The world, in this current age, is facing tremendous insurmountable problems – climate change and the calamities that follow, polarisation between nations, at times bordering on outbreaks of conflicts, global pandemics and the lack of political will among nations to put the global needs ahead of national interests.

As we face all these challenges, including the current pandemic, young and old, who are well informed, are overwhelmed with fear, mental and emotional stress, breakdowns and the feeling of being alone, facing the odds and uncertainties.

Is our God in Christ Jesus adequate to meet our needs, including the deep ones?
The answer is surely a resounding ‘YES’! However, in outworking and in real life, many believers do not experience this reality; some may have moments of assurance but the fears, anxiety creep back rather suddenly.

We know that God is sovereign in all things, and all problems find their solution in Him, the gospel and Calvary. The Bible is clear that all problems are actually spiritual in the final analysis. It has to do with one’s relationship with God and we cannot get the problem solved until that relationship with Him has been put right. For instance, guilt is a very fundamental problem in the lives of many; this problem finds its solution at Calvary, in the knowledge of Christ, who made peace through the blood of His cross (Col. 1:20) – this is the only way into God’s peace that effects reconciliation, removal of guilt, penalty of sin, and cripples the power of sin.
The problem of loneliness is common among many. It is the sense that even in the busyness of life, with many events and happenings, we feel that we are on our own, lost and lonely. At times, we feel that there is no one to turn to, no one who understands and we do not know where we are going and what we are actually doing day by day. There is no answer except we come to know the love of God personally. God commends His love to us in that while we are sinners and enemies of the Lord God, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8). If we truly know and appreciate the fact that God loves us and He did all these for us; if we realise that He cares for us, even more than a mother cares for her baby, and He desires us to be adopted as His children and to love us forever and ever, then we are no longer lost and alone – we are found.

God’s adequacy is seen at the cross and from the cross. If God did not spare His only begotten and beloved Son but delivered Him for us all, how shall He not, with Him, also freely give us all things? (Rom. 8:32) Not just all things, but all good things – everything that we truly need, everything that contributes to our ultimate happiness. This is God’s answer to fear and to times we feel afraid and ‘abandoned’.

The message of the cross and Him crucified has power – power to reach the human heart at the deepest level, power to provide a new kind of living (elaborated by the sending, presence, and ministry of the third person of the Godhead – the Holy Spirit), power to elicit loyalty, commitment and steadfastness,, and power to make men new in Christ. It is essentially the power to see lives transformed into the image of Christ and to make us truly human, as desired by God in the creation.

But we need to receive all these by faith. The Bible tells us that what is seen is temporal and what is unseen is eternal. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the assurance of things not seen. By faith, the Triune God lives in us by the power and ministry of the Holy Spirit, and by faith in God, we can be kept, strengthened and enabled to finish the race and to receive the promise of our hope and inheritance in Christ Jesus. So brothers and sisters, let us press on, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Labour, your labour is not in vain (1 Cor. 1 5:58).