DAVID BAKER - WORSHIP MINISTER
I was fine coming home from St. George, UT and Las Vegas a few weeks ago. It was my mom’s 83rd birthday party on that September 20th, that I didn’t even attend, that did me in. One of my siblings apparently had the virus, and after she hugged and loved on the rest of the family, many of my family joined her in the land of the infected. I came home, kissed my wife and low and behold, I got to join them as well.
I was deemed asymptomatic, but Jerri and my mom had some aches and pains with some small amounts of fever and suffered from fatigue.
The range of symptoms that various folks experience spans from one end of the spectrum to the other. I’m not sure why some need to be hospitalized and even some die while others hardly experience a speed bump. Regardless, the issue of the COVID-19 virus is not the most critical concern facing us.
According to God’s Word, this life is a mist, a vapor; here today and gone tomorrow (James 4:14). But God has desired us to live with Him forever (John 3:16). For those of us who have accepted Christ as our Savior, we will live forever with God. But what about others around us? Where are their souls going to reside for all of eternity?
We wear a mask, keep our distance from others, all the while seeking to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe from COVID-19. All well and good. But are we as concerned about the eternal destiny of those around us? Do we care more about something that is temporal than the eternal?
While we certainly want to keep ourselves and our family and friends safe, shouldn’t we also work just as diligently, if not more so, to protect our friends and loved ones from suffering for all of eternity apart from God? We may not understand what the cure is for COVID-19, but God’s Word is clear in that Jesus is the only way to the Father. John 14:6 - “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” We understand that and believe it. But do we really understand the consequences for those who don’t choose to go through that door? If we had the cure to COVID-19 and we kept it from others, what does that say about us? If you know Jesus, you DO have the cure to eternal death. And when we share it, we don’t lose any of what we have!
I pray that we would be as diligent in helping people understand that Jesus is the only cure for our sin condition as we are about trying to guard against the COVID-19 concern.
Because He lives,
David