Covid Craze

Mind your language. Did you ever heard this expression coming from someone that found your foul mouth to be offensive? This was something a parent, teacher, or person of authority, might say after hearing expletives ushered from a youth or underling, turning the air blue with profanity. 

Minding language is vitally important, because language colours our thinking and eventually, our doing is impacted. It occurred to me the other day how influential the repeated refrains, shelter in place, and misinformation, have been. Someone made up the phrase shelter in place to induce a fear response; someone else added the prefix mis, to information, to suggest we are ill informed by anyone that has an alternative explanation to the propaganda perpetually pushed. The Devil does this kind of thing through his ministers of mischief. When we buy into messy messaging, we buy into the emotions they are meant to evoke. 

One outstanding outcome of the covid craze was the sudden sorting that occurred. Christ followers did what Christ followers will always do, no matter the circumstances. Real Christians did not do as they were commanded by ministers of mischief; real Christians carried on with the work God gave them, kept their businesses open, churches open, and feared not the reprisal of men when they went out into the world to buy and sell, and share the hope of the gospel. You need only read the book of Acts to see for yourself, that the apostles spoke Christ, and Christ crucified and risen as fulfillment of prophesy, despite threats of violence, and actual violence, committed against them. Conversely, this is not so for hundreds of thousands of people that prior to the covid craze, called themselves Christians: they did as they were bidden to do by the media mafia, sheltering in place - meaning home, until the okay flag was waved as a You are safe to come out now, cue - and being vigilant not to heed the warnings of those that spread misinformation (not a real word) that went against the grain of the propagandists.

I learned quickly from experience with the many people that moved in and out of my life, who was filled with fear, and who weakly caved into the covid craze, because it was the popular thing to do. Gee whiz, it was the popular thing to do, dear reader ... people perceived as authorities acted as bullies broadcasting bad news, and they relied on peer pressure to engage their prey in the behaviours they wanted to observe. In simpler terms, this means the school yard recess bully strong armed the weaker kids that didn't want to get punched out, to harass and harangue everyone out on the field to do his bidding. Have you ever been bullied, dear reader? I have, and one day I screamed, LEAVE ME ALONE ... hahahah, the bully was utterly shocked and shut down, everyone heard, and the bullying stopped ... imagine that?

Matthew 16:23

But he turned and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan! Thou art an offence unto me; for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. 

Jesus had to rebuke Peter because Peter did not like what Jesus had to say. Jesus turned on his disciple and spoke to the devil in Peter, Satan, that dared to challenge the living God/Man. Peter's words were offensive unto the Lord, because Peter savoured the things of men over the things of God. This is precisely what happened during the covid craze. Many a professing Christian spoke and acted as though they belonged to Satan rather than to Jesus. 

We are tempted, we are tried, and we are found wanting and yet, and yet dear one, we are redeemable when we recognize that we did not trust in God's Word but rather, in our own understanding, and when we repent and live as God commands. The covid craze is something that happened to all of us; the survivors are here still and given time to think, to assess, to acknowledge where and when they went missing or rogue, wandering away from the shelter of the sanctuary of God, into the supposed safe place of sheltering in their abode. This is not our eternal home, and must not be seen as such. We must remember that getting to heaven is our purpose, and that we must hold as suspicious, anyone and anything, that suggests otherwise. Clinging to this life will ensure destruction of the soul in the next: clinging to Christ as fearless followers, preaching and teaching gospel truth as we go, no matter the threat to our physical well-being, is the quintessential freedom for which we were placed on the earth. 

Covid is seemingly over, but are the repercussions? I think not, I know they are not. A close friend pointed out that with all the hype, it now is done, and yet, she has some ill effects from the injections that she must permanently deal with ... and what of her children, she asked me. What will happen to them if as their mother, she dies ... the thought sends me immediately into prayer and petition, pleading for mercy from the God of mercy, for souls that now hear, and are beginning to comprehend, the Truth when it is spoken in love. 

God is my sanctuary, my shelter, my sacred place to which I remove to be revitalized. The world is his creation and it delights each of us when we take notice of the care he takes in perfectly shaping and forming all that we see, taste, touch, savour. No one and no thing, can take away from the glory revealed in creation, and the Hand that crafted all majestically. 

Psalm 19:1

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork

NOTE #1: If you went along with the crowd and did the popular trendy thing when covid was the craze, you can ask God for help in dissembling all the lies you believed. You can ask God to shine the light of Truth to illume your mind and filter through to your heart and soul, so that you too, can be set free from the grip and grasp of demonic forces that desire to pull you in their direction as they are dragged toward eternal damnation. God is the Author of life, and he wants none to to be lost.. Let your worst enemies, your sins, not be the reason to keep you from saving grace. God's love covers a multitude of sins, and yours can and will be forgiven through Christ, if you humble yourself before him and pray for their remission. 

NOTE #2: The shot in the forehead image I selected is apropos. The Devil first works on the mind, with our thinking, using language that manipulates and instills fear along with suggestions that, Surely you will not die. This readies us for the next insinuation, that there is a solution to the problem of possible imminent illness and death; during the covid craze, it was a shot in the arm, and then many more to follow, that would resolve the issue. 

Do notice in the image I selected, that the target in red is aimed where the brain is cradled in the skull. A sharp shooter aims to kill, and a perfect kill shot is directed straight through the forehead, shattering and scattering bone and brains all at once. Satan is a murderer and so are his ministers of mischief. Being subjected to the humiliation of having your temperature shot by a gun thermometer, and having to pass a standard set by maniacal men, is a wickedness that must never be tolerated. Satan is subtle until he no longer has to be because humans have acclimated to his wizardry, and have fallen under his spell, doing all he suggests. Obvious and in the face offences without resistance to his impositions, gives him great cause for glee. Humans need not be subjected to this type of demeaning, and can wax boldly when they speak rebuke, as they have been taught by the Saviour, Get thee behind me Satan, in the name of Jesus! 

Get thee behind me Satan: these are the words each Christian must speak when tempted to go along with the crowd that is somehow hazed and crazed.