Surviving a Time of Trouble
We are just beginning to experience the long-term economic consequences of COVID-19 on our personal lives and our families. The short-term consequences with thousands dead and hundreds of thousands more sick were bad enough, but there are significant additional consequences that society now faces. The economic impact of the pandemic is hitting many families full force.
Surviving Financially
1 – Accept the eternal truth that God is Creator of this world and the Owner of everything in it.
Ps.50.10_12 For every beast of the forest is Mine, And the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the mountains, And the wild beasts of the field are Mine. “If I were hungry, I would not tell you; For the world is Mine, and all its fullness.
Ps.104.21.25 The young lions roar after their prey, And seek their food from God. When the sun rises, they gather together And lie down in their dens. Man goes out to his work And to his labor until the evening. O LORD, how manifold are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all. The earth is full of Your possessions— This great and wide sea, In which are innumerable teeming things, Living things both small and great.
Isa.43.1 But now, thus says the LORD, who created you, O Jacob, And He who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; You are Mine.
Deut.8.18 And you shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day.
1Cor.4.2 Moreover it is required in stewards that one be found faithful.
Luke.16.10 He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much.
2 – Believe that the God who created you and redeemed you cares for you and will provide for you.
Phil.4.19 And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
Matt.6.31_33 Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
Eph.3.20 Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.
3 – Choose to reorder your priorities in view of the coming of Jesus.
James.5.1_5 Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you! Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure in the last days. Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. You have lived on the earth in pleasure and luxury; you have fattened your hearts as in a day of slaughter.
Rev.18.7_9 In the measure that she glorified herself and lived luxuriously, in the same measure give her torment and sorrow; for she says in her heart, ‘I sit as queen, and am no widow, and will not see sorrow.’ Therefore her plagues will come in one day—death and mourning and famine. And she will be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord God who judges her. “The kings of the earth who committed fornication and lived luxuriously with her will weep and lament for her, when they see the smoke of her burning.
Many of the unemployed during the crisis are going back to work, but they are still experiencing the effects of lost income from their time off, and the debts they incurred. The stock market plummeted during the pandemic, with millions of people losing almost all their life savings. The entire world economy is on extremely shaky footing, and we wonder whether life will ever be the same. The economic picture for the foreseeable future is dire. Many of the businesses forced to shut down because of the lockdowns may never recover.
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