This isn’t the April we wanted.

We wanted spring training. We wanted to go to church on Easter Sunday. We wanted a weekend trip to see the spring flowers. We wanted the Masters golf tournament. I love the Masters. I don’t just like it, I love it! I keep pictures of Amen Corner on my computer screen. I love April.

But this April? This isn’t the April we wanted.

But this is the April we’ve been handed: daily reports of disease and death. An economy that’s in freefall. Dwindling supplies. Another 30 days of distance and isolation. And, most of all, a month of fear. We fear for our family. We fear for the health of our health workers. We fear this microscopic, COVID-19 culprit that stalks our streets like a thief.

So we need to brace ourselves. Adjust our expectations. April as we wanted will not happen. God willing, it will reappear in 2021. But the 2020 version? It’s time for a deep breath, a steady resolve and a few decisions. I’m thinking of three essential, emotional tools.

Gratitude. Collect your blessings. Catalog God’s kindnesses. Assemble your reasons for gratitude and recite them. “Always be joyful,” the Apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Thessalonians. “Pray continually, and give thanks whatever happens. That is what God wants for you in Christ Jesus.”

Look at the totality of those terms. Always be joyful. Pray continually. Give thanks whatever happens.

Gratitude is always an option. Matthew Henry made it his. When the 18th-century British minister and scholar was accosted by thieves and robbed of his purse, he wrote in his diary, “Let me be thankful, first because I was never robbed before; second, because, although they took my purse they did not take my life, third, because although they took my all, it was not much; and, fourth, because it was I who was robbed, not I who robbed.”

Quarry some gratitude. And, be kind to others. Be the family member who offers to wash the dishes. Be the colleague who reaches out to check on the team. Be the neighbor who mows the grass of the elderly couple.

You’ll be better because of it. Research bears this out. Studies have shown that giving to help others triggers dopamine. (New fundraising slogan, perhaps?) When volunteers wearing a functional MRI scanner were told they would be giving money to charity, the areas of their brains associated with pleasure — like food and sex — lit up like Christmas trees.

Seeking joy? Do good for someone else. It really is better to give than receive.

It’s time for gratitude. It’s time to serve others and it’s time for determination. Good, old-fashioned grit, a resolve that says, “I’m not giving in to fear. I’m not caving in to despair. With God as my helper, I’m going to weather this storm.”

Source: Religion News Service

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World Vision U.S. President Edgar Sandoval Sr., like many Americans, has been working from home in recent weeks. But he continues his mission to help vulnerable children and families across the globe during the coronavirus epidemic.

World Vision staff are working with church volunteers — responding simultaneously for the first time in this country and globally — to provide needed food and supplies and help faith leaders train local communities on ways to reduce the spread of COVID-19.

The evangelical Christian humanitarian organization estimated it has helped about 4.3 million people worldwide with coronavirus preparations. It plans to reach 5 times that number in the next six months.

In the U.S., staff and volunteers have helped more than 2,700 children and adults with emergency aid since March 20. They’ve also provided much-in-demand health supplies — tens of thousands of masks, gloves and gowns — to U.S. health care workers.

Sandoval, who describes himself as a “Bible-based Christian” who attends nondenominational churches, spoke with Religion News Service on Wednesday (April 1) about the challenges ahead.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

This is probably the most uncertain and concerning situation that World Vision has faced in our 70-year history. But just like other challenging emergencies of the past, in these uncertain times, World Vision is bringing prayer, kindness and action to combat fear, aimlessness, loneliness.

We believe that every small act of courage and love does more than just stop the spread of fear. We actually replace it with hope, and that’s why, from the onset, we have been responding across the world and right here in the U.S.

Internationally, we started responding from the outset in China. We declared — the very first time in our history — the first global emergency response. We’re responding in every region that we operate at the same time. We are scaling our response to 17 priority countries.

Day-to-day life in the Ebola-affected community of
Moyamba, Sierra Leone, in 2014. Photo courtesy of
World Vision

We are particularly concerned about vulnerable children, such as refugees, displaced children and those living in communities where infrastructure and access to health systems are weak.

We’re aiming to reach 22.5 million people in the next six months, and, while that’s a huge challenge, what I can tell you emphatically is our long history has prepared us for such a time as this. We’re drawing on the lessons that we’ve learned in responses to things like HIV pandemics, Zika, Ebola outbreaks.

And one of the core learnings is that vulnerable communities need to be mobilized and the faith leaders, they make all the difference. They can be a powerful force in stopping the spread of COVID-19, just like they were in previous pandemics.

In Sierra Leone in 2014, World Vision worked with faith leaders to help with things like how to bury people the appropriate way — safe burial practices and other ways to protect the family. They helped to mobilize entire communities.

Despite being in the epicenter of the outbreak, not one, not one of 59,000 World Vision-supported children and their families died during that outbreak. And today those same faith leaders that we trained back in 2014, they’re already mobilizing on their own, and we continue to train more to be prepared for the crisis.

I tell you what’s on my mind: the tightly built, overcrowded and sanitarily weak places like refugee settlements, slums, shantytowns, barrios.

And here’s the thing: While you and I can choose not to travel or go to music recitals or sporting events, those ultra-vulnerable folks are being asked to go home to those overcrowded sanitarily weak places. I think they’re much more at risk than we are.

Source: Religion News Service

All Content & Images are provided by the acknowledged source

Chuck Pierce of Glory of Zion Ministries, is one of the major prophetic voices in the world today and is known for delivering accurate words about the times and seasons we are in. 

Pierce started prophesying last September and then again in January about what the world is going through now. He said, “plague-like” conditions would hit the Earth through February, March, and April.  

In a new interview with CBN News on “The Prayer Link” show, he also had a word of hope about Passover. “This year would be the year that Believers would really have to understand Passover and that we will pass over!” He said, this year, more than ever, Christians need to understand the power of the blood of Jesus and honor the blood.  

Last August, as Chuck was meeting and praying with his team, he says the Spirit of God fell and told him, “This Passover will be a Passover.” 

MUST SEE Prophetic Word Leads to First-of-Its-Kind Global Moment of Communion for April 8th

During his interview on The Prayer Link, Chuck said, “What I saw is that at Passover this year, after this virus, after this plague-like condition was raging, that we would start turning, if we would participate in Passover. Now, Passover starts Wednesday evening, April 8th and goes through Thursday evening, April 16th. Now, what we want to do is watch the turns that occur in this plague-like condition after that. Then, we have to remember there’s a 40-day period that God intended for them (The Israelites) to press on through and come into their promises. So, I believe the next 40 days after Passover is a pressing forth time for God’s people and if we press, if we grab hold of this Passover, the power of His blood, WE WILL CROSS OVER INTO NEW LEVELS OF HIS PROMISES.”  

He says God is making us treat this Passover the way He did with the original Passover. 

“We have lost the concept of the blood. This Passover is important because we have to understand the power of the blood. Now, notice what’s happening here, God is making us do this Passover the way He did the original Passover.  We’re having to go inside our homes, shut the door, a confinement, like He did the original Passover and really He’s forcing us to recognize the power of His blood,” said Pierce. 

TAKING COMMUNION A GOOD IDEA

Pierce says we don’t have to literally put blood on our doorposts like the Israelites did to keep the plague from entering their homes, but we do have to do, “is recognize the power that the Lord Jesus Christ, by His Spirit left us and like Hebrews says, His spirit is flowing through our blood. His blood is actually activating in us. This year like never before, what I’m praying is, that God’s people, that their spirit gets activated in a new way, a renewal of the spiritual aspect of who He is and who we are and the union we have with Him comes into a whole new Baptism. So, what you are doing by taking communion, because the Lord says always remember me and take communion, I think that’s exactly what the Lord’s looking for,” said Pierce.

He also recalled that the Israelites who experienced the first Passover still had 40 days to press through into their Promised Land, but their promise was delayed 40 years because of many problems. Pierce says that will not be the case for us.

“I decree right now we will not postpone the promises that God has for this nation any longer and I decree that every remnant and every nation will rise up and see that God has a plan for them,” Pierce said.

CHUCK’S POWERFUL PRAYER  

“Father, I ask you right now, there’s one prayer I have that we would know you, that in the midst of this, know your reality. Lord just as they cried out at Passover, we cry out, Lord Help us Right Now! And You said, that when we cry out You come down! And Father, I say right now in the midst of the confusion that’s going on, in the midst of the fear, I ask that Peace invade in Jesus’ name; I ask that wholeness invade. And we cry out Lord, we need a Healer! And Father, You are a Healer and we say come and heal us, spirit, soul, and body as we submit to you during this time of crisis. Father, I bless everyone that’s out there and I say let them see You in a way they’ve never seen You before in Jesus’ name! Amen.”  

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