By Alexander Redd

The current Covid-19, known as coronavirus, is dangerous. Many lives have been lost as a result of its potency. Disruption of normalcy of our lives; be it you, families, relatives, friends – we all feel the pain, anxiety, and fear not knowing how things are going to pan out in days, weeks, months, and even years to come. 

In the midst of uncertainty, we need to bond in the power of oneness. We cannot discount the impact we have felt as a nation under crisis. We clearly discover in the book of Romans that the root cause of destruction and devastation is often tied to the natural consequences of turning away from God. 

Liberia was hard-hit by Ebola and the looming effect of the novel Covid-19 is a big bother, given present fragile economic conditions and struggling health-care system. I wrote back then that the result of hearts hardening toward and turning from Him, God allowed – as natural consequence of spiritual rebellion – internal damage and deterioration occur, ultimately exhibiting itself in external ramifications affecting us all. 

We haven’t yet learned that when God disrupts the natural order of things in our lives and in our homeland, it is not just a bad day or week. Indeed, God has something to say. Of course, He is shaking up things either to redirect our priorities back to Him or to bring about new life that will shift our hearts, minds, and situations (Haggai 1 and 2). In short, God is awakening us to listen. It is not so much about Covid-19 or Ebola that plaques our nation, it should be about what God wants us to learn. In the midst of these troubling times, we must now embrace the power of oneness. 

The Tower of Babel teaches us the power of working together to achieve a common goal, and God recognizes the principle of such oneness, its strengths, weaknesses, and benefits even when that unity is against Him (Genesis 11:6). Thus, God addresses the power of oneness when He acknowledges in His Word that the people who shared a common language, vision, and goal – and set their minds to accomplish it – would find nothing impossible before them. In other words, God affirms there is power in unity.  

God’s swift response at the Tower of Babel scrambled their language, thus causing confusion, and scatter them throughout the earth. It would seem as though division and separation of those people strangle their efforts to make progress and change. God used the Tower of Babel for His purpose to “fill the earth,” and Satan uses the same tactic for his purposes in disunifying the body of Christ. This is because unity brings with it many benefits, of which the power to accomplishing things is just one.

Our sense of oneness will give us the ability to bring glory to God. This is because oneness reflects the triune image of God’s nature. The importance of this truth comes through clarity in Jesus’ high priestly prayer, shortly before He was arrested and crucified. Jesus prayed His oneness in God and God’s oneness in Him as well as His oneness in us: “I in them and you in me-so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have them even as you loved me.” (John 17:20-23)

This high priestly prayer emphasizes Christ’s desire for us to be His followers just hours before He would lay down His life for us. Thus, we must respect His prayer as a mandate so that we can experience our oneness with Him. When we do so, we will be inclined to demonstrate similar oneness with others in expansion of His Kingdom on earth. Now is the time for all Liberians of the faith to increase their power of oneness to promote positive change by moving into the atmosphere where we can experience God’s response as He manifests His glory most fully. The presence of our Lord will function in our spirit of oneness. We are to be awakened to an authentic connection among those in the body of Christ, which serves as a testimony of our connection with Christ.

An authentic spirit of Liberian unity is where God’s blessing rests with His covering in everything. Unity is the only condition in Scripture where God commands a blessing.(Psalm 133:1-3). We cannot expect blessing when there is disunity. We cannot operate in disunity and expect to hear from heaven, or expect God to answer our prayers to heal Liberia. Disunity, at its core, is self-defeating and self-limiting – because it reduces the movement of God’s favor and blessings. Jesus made it clear that a house divided against itself cannot stand. It doesn’t matter whether it is the church house, Executive Mansion, or your house – division leads to destruction. (Matthew 12:25) At the Day of Pentecost, the church received power of the Holy Spirit and flourished with oneness in purpose with bond of affection. When they were together as one, God poured His blessing from heaven into history.

I believe now is the time for all Liberians of the faith to put aside their own construct of name recognition, prominence, and platforms. Now is the time that we align ourselves together under one name of Jesus Christ and have a collective voice and impactful platform never witnessed nor experienced before. I believe that this collective voice is needed now in Liberia. This is the time that we nationally usher in revival of our hearts, so that we can bring lasting cultural transformation and change. Indeed, God knows the power of unity!