LOVE OF CHRIST DURING DIFFICULT TIMES

By Jeannie L Horton
Life Christian University student. #17122
6/10/2020

LOVE OF CHRIST DURING DIFFICULT TIMES

INTRODUCTION

 

With the spread of COVID-19, we are living in extremely unsettling times. The symptoms of the illness are almost identical to that of the flu. Yet it also affects your lungs and airways, making it difficult to breathe, and many people are being put on ventilators. It is highly contagious, and at the date of finishing this paper, there is no current treatment, vaccination, nor cure, but options are in the works. The virus has spread all over the globe, and nobody is immune. The people that are most at risk are the elderly and those with an underlying health issue. Globally there have been over 4 million confirmed cases and 300,000 deaths. When my 17-year-old daughter came down with the symptoms, an advice nurse mentioned that every person in the United States would be exposed to the virus. Some show very mild symptoms, while others have severe symptoms and are dying. 

COVID-19 has caused a lot of fear. Because of the rapid spread of the virus, people have been told by government officials to distance themselves. There have been several rules created to slow the spread of this deadly virus. Because of this, people are not to have large gatherings. Weddings and funerals are needing to be postponed. Schools all over the nation closed in March for the remainder of the year, and non-essential businesses have closed. People are losing their jobs, incomes, and housing. Sporting events are canceled: events that people have trained so hard for. Several hospitals and dentist offices are being shut down, and non-essential procedures are being held off. Churches are not able to have services. For months, there has been a big array of emotions. People are either living in fear, panic, and disbelief: while others are having a hard time processing the truth of the virus and are not wanting to take it too seriously. Some have started out fearful, but now they are desperate for the economy to open back up, and they’re angry. There have been several protests all over the United States. Many businesses have filed lawsuits demanding their rights for their places of employment to open again. An 86-year-old member of my congregation mentioned he had not experienced anything like this since the poliovirus in the ’50s.

This virus has come in like a tornado and crippled the world. I don’t know when my 6000-attendee church will be able to open its doors again for a Sunday service or feel a sense of ease. Even though I can no longer meet with the people that I regularly feel community within a usual sense, the church isn’t restricted to a building that meets once a week. The church is all around us. The great body of Christ is the church. Throughout humanity, Christians have been unhesitant running towards others in need, and they’re asking, “how can we help?” While others are running away in fear. There is one certain truth to all of this; God is still the same. He already knew about COVID-19, and He has always had a plan for restoration. The love of God never stops. He is love, and that is all He knows. He expresses a special love for the world through His Son Jesus, and He has commanded us, the body of Christ, to run towards others in loving compassion and love them as He does.  

I. LOVE OF GOD

“But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them” (1 John 4:8,16). God’s love is beyond human comprehension. His love is everlasting. He is the Creator of life: the universe and every living thing. He wanted a family; thus, we were created. The person who does not love doesn’t know God because God is love. If we truly knew Him, we’d know He loves us, feel His love, and act out in obedience, loving others as He does. When we grow in our faith and our knowledge of the Lord and love others as He does, we grow into His image. When we have a relationship with the Lord, we return His love, and we can love others as He has commanded us to do: we’re walking in obedience to His word. It’s easier to love others when we know He loves us. But the truth is that sadly very few people know that God loves them. Everything that He is or does is because He loves. If people would spend time with Him, getting to know Him by reading the Bible, and in worship and giving thanks to Him, they’d quickly learn they are loved. They’d feel His loving embrace.

Unlike human love, God’s love is unconditional. It isn’t based on our behavior, or if we return His love. It doesn’t say, if you are nice to me, I’ll be nice to you; if you give 80% into the relationship, I’ll try and give you 75%. No, He gives 100% all the time, even if we are unable or unwilling to love Him back. There is nothing that we can do or not do that will make God love us any less. We are perfect to Him now. God knew what He was getting Himself into when He purposefully created, chose, and adopted us into His family.

Because of God’s love, He gave us a gift: the gift of His Son Jesus. God loved us even when we were sinners; while we were rejecting Him. God sent His only Son to die on the cross for restoration. Before Christ, we were estranged from God because of our sins. With the death and resurrection of Christ, we have fully restored our relationship with the Father, and we’re now holy and blameless. We can have eternal life with Him. Jesus is our greatest gift. 

II. GOD EXPRESSES A SPECIAL LOVE FOR HIS PEOPLE

As God’s children, we have been called, chosen, and saved. One-way God expresses His love is in our adoption and salvation. Because of God’s grace and forgiveness, He calls us to Him. We cannot come to God on our own. He calls us through the workings of the Holy Spirit, who draws us to Him. “But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. They are reborn-not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God” (John 1:12-13). He calls us and has adopted us into His family through the gracious redeeming grace of Jesus: giving us eternal life by Christ’s shed blood on the cross. God now sees us just as He does His own Son Jesus. When we believe in Jesus through faith, we are considered God’s child because of Jesus’s sacrifice. Because Jesus once and for all paid for our sins with His death and resurrection, we have been declared “not guilty” and sanctified for God’s purposes; we are a new creation. Sanctification means to make holy. God no longer sees our sins; they have all been wiped clean. We are just as righteous to Him as Jesus is, and we can have a relationship with our Father in heaven. We are still going to sin, only Jesus was sinless in His lifetime, but we are changing little by little. Sanctification is ongoing: if we allow Him, God will continuously prune away anything that isn’t pleasing to Him or producing good fruit in our lives. We learn from our mistakes and repent of our wrong. But, because of Jesus, God forgives us and considers us family. 

God has promised never to leave nor forsake us; He promises to always be with us. He gave us His Spirit as a guarantee of our inheritance. It is a sign of our adoption. Through our faith, the Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts when we accept Christ as our Savior. The Holy Spirit has many roles in our lives. Here are a few: The Spirit is our friend, helper, teacher, and guide. The Spirit convicts us of our sin, strengthens us, and is our interceder. With God’s Spirit living within us, there is nothing that we can’t do. God even gives us His desires so that we can continue to change and be transformed into His image. We can do anything that God asks of us. He isn’t ever going to ask us to do something for Him without giving us the ability to do it. We have to have faith and rely on Him for help. We can step out with confidence in doing His will.

III. LOVE OF CHRIST

The Son dearly loved the Father, and the love of Christ was clearly expressed for God through His sacrificial obedience. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed three times for the cup to be taken from Him. The cup represents the suffering that He knew He was about to endure. Jesus didn’t want to die on the cross, but He chose to seek first the Kingdom of God. His will was the Father’s will. His sacrifice expressed His love for the world. “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command” (John 15:13-14). Jesus laid His life down for His friends; we are His friends. He died for us so that through the forgiveness of sin, we could have eternal life with Him forever. He wanted to be obedient to the Father’s plan for restoring the world to right standing with the Father, so we might know the love of God, accept Him, and have eternal life. When Jesus was badly beaten, when He was dying on the cross, He could have stopped the beatings, and He could have come down from the cross. He had the power to do so, but He chose not to. He laid aside His own interests. Instead, He chose to die so that we could have forgiveness of our sins and eternal life with the Father. All we have to do is accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior and turn from our sins in repentance. 

“I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you” (John 15:9,12). The scripture says to remain in His love. To remain in His love, we abide or dwell in Him. If we let Him, Jesus will take up residence in our lives. We need to know who we are in Christ: We were made in the image of Christ, and we are God’s chosen child. He has adopted you into His family because of His love. When we know how much He loves us, we can love others as He loves us. He wants us to accept Jesus by faith as our Lord and Savior and love Him in return. God isn’t ever going to stop loving us. 

When we return God’s love, we will want to keep His commandments. Loving Him and obeying His commandments was one of the five requirements to the Israelites that Moses spoke of in Deuteronomy. After Moses stayed in the Lord’s presence for 40 days and nights, he descended from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments. Moses spoke to the people about what God required of them. He said, “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? He requires only that you fear the Lord your God, and live in a way that pleases him, and love him and serve him with all your heart and soul. And you must always obey the Lord’s command and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good” (Deuteronomy 10:12-13). Jesus calls us His friends if we obey Him. His commandments are for our benefit so that we can enjoy our lives to the fullest. Jesus died so that we would enjoy our life, and keeping His commandments allows us to do that. In doing so, others will see our good fruit that is produced by remaining in Him through our faith, and they too will come to Christ. John 17 contains the High Priestly Intercessory Prayer of Jesus. It includes a few themes, one of them is Jesus’s desire for God to protect His people against the evils of this world, and prayer for unity amongst His disciples and all believers all over the world: 

Now I am departing from the world; they are staying in this world, but I am coming to you. Holy Father, you have given me your name; now protect them by the power of your name so that they will be united just as we are. I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me. Father, I want these whom you have given me to be with me where I am. They can see all the glory you gave me because you loved me even before the world began (John 17:11,23-24).

During His time on earth, Jesus acknowledged that God loved Him. He spoke about the Father’s love often. Jesus wanted people to know that they, too, were loved by God. He wanted them to remain in His love by keeping His commandments just as He kept the Father’s commandments. By doing so, we experience not only God’s protection but the perfect unity which is through Jesus. God wants all of His children all over the world to have unity with each other, just as He and Jesus were united. Unity with the Father is possible through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. At our salvation, the Holy Spirit comes and lives in our hearts, and brings us into perfect unity with the Father. We are God’s children forever, and He is glorified when His children are united. We show the world that we are united when we come together as a community to show love to one another.

IV. LOVE FOR OTHER CHRISTIANS

COMMANDED BY GOD

There are four commandments of love in the Gospels. Briefly, they are:

1. The first and greatest commandment comes from the Gospel of Mathew. Mathew 22:37-38 says to love God with all of our heart, soul, and mind.

2. The second love commandment comes from Mathew 22:39. It is to love your neighbor as yourself.

3. The third is to love one another as God has loved us. “So Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples” (John 13:34-35).

4. The fourth commandment comes from Mathew 5:43-44. It says to love even our enemies and to pray for those that persecute us. 

The first love commandment is to love God with all of your heart. He is to be first place in our hearts. When we put Him first, and love Him with every fabric of our being, we will be able to love others. We should imitate Jesus, who put God first place in His life. Jesus sought first the Kingdom of God. His intention was to please His Father. He was in complete submission to the Father’s will. His whole life was spent being in fellowship with God through prayer, service to others, and obediently going to the cross to atone for our sins. Our goal should be the same: submission and obedience to the Father. The Bible says we are to love Him with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength. When we feel His love, we will want to please Him. Like Jesus, we should seek first the Kingdom of God, which means making the things of God a priority over the things of this world.  If we humbly submit to Him, we will want to merge our plan for our life to His plan. We will know He has our best interest at heart, knows what is best for us, and we’ll ultimately be happiest when we submit to Him and His will for us.

His other commandments of love extend out. We are to love others as ourselves. The Bible describes love as:

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever (1 Corinthians 14:4-8).

This scripture describes a guideline on how God wants us to love. God commands us not just to love our family, friends, and neighbors that we like. That’s easy. We are instructed to love not only the neighbors that are all around us, that we see often, but we are to love strangers, and people in our communities. These are the people that we pass by on a walk, at the grocery store, or driving to church. People that we usually don’t give much thought to. These could be the people that, when illness strikes the community, they are desperate for help. We are their help.  We are to display God’s love to them, all of them.

We are even instructed to love our enemies. Christ died so that all might have eternal life; God doesn’t want a single soul to perish. He wants everyone to have a changed heart and be saved through their faith in Jesus. We are to pray for and ask God to bless them: so they can see their wrongdoing and come to a place of repentance. He displayed love to the world while we were still His enemies when He sent His only Son to die for the world so that we could have right standing with Him, and become a part of His family. We certainly didn’t deserve it. So, if God, the Creator of the universe could do that for us, then He is indeed asking us to do that for our enemies. If it is hard to show love to someone who has not treated you right, ask Him for help: ask Him to give you wisdom for all situations. He graciously will. If someone is not treating you right, God may want you to stay away as it may either not be a safe environment or perhaps, He is working in their lives. Or He may have other plans. You may have to treat someone good for a long time before they begin to show a changed heart and begin to treat you right.

When we diligently abide by these love commandments, we are proving to the world that we are true disciples of God. We will be a light in a dark world. Right now, the world is scared, confused, angry, and they are desperately searching for help. As believers, with the power of the Holy Spirit, we can display God’s love. 

 

SERVING OTHERS

COVID-19 is not the first-time illness has threatened humanity. Between 250 to 270 A.D., a plague that became known as the Plague of Cyprian devastated the Roman Empire. It was believed to have been measles or smallpox. In Rome alone, 5,000 people a day were perishing. Christian persecution was happening at the same time as the plague. Unfortunately, Christians were being blamed for the epidemic, even though they were also dying from the plague. Christians were caring for others who had the illness, including those who were persecuting them. They showed love to their enemies.

In 2014, during the Ebola outbreak in Africa, Christians were still running towards the danger to help others. Doctors Without Borders is a medical group that provides humanitarian care to those in need. They run towards those who are sick and hurting. One volunteer for the group in Liberia, Dr. Stephen Rowden, had the grim task of collecting up to 25 bodies a day. He was discovering the bodies of young victims even as young as toddlers being abandoned by their families. Instead of running away, Rowden ran towards those affected, and when asked if he was a religious man, he said he was a practicing Christian and got his strength from his faith. 

“Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear” (1 John 4:18). Concerning Covid-19, we are all in this together. Instead of running away in fear, cautiously run to serve one another. Look for ways to respond to this crisis. The world is experiencing this pandemic. It has altered the lives of many people, and many people are reaching out to others offering to help.

A Facebook friend told what he observed at a supermarket one day. He said that he noticed a woman had a cart full of geriatric supplies, evident for an older adult. Unfortunately, the woman’s card was declined, and she cried. Immediately another woman stepped in and paid the bill, which came to over $300.

Even though my church, like many others, is no longer meeting on Sundays for service in a usual sense, they have several ways to serve. In partnership with the Oregon Food Bank, the Beaverton School District, and donations from the community, they are now feeding 1400 families. They are actively distributing food items (including a crazy 10,000-pound donation of frozen chicken) to people in need throughout the community. All families have been extremely thankful, especially those who are most at risk. And it’s just not churches that are feeding families in need, neighboring schools are. Daily, they are feeding children in need of breakfast and lunch and handing out bags of food for their families.

Church groups that were meeting prior to the virus are still meeting online, and new groups are forming: Bible studies, mothers’ groups, singles, married, and youth. Leaders are continually looking for ways to connect with others when we are told to distance ourselves. My daughter’s youth pastors have met with them in our front yard because they wanted to love and encourage them. You cannot stop the body of Christ from reaching out and loving others.

COVID-19 will soon behind us, and when it is, let’s continue responding to the needs of others, not just when a virus threatens, but anytime. From the book The Art of Neighboring, “We all need to get back to the basics of what he commanded: love God and love others. Everything else is secondary” (Pathak 25). Get to know your neighbors, find out their children’s names, ask how they are doing, ask if there is anything you can do to help, and serve them if they have a need. Genuinely smile at people and say hello. I’ve connected with people at the grocery store while we were both wearing masks, and they’ve said, “thanks for taking the time to talk with me.” We are all in this together, and during this challenging time, we can at least do our part in loving and serving those living around us. 

CONCLUSION

God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow: He never changes. He didn’t create us only to leave us alone, letting us fend for ourselves: He is with us, and He is always fighting for us. He proved this when He sent His only Son Jesus to restore the world to a right relationship with Him, and He’s been fighting for us ever since.  

He was never surprised by the COVID-19. Before anyone even knew about the virus, He had His plan for restoration set in place. This pandemic is an easy problem for Him to solve. We have already seen His love poured out through His loving grace, and through the works of others as we are His hands and feet. “For we are both God’s workers. And you are God’s field. You are God’s building” (1 Corinthians 3:9). We are the church! The body of Christ doesn’t just reside in a building. We are in partnership with God to do His good works. When this pandemic is over, we’ll be able to look back and see how He reached out to help: we’ll see that His love never stopped. He wants us to reach out to love one another as He loves.

We are not meant to be alone; we need one another. Do not isolate yourself; reach out to others. People are hurting everywhere, they are scared, upset, confused, and they need to see the love of Christ, and they can see His love through you. You may be the only Christ some people ever see. When this over, the communities around us will be strengthened. We will see the love of Christ poured out, and we will feel good knowing that we got through this together, not alone. Despite whatever circumstance or illness, we may face now, or in the future, we have the abiding joy and peace that comes from the Lord.