Swine Flu - Responding Biblically

Its all over the news, you can't escape images of people with masks over their faces, you can't turn your TV on without hearing 'The latest', we are being given constant updates on the WHO threat level. People have even been ringing into their doctors surgeries asking for Tamiflu as a precaution.

But how should we react? What is Biblical reaction? I guess some people would shrug their shoulders and say whatever will be will be. But that is not the full story.

It is interesting how the media coverage has sparked fears in young children. One of ours was sat on his bed crying, saying that he didn't want to die. All explanation of how unlikely he was to get it, how we hadn't been to Mexico etc... Did no good at all, he was still worried he was going to die. So what stopped him crying? It was when his mum said that if we live great God gives us time to enjoy the world he has put us in and learn more about him, but if we were to die then we get to be with Jesus for ever. His reaction - to stop crying get his school uniform on and start playing now totally reassured.

Sometimes our children's reactions have much to teach us. One of the issues that this potential pandemic is throwing up is people's fear of death. If this world is all you have to live for then rightly so, but if we know that we will only fall asleep in Jesus we need not panic.

So how should we respond as believers:

1. We ought not to worry instead we need to remind ourselves that our future is secure and it is (1 Peter1v5) kept in heaven for us.
2. We should pray, it is another part of the worlds groaning (Rom 8:22) as it waits eagerly for the new creation, another consequence of the fall.
3. Our hope should be obvious to others so much so that they ask us questions about it, and we must be ready to answer them (1 Pet 3:15-16).

Life is fragile, it has been ever since the fall, but the believer can have confidence because our future is secure. Only when we read again and study the words of the Bible and regain a correct view of heaven as our home and this world as the hotel room will we gain a Biblical perspective. We need to hear our Father's words and be comforted by them, be reassured about our real future and security and then live liberated for him.

Do I trust the promises of God?

How can I be sure that God will do what he promises? When Luke 12 tells me not to worry about food, clothes, what to wear, opposition, and even death, how can I not worry? Well the chapter exhorts us not to worry because of the character of the God we serve.

Because the disciple lives in relationship with the God who always keeps his promises, his or her Father is a faithful God. Just think for a minute about all the promises God makes in the Bible. If God was going to break one of them I think the one to break would be Genesis 2:17; as God puts Adam and Eve in the Garden he warns them not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the middle and promises “for when you eat of it you will surely die.”

Have you ever thought about the cost to God of keeping that promise? The keeping of that promise sees the ruin the perfect creation; it brings death into the world, not just physical death but spiritual death as a result of their rejection of God’s rule. Yet when Adam and Eve eat the fruit God keeps his promise and keeps on keeping his promise. He keeps his promise at such cost to himself that it sees his son take flesh, it sees Jesus pray in garden “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me…” and yet willingly go to the cross where he takes on himself the curse of corruption and death promised in Genesis 2.

So can I trust God to keep his promises to me? The living God does not lie and so God the Son gave himself at the cross, what more proof do I need that I can trust God? If God keeps that promise at that cost to himself then when God says he knows what I need, that he will give us what we need, he will do so.

The disciple’s decision is to live in the light of the God they have been brought to know in Jesus. It is a decision not to worry but to seek God’s kingdom. I need reminding of that as we plant a new church and face the unknowns. I am, we as a church are to seek a kingdom with different values and priorities; not to consumed with possession or worries about wealth or anything else but to be concerned with delighting God. To be in the kingdom is to be under the rule and reign of God, to seek the kingdom is to look to put that rule and reign into action.