To Encourage You

Acts 8:1-4 “Now Saul heartily approved of putting Stephen to death. That day a severe persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and everyone except for the apostles was scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria . . . Now those who were scattered went from place to place preaching the word.”

This morning, for some reason my thoughts turned to Covid. Thankfully, this unprecedented disease has waned for the time being, but who knows what the future holds? One of the things that was so shocking to me about this disease was how quickly it spread across the entire world. In my lifetime, I’ve not seen anything like it. As a result of this one microscopic virus, we were forced to isolate ourselves from one another, wear masks, and take other unprecedented measures to avoid spreading this disease. And yet it spread in spite of it all. It’s such a contagious thing that we were giving it to each other whether or not we’d chosen to heed the guidance of the health professionals. It came to the point that it seemed to be the exception when we met someone who hadn’t fallen victim to Covid. Sadly, many of us know of people who have died. It’s such a strange world that we live in that each and every one of us, however unwittingly, can serve as a vector that can bring sickness and death.

In all this thinking about contagiousness in a negative sense, my thoughts turn this morning to a contagiousness that is positive. It’s a “contagiousness,” if you will, that can bring life. It’s so gloriously opposite to something like Covid, and it’s so wonderfully the will of God for all the world. What I’m talking about is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus’ purpose in coming to this earth was “to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10). “Lostness” was just one way He described the spiritual condition of those who are without Him. Elsewhere, the Scriptures speak of this condition as one of being spiritually dead. And so Jesus, in another way of explaining why He came to earth, said this: “I came that they (that means each and every one of us) may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).

You see, the Bible declares plainly that each one of us is born in a condition of “spiritual Covid” if you will. It’s called being born in sin, and it’s a fatal disease – every single time. Yet, wonderfully, there’s a remedy that the One known as the Great Physician has brought to the world. It’s a cure that is universal for those who will believe.

To explain this, Jesus pointed to a plague of poisonous snakes that broke out on Israel as they wandered in the wilderness (Numbers 21). It happened as a judgment against their sin. Yet, God, in His mercy, instructed Moses to make a bronze serpent and put it on a pole. God told the Israelites that if they would but look at this serpent, they would live. And then Jesus pointed to this event and said, “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:14-15). With this metaphor, Jesus was pointing to the cross and the wonderful truth that all who would look to Him and His death as the remedy for their sin would be healed from that sin and live forever. It’s the one and only universal cure. And you know what? Everyone that has received this cure is to spread the message about it everywhere. We are to be “contagious” with this message of life. We should be spreading it far and wide to everyone we meet.

Sadly, how many of us are treating this life-giving message as if it were nothing more than a disease? How many of us are, in a sense, covering our mouths as with a mask, fearful that this life-giving message might spread? And so God, in His wisdom, may force our hand. In His last words on earth, Jesus told us to go into the entire world and preach the gospel to every creature (Mark 16:15). Yet the early church was resisting this. They were huddled in Jerusalem. Then, as explained in the passage above from Acts 4, persecution broke out against them under the direction of Saul. It was during this time that Stephen was martyred. The result? “Everyone except for the apostles was scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria . . . Now those who were scattered went from place to place preaching the word.” It was God’s sovereign means of making the gospel contagious. He meant for this life-giving message to spread everywhere, touching lives all over the world.

So, the question is, “Are you contagious, not with a virus, but with the life-giving remedy for the always fatal sickness of sin?” Are you one who has been “infected” with life, and if so, are you spreading it everywhere you go? Are you so filled with the Spirit of God and His life-saving Word that everywhere you go you talk about it? Is it filling your heart and just looking for an opportunity to break out, for Jesus told us plainly that it is “out of the abundance of the heart (our) mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45)?

May God’s truth be infectious in our lives. May it spread from our life and words each and every day in the circles in which we move. May the life-giving gospel spill daily from our lips. May it be even more contagious than Covid, but in a way that brings life instead of death. God help us to be vectors of salvation, for the fact is, this is the main reason that those of us who have eternal life are still here in this world so infected by sin.