Dear fellow Christian,

God has placed it on my heart to be praying for each of you who are struggling with anxiety and taking each bit of news extremely hard. I know some are trying to be eternal optimists and each shutdown extension is a crushing weight that the enemy hopes to use to attack your foundation in Christ, knowing that our mind is the ultimate battleground.

While we are to be praying for God’s miraculous touch, I believe God also wants us to take every thought captive and gird ourselves to face the reality of what we are seeing on a daily basis. I believe that God has given us a mind to reason and process the information we are seeing and stand firm in the face of this uncertain storm we are all in.

I am hopeful that things will move quicker than anticipated but I am also preparing myself mentally for what it means if we are really under lock-down longer than we initially anticipated. I personally am praying optimistically for a June-July time-frame here is the US for things to slowly begin returning to normal. This is not because I am pessimistic, but because I believe that it is a realistic time-frame based on what we currently know about the virus around the world. This post is not intended to spread fear or cause additional pain, but to actually save myself from further disappointment. And it is my conviction that this way of thinking is not me being double-minded. I can pray in faith for a miracle and still prepare myself if the answer is No.

Additionally, for the many Christians who are “claiming victory” over this virus by ignoring governors’ stay-at-home directives in order to continue to gather together for Sunday services in the name of religious liberty, I pray that you would take personal inventory of your real motives. I pray that your motivations for this type of behavior would be to fulfill our calling as ambassadors for Christ to seek and save the lost and not just to exercise your rights as “free ‘muricans.”

It is one thing to acknowledge the danger of the virus and commit to reaching the lost at our own risk, praying that God would protect us while we fulfill the Great Commission. In fact, we are seeing many Christian volunteers working with organizations like Samaritan’s Purse in New York, and serving in any way they can. That is truly presenting your body as a living sacrifice for Christ.

However it is quite another thing to, in naivete or willful ignorance, endanger fellow Christians while in turn isolating from the world we are called to reach. To gather in large numbers within confined quarters while “pleading the blood of Jesus” is a misunderstanding of what God has called us to do.

Many Christians believe that Christ’s death on the cross means that we are immune to sickness if we simply “believe” enough. This is a misuse of Scripture propagated by those in the Prosperity Gospel movement. Paul the Apostle himself struggled with infirmities and pleaded with the Lord to heal Him with no evidence that God heeded His plea. He gave “home remedies” to Timothy to help him deal with a troubled stomach, he left people behind sick, while healing others. Many of the Apostles repeatedly taught about sharing in Christ’s sufferings.

Even the verse in Mark 16, that many people often abuse to explain their dancing with snakes in church and drinking poison, is in the context of those who are GOING into all the world and making disciples. Not SITTING comfortably inside the four walls of your building demonstrating your indestructible god-like powers because it’s your “1st Amendment right as an American.”

Even our Lord, when Satan tempted Him to throw Himself down from the pinnacle of the temple to both make a public spectacle and to prove God’s protection over His Son, said that we ought not put God to the test.

If Jesus felt that way, then why not His followers? I believe it is because much of our “spiritual” exercises have become nothing more than self-serving, repetitive activity in which we feel close to God. In other words, we have turned Christianity into a consumer religion, much like all of the other religions of the world. It is more about what we get out of the deal than anything else.

Our flippant interpretation of certain verses has caused many to create a gospel that falsely represents Christ to our world. How can you explain your careless behavior to fellow believers in the 3rd World dying of malaria and other diseases? Is it because they didn’t believe in God’s protective covering or healing power enough? Or as much as you do? If we present a Christianity that offers perfect health and abundant wealth to those who claim it by faith, then we are guilty of leading people astray and taking the Lord’s name in vain, and in many cases preying on the poor and encouraging people to needlessly risk their lives to prove their faith.

I am not naive to the fact that many people in positions of power would love to limit the free exercise of one’s faith. In fact, there are many examples right now all over the world of governments trying to mandate what religious organizations can and cannot do.

But the church of God is not a building or an institution that government can regulate, it is the people of God. The purpose of the church is not to give Christians an ornate place to gather and enjoy themselves so that they can feel good about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This is proven in many countries that are antagonistic toward Christianity by Christians gathering in small groups in homes. They believe and fear God but they also understand their situation and recognize that it is better for them to operate in secret under the authority of their government in order to spread the gospel, than blatantly disregard the law of the land and be eliminated. The church’s purpose is to be in but not of the world and make disciples of all nations. And now with the technology we have at our disposal, there is nothing the government can do to stop the church from being the true Church.

Politically speaking, I am a non-affiliated Libertarian, so government overreach is something I am always considering and speaking out against. However this post is less about whether or not we SHOULD ignore government mandates, and more about when is the right time for Christians to ignore them and for what reason.

If a Christian recognizes the risk of what they are doing when they choose to ignore stay-at-home orders, then my prayer is that their decision is based on our calling as Christ followers to deny ourselves and take up our cross, and not simply to protect the United States Constitution. We pledge our allegiance to the King of Kings, not to a document or a country.

Sadly, many people are making the decision based on the assumption that the exercise of their faith in supernatural immunity ensures their safety and has nothing to do with the cost of true discipleship. God’s ways are not our ways. He chooses to heal according to His will, not our demands. Somehow we have ignored the countless examples in the Bible where this holds true.

If we look to the Scriptures, Joseph was raised up just in time to prepare the whole world for a famine. Could he have prayed for God to withhold the famine? Certainly. Could God have decided to answer that prayer. If it was His will, yes. However, Joseph prepared himself and the rest of the world for a time of great hardship. His preparation was not a lack of faith, on the contrary, his preparation showed that He took God at His word and believed that God was the ultimate authority.

I believe that God is calling us to show the world how Christ provides peace and security IN THE MIDST of trials and hardships. Could it be that the miracle God chooses to do is not to end this virus’ spread supernaturally but to use the testimony of Christians to demonstrate God’s power in the face of it? Much of the world believes that Christianity is a crutch for the weak because oftentimes it is presented as a cure-all pill for all of life’s problems. But as Christ described in the parable of the sower, the shallow soil is someone who believes that God will simply fix all of their problems in this world only to be beaten down and led astray by the realities of hardship and suffering that a true disciple of Jesus experiences, as He said they would.

Instead, we are given the example of Paul and Silas, who when in prison in Philippi, locked in stocks in a dungeon, were found to be worshiping. They were praising God because Paul knew that whatever happened to him, it was ultimately God’s way of furthering the gospel (Philippians 1:12-14). And you know what? The prisoners around them, who were also dealing with the same hardships, they took notice. It says in Acts 16:25 that the prisoners were listening to them worship God.

Ultimately, God moved in a miraculous way and an earthquake opened the doors of the prison and loosed all of their chains. But you know what happened? No one left the prison. The jailer was afraid that everyone escaped and was about to kill himself but Paul stopped him and told him that everyone was still there. Why would these prisoners still be there? They could have easily fled unimpeded and been free.

Think about it this way, if you had the opportunity to end your imprisonment (quarantine), wouldn’t you do it in a heartbeat? However it appears that the testimony of Paul and Silas and how they worshiped God in the midst of their imprisonment, had an impact on these men. So much so, that they chose to remain in their cell. They saw the peace and security in these men that they knew would not be available to them if they simply did whatever they wanted out in the world. Their testimony not only affected these prisoners, but it led to the salvation of the Philippian jailer and his entire household. Who knows maybe his house was ultimately where the church of Philippi met?

Paul and Silas were paying a price for openly proclaiming the gospel to the world. They understood the consequences of their actions and gladly received them, because they knew it was according to God’s plan. They had counted the cost and considered “…that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” (Romans 8:18) They knew that Christ was worthy of their allegiance regardless of the earthly pain they may endure. Notice he didn’t say that “Christ’s glory HAS BEEN revealed in us and therefore we will not suffer in this present time,” though if you listen to many American preachers today, you would think that the latter interpretation was the actual biblical text.

Consider the words of Jesus Himself:

“And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it— lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going to make war against another king, does not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks conditions of peace. So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple.”

Luke 14:27-33 NKJV

That doesn’t sound like the type of decision someone who was weak would willingly make. Which is why we need to reasonably think about what God has called us to as Christians. He did not call us to ignore our circumstances and operate in isolation as though business is as usual. He has called us to lay our lives down for a higher calling. He has called us “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” (Mark 16:15) That cannot be accomplished by sitting inside the four walls of a church building, ignoring the reality of the situation we are in, while the world goes to hell in a hand basket around you.

When you consider that it is very unlikely that an unbeliever would choose to attend church during this pandemic against stay-at-home orders, then you are essentially preaching to the choir. Something that can easily be done online or in a way that protects those around you from possibly contracting the virus. I believe the appropriate course of action for the church is to non-violently protest government overreach by proactively telling the world of God’s overreach. The perfect Son of God left His throne in heaven to engage in the mire of this world to seek and to save the lost. He did not care about His rights as a Jew, or even as God, He cared about fulfilling His mission.

“Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Philippians 2:3-11 NKJV

“…looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Hebrews 12:2 NKJV

With this in mind, I want to encourage all of us to fix our eyes on how Christ behaved in the midst of the storm. He was asleep. Not because he was indifferent but because He was so focused on his mission that He worked himself to exhaustion. Though the boat was being tossed to and fro, He was counting sheep. No doubt, He was recovering after spending all of his energy looking to save the one lost sheep out of 100. I am also reminded that He SENT the disciples into the storm ALONE so that He could demonstrate His power over nature.

This is the God we serve. He is immovable, He is all-powerful, but sometimes most frustratingly, He is unconventional. He has called us to be a light to a world that loves darkness. He has called us to be salt in a world that loves to sugar-coat. He sometimes calls us to prepare for a famine, sometimes He sends us to prison for what we think is no good reason, but above all He has called us to rest in Him in the midst of the storm. The good reason being that the world is watching us and looking for peace and security in uncertain times. Peace and security that can only come from a relationship with Jesus.