Apr 16, 20203 min read

Hardships Will Define Us

During adversity, morale must stay high. We have to stay resolved in faith in God that He will get us through this season of uncertainty. Death hovers over us, and social distancing isolates us. Unemployment has left families in distress while lack of essential supplies ignites anger, frustration, and little patience. These must be our finest hours because it is hardships that define us. We must refuse to surrender to COVID-19 because God’s stronger than this disease.

This western culture has gotten accustomed to the luxury of having what they want at their disposal. The comfort of abundance has hardened many, leaving them out of touch with the needy and those they deem inferior. Pride and arrogance have caused people to believe that they’re God and deserve homage. Technology separates families by consuming more time on an iPad, cell phones, and not spending quality time together. Many even hurl hostility and insults on the internet as if it’s a compass to direct them.

What we once would not tolerate now America accepts. The rise of alcoholism, pornography, molestation, alternative lifestyles, drug abuse permeates our society. Bigotry and acts of injustices are toxic sewerage used to suppress any race sealed disapproving. It doesn’t take much to make somebody angry. They’ll display their rage as they speed down the highway, terrorizing everyone in their path. They’ll take a gun and kill their entire family. You’ll see it as they ruin somebody’s reputation because they're envious and jealous. Anyone who won’t approve, they’re deemed an outsider and a threat to their customs and ways. And the church sits back and pray while moral decay runs rampant throughout the country. We need Jesus more than ever. The condition of the world doesn’t have God’s approval. His heart aces because people have left their first love. “But I have this [charge] against you, that you have left your first love [you have lost the depth of love that you first had for Me].” (Revelations 2:4). You have substituted God for the pleasures of sin, greed, and power. You have regarded Him as if He doesn’t exist, and His Word to be worthless. It’s time to repent, change your sinful behavior, and seek God’s will.

Tough times seek to destroy us and dismantle our confidence in Christ. God has placed us in such a time as this to keep us steadfast in the faith. The battle isn’t for the faint and weary. “ Because lawlessness is increased, the love of most people will grow cold. 13 But the one who endures and bears up [under suffering] to the end will be saved. (Matthew 24:12-13). Our faith must not falter. It’s empowering the Body of Christ to stay spiritually fit, to fight the good fight of faith. “Consider it nothing but joy, my] brothers and sisters, whenever you fall into various trials. 3 Be assured that the testing of your faith [through experience] produces endurance [leading to spiritual maturity, and inner peace]. 4 And let endurance have its perfect result and do a thorough work, so that you may be perfect and completely developed [in your faith], lacking in nothing.” (James 1:2-4, AMP). Christ has used this virus to capture the world’s attention. He has you in a place where you have no choice to seek Him for answers. The government doesn’t know the solution, nor the antidote for this dreadful disease. We must persevere through the end even when we don’t know when that will be. He promises never to leave nor forsake us.