Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, I often hear the comment that Christians with true faith have nothing to worry about, and that God will protect them from contracting the virus or dying from it. This way of thinking is completely wrong and unbiblical!
In no way, shape or form, are Christians meant to jeopardize their lives with the belief that God will save them. This is testing the Lord, thy God, and is a sin. This is what is meant by testing the Lord thy God, to test to see if God is with you.
Exodus 17:7 – And he called the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the Lord saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”
When Jesus was in the wilderness, the devil tempted him twice to test whether indeed God was with him by questioning “if you are the son of God”.
Matthew 4:1-3 – Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
Satan was tempting Jesus to doubt whether he was the son of God. He was tempting Jesus to test if God was with him by asking for a miracle, a sign of turning stones into bread.
Matthew 4:4 – Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’
Through his response, Jesus shows us that there was a point to this wilderness temptation exercise and it was not about literal food. Many times, Jesus speaks of food as spiritual food.
John 6:27-35 & 47-51 – Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”
28 Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”
29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
The spiritual food from God is to believe and live according to the teachings and standards of Jesus.
30 So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.”
32 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
34 “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”
35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty…47 Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
Jesus is stating that the true bread is his words and teachings. This is the bread that leads to eternal life, which is the Holy Spirit (Jesus’ words lead to the Holy Spirit).
John 6:63 – The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life.
John 6:68 – Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.
Jesus is stating that man’s physical life may be based on bread, but his eternal life comes from spiritual bread which is ‘every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God’, the words of eternal life, the teachings of Jesus. Satan is trying to tempt Jesus to seek whether God is with him, through the seeking of a physical sign.
We also do this indirectly if we have a misguided faith that God will not allow us to contract the Covid-19 virus. We are essentially seeking this as a physical sign that God is with us. Whether we contract the virus or not, if we are believing and living according to God’s will, then God is with us.
Jesus is telling Satan that he does not need signs in order to believe that God is with him. All he needs is to understand God’s word and live by it. With that, he has faith that God is with him, because through understanding God’s word and living it, he is doing His will.
John 4:31-34 – Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” 33 Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?” 34 “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.
This is how we eat the bread of God, by doing the will of God. The point was to help us understand that it was not about whether God was with Jesus. Jesus understood that as long as he kept His commandments and fulfilled His will, God was always with him and always heard his prayers.
John 11:41-42 – So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”
Jesus states that he knows that the father always hears him and is always with him as long as he fulfills God’s will by keeping His commandments. This is how we please God.
John 8:29 – The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.”
John 6:38 – For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.
John 5:30 – By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.
Jesus clearly states that he knows God because he did not come by his own authority but rather out of obedience to God’s will of being sent.
John 7:28-29 – So Jesus proclaimed, as he taught in the temple, “You know me, and you know where I come from. But I have not come of my own accord. He who sent me is true, and him you do not know. 29I know him, for I come from him, and he sent me.”
John 5:43 – I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him.
To be sent by God is to be sent to do His will and not our own. Paul speaks of this concept also.
Romans 10:14-15 – How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15 And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
Jesus was sent by God to do His will. Jesus knew that as long as he was doing the will of God, God was with him and he had no need to test God. Rather, what needs to be tested is ourselves, to see if we are in line with Jesus’ teachings.
We must evaluate whether God is with us and hears our prayers through making sure our beliefs are according to God’s will.
1 John 5:14-15 – This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.
John 9:31 – We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will.
A better way of understanding this concept is not whether God is with us, but rather are we serving God? Joshua speaks of this:
Joshua 24:15 NLT – But if you refuse to serve the Lord, then choose today whom you will serve. Would you prefer the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates? Or will it be the gods of the Amorites in whose land you now live? But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.”
We must make the decision to stand with God; we do this by believing and living according to His will. The other way of stating God is with us implies the belief that God is with you no matter what you do and this is incorrect.
Here are two examples of why it is important to ensure we are walking with God and not God walking with us.
1 Kings 18:21 – Elijah went before the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.”
Micah 4:5 – All the nations may walk in the name of their gods, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever.
We must make the choice to walk with God and no other. To do this, we must live our lives according to the teachings of Jesus and no other. We must also not allow anyone to teach us a compromised gospel or even to allow ourselves to manipulate the pure teachings of Jesus by allowing compromise to suit our own desires.
When we walk according to our own desires, we can be tempted to sin by testing whether God is with us.
The children of Israel made the mistake of attempting to test whether God was with them during their wilderness experience. This is the scripture Jesus is referring to when he says:
Matthew 4:4 – But Jesus told him, “No! The Scriptures say, ‘People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Deuteronomy 8:3 – He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
This scripture shows that God causes us to hunger and suffer sometimes in order for us to learn that we must follow God’s word and will, even if it causes us to suffer. Eternal life is received through uncompromised obedience in the face of suffering or even death. For eternal life comes through keeping God’s word and staying obedient to His will.
We can see that the focus of this text is to be obedient to God’s word.
Deuteronomy 8:1-6 – Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors.
2 Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. 3 He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
God is stating that the exercise of temptation during suffering, is to teach us to focus only on following God’s word. We must not follow the ways of other gods, or our ancestors (grandparents and parents), even if we have to suffer to follow God’s way. For God tests us during our time of suffering to see if indeed, we will keep to His word in our lives and not compromise or manipulate it to end our suffering. We must know that even in the midst of our suffering, God is with us and we should be willing to worship God even when He does not save us, just like Shadrach, Meshak and Abednego.
Daniel 3:17-18 – If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. 18 But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”
And Job:
Job 13:15 – Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him; I will surely defend my ways to his face.
And Moses:
Hebrews 11:24-26 – By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. 25 He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. 26 He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.
Continued Deuteronomy 8:4 – Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. 5 Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you. 6 Observe the commands of the Lord your God, walking in obedience to him and revering him.
We can see the focus on obedience to God’s word. When we suffer for any reason, we must affix ourselves firmly on the word of God (teachings of Jesus) and live by it. Even though it may be that these words cause our suffering. If we have a misguided faith (that God will not allow us to suffer while doing His work), then whenever we do suffer (which is inevitable), we will lose our faith in God. When really, this is the time to prove to God and ourselves that we will follow Him no matter what, without compromise or manipulation, even in the midst of great suffering or even death.
Jesus repeats this scripture, sending a message that he understands that he is being tested by God in the wilderness to see if he will keep God’s commandments, even through suffering. Jesus realized that man’s eternal life is based on God’s word and the keeping of it. In doing so, he did not require any physical sign that God was with him. He understands that as long as he is within God’s will, without manipulation or compromise, then God is with him.
This is what we are doing if we are looking for a sign of God’s protection by recklessly endangering our lives with the incorrect belief that God will protect us. Instead, we should realize that doing good is according to God’s will, and if we contract an illness in the course of doing good and die, then it was God’s will. We must not reassure ourselves with falsehoods to empower us to do what is right.
If you know someone who has contracted Covid 19 and needs help, you should of course, help them but not under the false pretense that God will protect you from contracting the disease yourself. This would be testing the Lord, God. This sort of false belief would affect your misguided faith. We must be willing to follow God’s will even if it leads to great suffering or death.
James 4:13-17 – Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. 17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.
James explains how short and fickle our lives are. In spite of this, we must not be concerned about God saving our life from suffering and physical death. We should rather be concerned only about doing His will in order to obtain eternal life.
Death is quite possible when you are doing the will of God, as doing God’s will can bring great suffering and affliction.
2 Timothy 3:12 – Indeed, all who delight in pursuing righteousness and are determined to live godly lives in Christ Jesus will be hunted and persecuted [because of their faith].
Acts 14:22 – strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,” they said.
John 16:33 – “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Though we may have to suffer or even die while fulfilling the will of God, this does not mean that God is not with us. For as long as we are doing the will of God, He will be with us. This is true faith. Even though tomorrow is unsure and could be our last day, we will continue to do what is right.
Proverbs 27:1 – Don’t brag about tomorrow, since you don’t know what the day will bring.
The concept of testing God being a sin is mentioned many times in the bible, both New and Old Testament.
Deuteronomy 6:16 – Do not put the Lord your God to the test as you did at Massah.
Psalm 78:18 – They willfully put God to the test by demanding the food they craved.
Psalm 78:41 – Again and again they put God to the test; they vexed the Holy One of Israel.
Psalm 106:14 – In the desert they gave in to their craving; in the wilderness they put God to the test.
Luke 4:12 – Jesus answered, “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’
Matthew 4:7 – Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’
The children of Israel did exactly this in the wilderness. They tested whether God was with them by seeking a sign. This is what people are seeking today when they claim God will protect them from contracting or dying from the Covid-19 virus. They are seeking a sign of God’s protection and approval.
Exodus 17:1-7 – The whole Israelite community set out from the Desert of Sin, traveling from place to place as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. 2 So they quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.”
Moses replied, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the Lord to the test?”
3 But the people were thirsty for water there, and they grumbled against Moses. They said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?”
4 Then Moses cried out to the Lord, “What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me.”
5 The Lord answered Moses, “Go out in front of the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. 6 I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7 And he called the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the Lord saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”
By asking for a sign, the Israelites were testing whether God is with them. This is subtle and hard to identify since at first glance, it just seems that the people are thirsty and desperate, and so are asking Moses to ask God for much needed water. However, God sees it as the people are testing whether He is among them or not. This is the same way God looks at people who claim God will not allow them to contract the Covid-19 virus or die from it. It is subtle and hard to identify since it can also seem like strong faith but it is not. This misguided faith of testing the Lord God is a sin.
Luke 4:12 – Jesus answered, “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’
Matthew 4:7 – Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
God wants to see whether if we have to suffer or die while doing the will of God, that we still will be obedient to His word. We should not have to fool ourselves into believing that God would not allow us to suffer or even die while accomplishing His work, to be able to follow through with His word.
I am not stating that we should not offer our assistance to people affected by Covid 19 out of fear. Instead, we should assist them even though we understand that there is a risk we may also contract the disease and even die. We should not gain a false sense of confidence from fooling ourselves into believing that God will not allow us to suffer in this way while we are doing the Lord’s work.
People who test God in this way, do not know what spirit they are of, and it is not the Holy Spirit.
Luke 9:55 – But He turned and rebuked them, and said, “You do not know what manner of spirit you are of.
In the Old Testament, we see that people who test God in this way are not of the same spirit as the righteous.
Numbers 14:20-24 – The Lord replied, “I have forgiven them, as you asked. 21 Nevertheless, as surely as I live and as surely as the glory of the Lord fills the whole earth, 22 not one of those who saw my glory and the signs I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness but who disobeyed me and tested me ten times— 23 not one of them will ever see the land I promised on oath to their ancestors. No one who has treated me with contempt will ever see it. 24 But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it.
We must be willing, if it is God’s will, to die for what is right (Jesus’ teachings) and not to have to encourage ourselves with falsehoods such as ‘God will protect me or won’t let anything happen to me’. Anything can happen in the course of doing God’s will. We are not exempt from suffering. It is important to know that as long as we are doing God’s will, He is with us, even if something bad happens to us in the process. It may just be our time to suffer or even die. Nevertheless, God is with us to the end.
Matthew 28:20 – and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
We do not need to test whether God is with us through signs. All we need to do to see whether God is with us, is evaluate our faith to see if we are in line with the teachings of Jesus and in so, keeping his commandments. God’s unmanipulated word is the truth we must live by.
Psalm 119:105 – Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.
John 17:17 – Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.
John 15:3 – You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.
If we are in line with Jesus’ teaching, then we are keeping his commandments and in turn, God is pleased and He is with us.
John 15:10 – If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.
1 John 3:22 – and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him.
John 8:55 – But you have not known him. I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and I keep his word.
John 14:21-24 – Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” 22Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” 23Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.
To keep a commandment means to not manipulate it. This means we must not manipulate any of Jesus’ commandments to suit ourselves. Instead, we should keep it and when we fall short in action, which is inevitable, since none of us can be perfect in our actions, we must repent and ask for forgiveness (confess our sin).
We must examine our faith, philosophies and beliefs regularly to see if they are all in line with Jesus’ teachings. If they are not, we must repent and change within our beliefs.
2 Corinthians 13:5 – Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?
Lamentations 3:40 – Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord.
1 Corinthians 11:28 – Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup.
Psalm 119:59 – I have considered my ways and have turned my steps to your statutes.
God had not deserted Jesus. The food of God for Jesus was to do God’s will. This is precisely what Jesus is telling the devil; that as long as he is hearing and believing every word out of the mouth of God, God is with him. Jesus is saying that he does not need to test whether God is with him through signs and wonders such as turning stones in bread.
Jesus explains that his food is to do the will of God.
John 4:31-34 – Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”
32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
33 Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”
34 “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.
In other words, man shall have eternal life by believing every word that comes out of the mouth of God, either by His word (teachings of Jesus) or through the Holy Spirit (which will always be in line with God’s word and Jesus’ teachings). This should be our greatest desire; to follow the uncompromised word of God, which is the teachings of Jesus. This is how we will please God, by carrying out His will.
Jeremiah 15:16 – When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart’s delight, for I bear your name, Lord God Almighty.
Job 23:12 – I have not departed from the commands of his lips; I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily bread.
We must treasure God’s will over even physical food (daily provision) and income (job). We must not put our job and the provision it brings, above God’s will. If your job is immoral, you must leave it and not place your daily bread above the will of God.
Philippians 3:18-19 – For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things.
The point is that we must do the will of God, and not test to see if He is with us by doing things outside of his will and looking for signs. This is testing the Lord God and it is a sin. In order to know that God is with us, we must know His will. This comes by studying His word, through the teachings of Jesus and aligning our thoughts and beliefs with them. This is because our thoughts and ways always differ from God’s.
Isaiah 55:8 – “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. 9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Romans 12:2 – Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Our desire must be to do God’s will, this is how we resist the devil.
Psalm 40:8 – I desire to do your will, my God; your law is within my heart.”
Psalm 143:10 – Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground.
By desiring to do God’s will over our own, even when it causes us great suffering or affliction, is how we resist the devil. While suffering in this way, we must have faith that this is how we know God is with us, since we are doing His will over our own and therefore, testing whether God is with us is unnecessary.
James 4:7 – Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
This is how Jesus resisted the devil when he was tempted in the wilderness.
Luke 4:13 – And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.
Jesus resisted the devil by not testing God to see if He was with him. Instead, Jesus focused on the word of God and whether he had compromised or manipulated it. Knowing that if he had not done so, then God is with him.
Through aligning our thoughts and beliefs with God’s word through Jesus’ teachings, we can fulfill God’s will:
1 Peter 4:2 – As a result, they do not live the rest of their earthly lives for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God.
Mark 3:35 – Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.
Hebrews 13:21 – equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever.
Hebrews 10:36 – You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.
Colossians 1:9 – For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives,
Furthermore, we must not allow our former culture, ways, family teachings and traditions, or worldly philosophies, etc, to malign and compromise the word of God. This is what the bible refers to as “what you or your ancestors did not know”:
Deuteronomy 8:2-3 – Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. 3 He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
Meaning we must follow God’s word, through Jesus’ interpretation, and not through our own or our ancestors’ interpretation (such as mother, father, grandparents), or even denominational interpretations.
Mark 7:9 – And he continued, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!
Mark 7:13 – Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.”
Not every Christian in the church will enter the kingdom of heaven. Only those who fulfill God’s will, which is to keep His commandments through the teachings of Jesus, without compromise or manipulation to suit themselves.
John 6:40 – For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.
Matthew 7:21 – “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
The second temptation of Jesus in the wilderness shows us even more clearly, that we are not meant to test God by throwing away our life to see if God is with us.
Matthew 4:5-6 – Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’
The devil is tempting Jesus to throw away his life to test if God is with him. He even misquotes scripture to convince Jesus that this exercise would be considered faith in God and not testing God.
The devil is (mis)quoting Psalm 91:11-12 which says:
Psalm 91:11-12 – For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; 12 they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
In misquoting the scripture, the devil left out “guard you in all your ways”. He is tempting Jesus to believe that a demonstration of risking his life, would prove to himself and the devil, that God is with him and that this is true faith. But Jesus responds appropriately:
Matthew 4:7 – Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
Jesus understood that this is not faith but rather testing the Lord thy God. In the same way, claiming that God will not let you contract Covid-19 or die from it, is not faith, but rather testing God, and that is a sin.
This means that this scripture is speaking of God’s protection, spiritually. It is not ensuring physical protection. The angels will guard Jesus in his actions and beliefs, not his physical life and this is exactly what angels do during his wilderness experience.
Matthew 4:11 – Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.
Mark 1:13 – And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.
Hebrews 1:14 – Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?
Even during Jesus’ temptation in the Garden of Gethsemane, an angel came and strengthened Jesus. The angel did not save his physical life, however. Instead, Jesus was strengthened to keep God’s will.
Luke 22:42-43 – “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” 43 An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him.
So then, we must not jeopardize our lives during this Covid-19 pandemic with the belief that somehow, it would be an act of faith. On the contrary, this would not be a show of faith, it would be a sin of testing the Lord, God. Assist those with Covid-19 knowing that in the process of doing God’s will of loving one another, it is possible that we may contract the disease yourself. This may cause great suffering or even death, but this does not mean that God is not with us.
To know whether God is with us, we must examine our own faith and beliefs. If they have not been compromised or manipulated to suit our own desires (to end suffering), and if they are in line with God’s word through Jesus’ interpretation, then God is with us. We are accomplishing God’s will and are pleasing Him, resulting in us serving and standing with the Lord.
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