“Is the Church letting Fear Rule?”

By Rasheed  Z. Baaith

      “That thou mightiest fear the Lord thy God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments, which I command thee, thou, and thy son, and thy son’s son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged.”(Deut. 6:2)

Our LORD is a God of revelation; it is a characteristic of His mercy. This pandemic the world is presently undergoing is revealing much to His Church and to the world at large. Most specially to America.

To those of us who call ourselves the People of Christ, we are seeing that many of us love the Lord but do not really believe in ability to keep and protect us. We call Him the Lord of the Sobaoth but think what God has is not nearly enough of what we need.

We are telling each other that if we read, meditate on and digest Psalm 91, it will keep us from being infected by the Coronavirus. And it will if we but do some other things.  First among those things is not putting yourself at risk.

There are spiritual principles involved in all we do and one of those principles is protection by God can only happen if we stay in the Presence of God.  I don’t mean the way we are in His Presence when we’re in congregational worship. I mean by the way we live, walk, think and most of all believe. He cannot protect us if we fear something greater than we fear Him or if we behave as foolish persons.

God wants us to believe that despite what the world says, He is always in control no matter how chaotic the world may appear to be.  Some of us church folk, actually too many of we church folk, are leaning on our own understanding.

We should not be in crowds unnecessarily, but if we have to be in a crowd the Father will protect us.  During our daily walk we will be protected.  But understand that Scripture cannot be effective if we do not live by what it teaches us. This means this is not the season for part time belief or conditional morality.

Either we believe what we say we do or we do not. God is revealing the reality of who we spiritually are to ourselves and to those around us. Prayer really is enough if it is connected to right behavior.  It has to be because God gave us prayer and encourages prayer without ceasing.  He never gives what is never enough. But like all of His blessings, there are conditions that have to be met.

To believe otherwise is theologically unsound.  Read all of Deuteronomy and understand what Christ means when He said “Keep the commandments.”

There is more. There are at least 160 verses in the New Testament with the word “command” in them.

In short this pandemic is not to be feared by the people of God but to give them concern with an abounding, growing faith.  Not to worry but to be concerned. And the concern should be for the unsaved. So be concerned but even more be expectant of the Lord keeping you.