It is very clear that Covid-19 has not gone away. What are the Government guidelines? What can we do? Where can we go? Can we travel? Can our relatives come and visit? Am I allowed to hug my grand-children? Am I still in lockdown? What does it mean to form a ‘support bubble’? Do I have to wear a face mask? Should I self-isolate, or live in quarantine? Who is leading us? Do they know what they are doing? Such questions are increasingly being asked, amidst the confusion of voices seeking to explain how things were getting better but now are getting worse, as we head for a possible ‘second wave’.
The truth is that nobody has any real answers. The Covid-19 pandemic is still very much with us, and after over seven months, its tentacles are still invading and enslaving millions of people throughout the whole world and it appears that no nation or people group is exempt from its tenacious hold.
Our politicians, medical practitioners, scientists and academics are still struggling to find ways to contain the spread of the virus, to protect the people that they serve and to try to get their countries back to normal life. In the meantime, people in all nations are still struggling through days of distress, difficulty and death and we must recognise that life as we once knew it is gone … maybe never to return.
Some people may call me negative, talking about doom and gloom, and ask, ‘Why not be positive?’ The reason I think and speak in this way is that it is only by looking at the bad news first that we can fully understand and appreciate the tremendous nature of the good news; I am therefore very positive.
Here is the Good News ~ from the Lord God Almighty, our Creator:
“Turn to Me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other”
“Salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men
by which we must be saved”
“You will call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins”
The word for ‘save’ here means to ‘come to the rescue’ to ‘bring deliverance’… Help is available!
The biggest problem that the world faces today is not Covid-19, or climate change, or plagues of locusts or economic difficulties ~ but sin, which in its basic form, is rebellion, selfishness and a refusal to ask God for help and to walk in the way that He has designed for us. Sin ensnares and enslaves and the results are not just for this life but are eternal, they last for ever.
Our only hope for life and freedom is the Lord Jesus, Who said, “I have come that you might have life, in all its fullness … if the Son sets you free (from the slavery of sin) you will indeed be free.”
This is the wonderful good news: ‘God loves us and gave His Son Jesus to die in our place’
… ‘our sin can now be forgiven and removed and our lives released from the slavery of sin’
What are the Government guidelines to deal with the pandemic? What will happen if we ignore and disobey what the Government says? There may be more ‘spikes’ of the pandemic and more deaths.
Of greater importance is the question, ‘What are Almighty God’s guidelines to deal with the slavery of sin?’ The answer is: TURN to Him in repentance, SEEK His forgiveness for our rebellion and sin and WALK in humble obedience along the path of eternal freedom that He has set out for us.
If we ignore and disobey what the Lord God says to us and continue to go our own way in selfish rebellion, then there will be eternal, catastrophic consequences.
The Good News is: God loves you and will forgive you if you humbly turn to Him in repentance.
Ron Brickman