Year of Virus...or Year of Victory?
At the end of World War II, celebration of the Allies' victory over the hellish Axis forces was actually comprised of three marked days:
V-E (Victory in Europe) Day -- May 8, 1945;
V-J (Victory in Japan) Day -- August 15, 1945, and
the signing of unconditional surrender by the Japanese on board the USS Missouri -- Sept. 2, 1945.
Now, the year 2020--when a new virus is disrupting and threatening life around the globe--can be viewed/understood as a year of victory in Jesus for every born-again believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Three other key historical days make this possible.
First, there was that horrific yet pivotal day of Christ's crucifixion as He shed his sinless blood to make atonement for our sins, providing the only way for us to receive the free gift of eternal life.
Second, that great and awesome day of the empty tomb and of the resurrected Lord! Death and the devil were usurped of their power. Jesus has risen from the dead and He is alive evermore!!!
Third, there was that indescribable day of joy when, being convicted of our own sin guilt against a holy God we turned away from our own way, and turned our very lives over to His grace and Lordship and called upon the name of the Lord to save our souls.
Together, these three celebratory days combined give us the utter joy of what John says in his first epistle, chapter 5, verse 13: "These things are written that you may know you have eternal life." Because we know this, and because He knows those who belong to Him by name, we are blessed beyond measure. We have available to us godly assurance and a sense of utter contentment.
My personal feeling is that, at times, Paul's deep understanding of this reality--of godly contentment that defined his posture in whatever external state, situation, circumstance or reality Paul was engaged in at the time--could be somewhat misunderstood by the newcomer to his writing. Clearly, Paul was not just communicating an acceptance of his predicaments, as if he were just resigned to--or okay or at ease or good with--whatever was going on around him. Paul was, in truth, broadcasting that his state of contentment did not lie in the realms of mental, emotional, or psychological peace. No, Paul was drawing his readers into his intimate state of affairs: a state greater and more intimate than those aforementioned ones. He is leading us into the true and authentic condition of his spiritual state. It is the state of Spirit-led contentment that overcomes ALL of his external conditions.
While suffering with Silas and other believers in the jail at Philippi, Paul testified that this state of being had collectively manifested itself in all the other prisoners along with them. At the stoning of Stephen, it was this radiating state of pure love, joy, mercy and assurance that poured out of the spirit of a man overwhelmed with honoring God and desperate to demonstrate God's love to--yes--his murderers. It's not simply, "Okay, so as a believer and follower of Christ, I can always have access to the type of contentment and peace of being okay, good, fine, with all of life's issues, because God's got my back and God's got this new situation. I'll just hang out, be content, and wait for things to get better." The real spiritual contentment I am writing about should not bring to mind a Fonzarellian coolness ("Ayyy!"). The meaning within the meaning carries the unshakable companion nugget of truth known as VICTORY. This contentment is, in truth, a complete peace: an internal sense of peace that is in essence connected with and manifested in the eternal God Almighty Himself--the truth that our eternal, almighty, and all powerful God has no peers, no equals, no rivals.
In the natural state of affairs, the duration of world peace in 1918 and in 1945 was clearly temporal at best.
Not so in the Kingdom of God. Read Daniel, Ezekiel and the Book of Revelation. One day every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that there has ALWAYS been only one Victor, one Lord--and His name was, is and always will be Jesus!
Preceding his ascension, in Luke 24 verse 36, Jesus speaks of this type of contentment, peace, and internal assurance. It is based on faith.
We--the redeemed...the justified...those sanctified...who have been set in the right relationship with God at our self-humbling, repentance and confession of Jesus as Lord of our lives and Savior of our souls through his vicarious death on the cross by the shedding of His sinless blood--have now become His faith agents, faith ambassadors, faith representatives, faith priests, a collection of faith persuaders to stand as lights in a dead and dying world.
Our work, in part, is to become lights of Christ with the brilliance of the gospel on our tongues, ready to speak even if there is only one ready to hear. In our weakness we stand. In our strength we kneel. In our faith we KNOW that God is on His throne. We are men and women of the book, of the Bible, of the eternal and living holy scriptures, and we have been redeemed from the filth of this world to follow the Light, to follow the Lamb. It is as if He says to us:
I am the Way, the way that the world should follow.
I am the Truth. I have in place those 'Christ-likes' who will show the world My truth that is in My word. I have My faith agents who will speak it to you as I have placed my Spirit in them to convict the spiritually lost of the authenticity and truthfulness of My word.
I am the Life. I created everything. I created every living thing. I created mankind in Our image complete with eternal souls. I know every person, living or dead, by name. I want you to know that even in your rebellion, I made a way possible for each one of you to live forever with Me;
To live now in the abundant life with My indwelling Spirit (John 10:10), and then with everlasting life (John 3:16) with Me forevermore. I paid the price, I blood-bought all who would come to me. I made My redemption available to all I created, so that their lives could be lived out as I designed them to be lived.
And now, even now, especially now in 2020, I am still sending my faith lights out into this struggling, straying, and rebellious world with my contentment, peace, and joy in the victory of the cross:
The good news of a second birth that even COVID-19 can neither steal, kill, nor destroy. You 2020 Christians are able to share, in your greatest illuminosity of My image, the good news, the Gospel, even as this world's "father of lies" continues to darken the sight of My creation with his insidious weapon of lies.
Ever read Foxe's Book of Martyrs? (Please feel free to do so.) If you have, you will have read the historical chronology of those men and women who had the best spiritual eyesight and vision of them all--they had their eyes on the prize--victory in Jesus! We who follow the Truth and are filled with the indwelling Truth--we who read, study, meditate, memorize, testify, preach and live the truth out--must see these days in 2020 as supernaturally and divinely appointed days of opportunities for our lives to be poured out seeking God.
We seek God's face to be ready, willing, and able (see song by Bob Carlisle and Bryan Duncan) to reflect His glory, that lives in us, back to Him. Reflecting God's glory, that others might see Him in us, occurs in the day-to-day, in our thoughts, words, and deeds.
The more our contentment, our peace, our victorious Savior is a reality in our own lives, the more we can reflect His glory and experience the joy of the Lord and the joy of our salvation in our day-to-day.
In living in the days of trials as we are experiencing today, does James not admonish us to consider these days as pure joy, when we face trials of various kinds? Are not these very days designed to let His Spirit fill us again with pure joy that leads us into Christ-likeness through perseverance, into Christian maturity?
Shouldn't this heightened sense of preparedness lead us into an attitude of unending thankfulness, gratitude and service?
Well, by golly, this vicious and pernicious new virus has opened both a Pandora's box but also a plethora of possibilities to both worship with our God, disciple the members of the body of Christ, fellowship with our family, serve our world, and continue to share the Good News with a spiritually dead and dying world.
Undergird all of that with prayer, and it becomes more evident than ever that we have work to do!
His work--done by His power, for His purposes and for His glory.
The beauty to me is that it will be so clearly evident that it will be all Him doing it.
Who else would allow us to be shut down but not shut up about helping, loving and bragging on our heavenly Papa or Abba?
Two days ago my precious 93-yr-year-old Mom called me and said, "Dooper, the Lord woke me up with some verses and you have got to listen to them." OK, mother, fire away! She then read to me Isaiah 26, verses 20 and 21:
Come, My people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee:
hide thyself as it were for a little moment,
until the indignation be overpast.
For behold, the Lord cometh out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity:
the earth shall disclose her blood
and shall no more cover her slain.
Okay, Christians, let's start now, start to love them, all of them, in prayer, in words, and in deeds. Let's allow God to open doors for us that only He can open--divine appointments.
Let's minister out there and inside our homes as we are called and able to as many folks as we can.
Let's listen, hear, and help them with their physical and mental and emotional and psychological and spiritual needs. Let's be honest enough to signal to others of our own needs as well.
Remember, if we see our neighbor in need and have what it takes to help them and don't help them, this is a sin: disobeying God's law of love. If we are authentically saved according to God's word, we should be burdened and looking after not only our own needs, but the needs of others as well.
The greatest burden should be the burden about their salvation. Meeting tangible needs and looking out for others' safety and health, coupled with meeting spiritual needs, is of the Lord.
As in Romans 8:28, I am convinced that "all things", including COVID-19, can work together for God's good. It can cause us to look at our own Christian contentment in an entirely different manner.
Glorifying Christ in the every-day is what we "little Christs" are called to do. Sharing the gospel and then discipling new believers is also what is expected of His followers.
Being born again means being filled with the Spirit. Being filled with the Spirit is our choice. Having received God's Spirit upon salvation, it is our daily, hourly, and sometimes minute-ly choice to ask Him to re-fill us for the demanding spiritual tasks at hand.
Not just because of this pandemic, but especially because it is upon us, we have a grand and divine opportunity to let our shalom peace shine brightly.
And He is our contentment, our peace, our Victor and our victory.
Why??? Because of what is written in Rev. 12:11:
"And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb"
--the shed blood that paid for our sin and made adoption into the eternal family of God possible.
"and by the word of their testimony"
--they were spiritually blind but now they saw the living embodiment of all truth, and He is the risen Savior, Jesus Christ our collective Lord!
"and they loved not their lives unto death."
---they believed in the truth of the Scriptures that "to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord" (II Cor. 5:8).
He died for us. If called upon could we die for Him?
To settle that issue for yourself will bring you full circle back to Paul's statement about contentment.
The very reason godly contentment is great gain is because of the victory already won and that we are on the side of the Victor!
In his song ”Last Train to Glory”, Bob Carlisle expresses what Paul knew all along: He was already on board but he wanted to spend his last moment of his earthly life trying to persuade others to get on board the Gospel train as well. (BTW, you don’t need no ticket!)
So what shall it be?
COVID-19 and confusion
OR
The Victor and victory?
We each have the choice to make.
Lastly, just remember the words our Savior:
"These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."