He is for me. So, let's continue in Romans 8:31-39.
"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?"
Wow: some of these things sound familiar...even if it is just the potential for these things.
And that potential can grip us...but it does not have to.
Let the rest of these words wash over your soul:
"No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:37-39
While we face uncertain times in our lives, it is refreshing and encouraging to know that our loving Savior, Jesus Christ, is here with us no matter what is presently in our situation or what might be in our situation.
Will you join me in the STOP AND LOOK step of repentance and faith during this COVID-19 season? Repenting of unbelief and reinforcing faith in Jesus is refreshment for one's soul.
JESUS IS HERE, and we know we will be well cared for. We have Who and what we need.
