MESSAGE OF THE MONTH
Unless otherwise stated, all quotations are from God’s Word, the Bible.
God’s Love in a Pandemic
“God demonstrates His own love toward us,
in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8)
God’s love toward us is demonstrated by the wonderful thing He has done for us. Someone who thinks about our needs, and goes out of their way to meet those needs, shows us that we matter to them. But imagine someone who is a stranger to us being willing to give up all they had for our sake, even to lay down their life. Wouldn’t that demonstrate a love that is beyond normal human experience?
The COVID-19 emergency might make some feel they have cause to doubt that God’s love is real, or even that He exists. Almost 5 million people around the world are said to have lost their lives to this pandemic. The fact that God hasn’t prevented these deaths from occurring is not evidence that He isn’t there – just as darkness doesn’t disprove the existence of light.
It also doesn’t prove that He is uncaring. While we may never discover the truth about the origin of the present pandemic, we know that all human suffering, including disease and death, has its origin in the problem of sin. Sin affects all of us, everywhere, and is evidenced by the sins we commit in our lives:
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)
God’s demonstrates his love for us by what he has done to save us from sin, the root cause of our sinfulness and misery. God sent His own son, the Lord Jesus Christ, into the world that He might die an agonising death upon a cross to take away our sin:
“(God) did not spare His own Son but delivered him up for us all.” (Romans 8:32)
COVID-19 continues to have a dramatic effect in our world and we have all been affected to some degree. Family members were separated from one another for months on end. Many have endured the pain of losing a loved one. Others have suffered severe illness themselves. Yet all of these are insignificant when compared to the eternal effect that sin has upon us. Sin is the reason why each of us dies and, if we are not saved from sin before we die, it will separate us from God forever in an eternal death.
The Lord Jesus Christ left heaven to come to earth, a place ravaged by the pandemic of sin in the human race. He came willingly, in the full knowledge that only His death – the death of a sinless and perfect man on behalf of the sinful– could break sin’s hold over us and pay the penalty our sins deserve.
None of us would wish the effects of COVID-19 upon those that we love and we would do anything we could to spare them. In his love for us, God has paid an unimaginable price to save those He loves from the plague of sin and its eternal consequences:
“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)
There is a cure for sin and it is found in faith in God’s Son alone.
Christ died on account of sin and rose again from the dead to save us. His ability to save us is not in doubt:
“He is able to save them to the uttermost that come to God through Him.” (Hebrews 7:25)
We must understand that salvation from sin is not found in any place, person or religious system of our choice. We must accept the saviour that God has provided us:
“Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)
In order to be saved, we each must repent of our sins (acknowledge our guilt and uncleanness and desire to live in obedience to God instead) and receive eternal life as the gift of God, by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved (Acts 16:31)
Our need to be saved from sin is urgent as none of us can be certain of tomorrow:
Now is the accepted time; look, now is the day of salvation. (2 Corinthians 6:2)