These days, the COVID-19 Coronavirus is all over the news. Literally. I’m not sure it’s possible to watch any other news, actually, because if it isn’t Corona, I’m not even sure anyone is reporting on it even if we would be better served by not having 24/7 fear-and-panic updates. However, this entire process has gotten me doing a good bit of pondering as I have some very divergent thoughts and stances on things, all of which come crashing together when dealing with what many are choosing to call a pandemic. I have friends whom I love and highly respect who have canceled their ministry engagements and are telling their social media spheres to stay home. I have other friends whom I also love and respect telling people to not be bound by fear and to not change their life activities and spiritual practices based on disease. After reading tons of dueling social media posts from other believers and tossing in a few of my own (guilty as charged), I’ve taken a brief mental sit-back to really evaluate why I make the decisions I make, what I think others should do and why, and how we can individually review what the “right” choices are when so many different voices in both the Church and the world are saying so many different things. I’m going to look at some of my own conflicting views, and then bring it back to my conclusion that each person needs to deal with the coronavirus according to the grace you live in.
As a nurse, I recognize that diseases are very real and both can and do kill people. I also do not want to see a single person die due to lack of healthcare availability, and this strain of virus seems to be more tenacious than other coronavirus strains and seems to have a more deadly tinge to it. If avoiding public places, engaging in “social distancing”, and generally helping prevent the spread of disease by reducing out-of-home activities can help keep people alive, it’s honestly a really wise, helpful, and kind thing to do. Mind you, people die from the flu and even coronavirus every year, and while the actual numbers on coronavirus death ratios are, from what I can gather, massively inflated due to a lack of accurate initial diagnosis and insufficient testing, the fact is that for each individual that dies from this virus, that is someone’s mother, father, brother, daughter, friend who is no longer alive on the earth. I’m not certain this is quite the health emergency it is being made out to be, but I’m also not entirely certain it isn’t. And many people, even if a statistically small number comparative to the whole, are dying from this disease, and each death matters. Longer-term, if it is the health emergency some claim, than many more will die, hospitals will be overrun, and even more will die, which is a terrible potential outcome, whether it comes to pass or not. So with all of that in mind, where is my inner conflict?
As someone who has a healthy distrust for government—any government—I don’t fully believe everything we are being told. It is rare, in my opinion, that we are ever told the whole truth by the government about almost anything, so why would this be any different? There are a number of ways certain people who don’t have our best interests in mind could stand to gain substantially from an emergency such as this. I also think the massive closures across the board of both businesses and religious sites sets a really bad precedent, and I think the USA as a nation is going to find that our response to the coronavirus, even if totally appropriate for the situation, will send the message to people in positions of influence that if someone screams “Emergency!” that Americans will simply lay down and let the government roll over our Constitutionally-mandated freedoms. Individuals have the right to choose not to frequent a business or religious establishment, but I don’t think that from a Constitutional perspective the government should be mandating it, whether at the federal, state, or local level. Furthermore, as a strong proponent of divine healing, raising the dead, and immortality in Christ, I firmly believe that we, the Body of Christ, have been given dominion over sickness and death. I believe that the Church should have no reason whatsoever to fear this virus and that on some level we should be welcoming people into church services for the purpose of divine healing, and even holding coronavirus-specific healing services to see the power of God touch the bodies of those the virus has made sick.
And that right there is the conflict. I both think that self-quarantining from a scientific perspective is actually a really good idea (because scientifically speaking, it works), and that closing down churches and self-quarantining from a faith-perspective is largely a fear response and incredibly unwise on that level. On the other hand, asking to get sick is also unwise, and then the Bible even tells us to submit to human authorities as well.
1 Peter 2:13-17 says, “Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people. Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves. Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor.”
Honestly, part of me wishes that passage wasn’t in there because my don’t-trust-government side doesn’t like that it says to submit to human authorities. On the other hand, I also don’t think God wants us to obey evil either, and the above passage also says to live as God’s slaves, not the government’s slaves. So the lines, as much as it would be nice if they were clear, are actually still somewhat blurry in my mind.
This might still not seem like much of a conflict to some, so let me get back to the spiritual side of things for a minute. It is a fact that Jesus paid for all sin, sickness, and death on the cross over 2,000 years ago. It is a fact that God isn’t the author of disease, nor does Heaven have disease to hand out. Jesus has given us power and authority over sicknesses to heal them, and over demons that cause illnesses in the body to cast them out. In the Old Testament, a disease made a normal person unclean, but in the New Testament Jesus demonstrated that in the presence of a disease, he cleansed the disease and healed the sick of their problems. The New Testament reality is such that there is no good reason why we as the Body should need to hibernate to avoid getting coronavirus or any other disease or illness, as we should be in a position to take authority over every bacteria and virus and see them destroyed in Jesus’ name. That’s a major part of the conflict—we shouldn’t be hiding when we have divine ability to push it all back and destroy it. On the other hand, I am not new to divine healing, and I know that while theoretically that is where the Body of Christ should be at, most of the time that simply isn’t the case. And that’s where I think that each of us need to deal with the Coronavirus according to the grace we live in.
I believe Romans 12:6 offers a principle that we can use to help us decide, individually, what the right answer is for us, and I think we can each use that principle to both guide our own decisions in this as well as to keep us from holding others in judgment for their decisions which may be in conflict with ours. The verse says, “We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith . . .” (Romans 12:6). The admonition here is to do what the person is doing in accordance with his or her faith. The way I read this, if someone has a high level of faith for something, he or she will respond to a greater degree in that area than someone with little faith. For me, if I have a high level of faith for divine healing, then it would be fairly reasonable for me to hold a church service, encourage corona-infected people to come, and expect God to show up and heal them—and under the US Constitution, I would be protected by law and therefore not actually disobeying government (a lawyer friend explained this week that legally, the government can suggest/request that churches close voluntarily, but Constitutionally they may not mandate it). If I have a low level of faith for divine healing, then I probably need to bust out some hand sanitizer, don a mask, and maybe stay at home and pray from afar (everyone should wash their hands anyway, regardless of faith level—hygiene never goes out of style). In fact, if I walk in a low level of faith in that area, I am likely to not only come to harm myself, but bring harm to others, and that is the opposite of wisdom.
I think that the more people see the members of the Body of Christ attacking one another during a time when much of the world is panic-driven, it isn’t going to show them the peace that we are supposed to walk in, nor is it going to release peace to them as we bicker amongst ourselves. So here’s my suggestion: Let us each decide the grace we have individually been given, and the grace we are actively walking in, and then live it out. Let us not hold others in judgment for walking in the level of grace they currently walk in, as that is foolishness. Jesus spent his time working with His disciples, and when they questioned what others were doing, regardless of what those people were doing, whether for or against, Jesus left them alone (Matthew 12:30, Mark 9:40). We would do well to take a page out of His book and just keep doing the things that we do in accordance with the measure of faith we operate in. We would also do well to use this as a mirror to reflect upon where our level of faith for divine healing is at. Do we actually believe the promises of God in regards to healing and health? How much do we believe those promises? If we recognize we have room to grow (which we all do), what do we plan to do about it? After all, whether Coronavirus or any other disease or illness, it doesn’t wait for us to get our theology lined up properly before it decides to strike, so now is as good a time as any to identify an area of weakness and do something about it.
In the end, regardless of where each of us are at, please know that your prayers are powerful and that the single most-beneficial thing we can each do is pray, continuously, for all coronavirus sickness to be healed, for near-death situations to be reversed, and even for those who have died to be raised from the dead by the power of Jesus Christ. As we pray, God will answer our prayers and touch people all around the globe with His lifegiving power, with each prayer making it just a little bit more here on earth as it already is in heaven. Blessings to you all, and I pray along with you that this quickly passes.
If you want to learn about how to walk more readily in divine healing, check out Praying Medic’s Book on Divine Healing and his Self-Paced Online Class.
If you want to learn about how to raise the dead, check out my book Faith To Raise The Dead and Tyler Johnson’s book How To Raise The Dead.
