When Your Whole World Changes - COVID-19 Special EditionSample

When Your Whole Life Changes COVID-19 Special Edition

COVID-19 has changed our whole world. You may have experienced pain and loss before, but this pandemic has changed your life in a deeper way. The pain and loss affects every part of our lives, and the loss of control is agonizing. Somehow, we know that this chaos was never intended to be.

When the world began, God’s creation was a place of peace. It was a place where humans enjoyed a harmonious relationship with Him as they took care of His good creation.

But then those humans decided that their way was better than God’s way. They chose a path that tainted all human relationships—with God, each other, and his creation—with sin and death. Pain, struggle, devastation, and heartbreak have plagued human relationships ever since.

But God wanted to restore His creation, so he chose a group of people—the Israelites—to show His love to the world. But the Israelites struggled to be a part of the solution and the problem persisted. But God didn’t give up.

He sent his only son, Jesus, into the world as the Israelite’s Messiah—their king. Jesus came to show what humans were created to be. He came to do what the Israelites failed to: to show God’s love for all humanity. And He came to be the King and Savior of the world.

Instead of giving in to sin and dying like every other human had, Jesus confronted and defeated them. How did He do it?

Jesus announced the coming of God’s kingdom. However, the kings and authorities didn’t like the threat that he posed to their power. They maintained their rule through death. In fact, to defeat Him, they used the power of death when they hung Him on a cross to die.

But after three days, their power lost its sting. Jesus rose from the dead and showed that God’s resurrection power is greater than sin and death. God’s love and life defeated these forces of evil.

When we face dark threats like the one that we are in, we are not called to ignore the darkness. Instead, God gives us a story of hope, a story where light defeats the darkness.

We have all been a part of this darkness, choosing to follow our own thoughts and desires instead of God’s. But just as God has set out to renew his creation, He wants to restore you to what He originally intended for you and to forgive your sins so that you might bring this new life to the rest of his world.

God’s intention is to renew all of creation, so that the world no longer suffers from disaster and brokenness. In the new creation, God’s dwelling place is among His people, and He will dwell with them and be their God. “‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (from the book of Revelation).

Right now, God wants to meet you where you are and comfort you. But He also wants you to follow Him out of the darkness and become a beacon of light for Him in this world. There is still so much pain in the world. There are so many people who need this same hope and need to know that Jesus gives us victory over the darkness.

We can’t do this alone. God has given us His Spirit to live with us, His Word to tell us the story, and each other to share our lives with. So we encourage you to invite His Spirit into your life, find a gathering of Jesus-followers to connect with, and get a copy of His Word to engage in.