This pandemic is a mass murderer.
It is attacking people everywhere and at every level. It is attacking working people, politicians, medical personnel and even the military. It is no respecter of persons. Every day we hear new numbers of lives lost to the death-grip of this disease.
We all know this is not the first pandemic to sweep across the land and the world. Many people have fear in their heart about their own lives and the lives of their families and friends. It is indeed a time of deep personal introspection. God does not want his people to live in fear. One of the most quoted scriptures in history, Psalm 23, a psalm of King David, has been and is still a firm, immovable foundation for the believer.
The human heart away from God finds fear of the unknown. But the true follower of Christ leans on the shepherd of life. In verse 4 we read:
“Even when I must walk through the darkest valley, I fear no danger, for you are with me; your rod and staff reassure me (NET Bible).”
This is an example of the shepherd using the tools of his trade to reassure and settle the anxieties of his flock. According to the translator of these verses, “the underlying reality is the emotional stability God provides the palmist during life-threatening situations.”[i]
It is God, our Shepherd that walks with us during these moments as he walks with us through dark valleys. It is his presence in our lives that gives us confidence and hope in these times.
But there is another pandemic that the world is sweeping under the rug. It is the original pandemic that caused all pandemics.
It is the pandemic of sin.
Original sin in Genesis was the horrific door through which the Evil One, the Serpent pushed us through in the Garden of Eden, thereby launching mankind into the epic struggle of all time, the pandemic of rebellion against God. It was this door that our world stepped through to bring the curse, which brought all of the consequences of a fallen world, including disease.
Disease can kill us and it can separate us from our loved ones. But God is a healer and he can provide hope for us in that true fact. But there is a greater hope for us, the hope of a fearless existence, even in the face of a sickness that decimates us worse that the destruction of the body, but the decimation of the soul through eternal separation from God in hell. As my pastor, Rev. Mario Perez often says, we are the “fellowship of the fearless.”[ii]
The Bible teaches us that sin— rebellion against God—entered the world in the Garden and that sin was dealt with on the cross of Jesus Christ. When we trust in Christ alone in repentance of that sin and turn our hearts to him in complete and utter trust for salvation, we enter into the most radical transformation possible, the transformation of the human heart and soul.
And when we experience that transformation there is no situation on earth— including this pandemic— that can rob our joy, our hope and our trust in the One who loves us more than we can imagine.
In Christ, we are truly the fellowship of the fearless.
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[i] Translator’s note #1 of Psalm 23:4 NET Bible. [ii] Pastor Mario Perez, Mid Valley Assembly, Weslaco, TX.
Ben Bounds is the founder of Mercy Road Ministries (www.facebook.com/mercyroadministries/ also www.benbounds.com). He has served as pastor of churches across Texas for the last thirty years and is an ordained minister with The Christian and Missionary Alliance. He is currently engaged in an active writing and preaching ministry.
He is the author of The Divine Chase: Responding to a Pursuing God published by Westbow Press, a division of Thomas Nelson and Zondervan, 2017.
Ben is the host of Staying in Bounds, an on-air Bible devotional broadcast multiple times daily on KWJV 103.7 FM Weslaco, TX which can also be heard worldwide online at www.kwjvthestar.com.
He may be reached at benbounds695@gmail.com or through his above website or facebook page.
©2020 by Ben Bounds. All rights reserved.
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