Right now, it’s all pretty challenging:

From distant reports of a virus in Wuhan to no sports events. To schools closing. Restaurants closing. Thousands of flights being cancelled. Nations closing their borders. Public gatherings prohibited. Weddings postponed. Massive crashes in the stock markets. Hundreds of millions of people wondering how they are going to be able to pay their bills. On and on and it goes. And, to repeat, it happened virtually overnight ~website of the article‘s quote

What we each make of such things is really up to our faith, that is: in what we trust.

Here’s some good news that will help to foster and establish eternal trust.

Corona’s original meaning in Latin is a crown or wreath:

A crown is given as an inheritance by royal right, and a wreath is given as the reward for winning a contest such as standing strong in a fight or winning at sporting competitions.

The apostle Paul spoke of his Christian confidence, surely his corona: in this way:

“There is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved His appearing” ~2 Timothy 4:8, ESV.

Hm: “and not only to me but also to all who have loved His appearing”.

“…we know that when Christ appears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is”, 1 John 3:2, ESV.

Q: How do we know that? How do we know that we believers in Christ will be like Him when He appears?
A: Because of the way we’ve been justified by God, and made righteous in Christ.

The gift of God’s own right standing with Himself has been given to us by God, and through the gospel, we grow in being right with God just like Christ grew in right standing with God, ~cf. Hebrews 5:8-9.

Therefore, we know the transforming power of the gospel that’s progressively making us like Jesus, ~cf. Hebrews 2:10-18 & Romans 8:29.

So, in progressively becoming like Jesus, we know that when we see Him in His fullness, we will be fully like Him because we’ll then see the transforming One just as He’s already been transforming us in the meantime!

“That’s fine for then”, you might say, “but what about now?” Well, …now the righteousness of God has been manifested…

God’s own right standing with us, has been shown to us! God has shown Himself to be right by the way He’s dealt with us.

“But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

“For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.

“This was to show God’s righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus”, ~Romans 3:21-26, ESV.

Notice that “the peace that’s been made by God, with God on our behalf (propitiation by His blood) is to be received by faith in who God has now shown Himself to be, for He’s shown Himself to be “just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus”.

Therefore, the reason why God made peace with us in this way, is in order to show us His righteousness – how right He is for dealing with us in this way, having His Son redeem us: paying the penalty for our sin, abolishing sin once and for all, and being raised from death for our acquittal from the guilt and penalty of sin. Acquittal equals: not guilty!

Now, when God says: Not guilty! Then who can argue with Him?

God’s Son took the sentencing for the guilty crime of our sin, of our sinnings and of our sinfulness which sentence is death. For God has decreed that “the soul that sins shall die” ~Ezekiel 18:20, and we’ve all sinned, but Christ destroyed death’s power over us by dying as an innocent, non-guilty, sinless man, for “the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law” ~1 Corinthians 15:56, ESV.

So, since Christ had lived out God’s law perfectly and had never sinned, then death had no power over Him. Therefore He’s earned the right to give us His right standing with God ~cf. Isaiah 53:11. It’s as though we have become the sinless ones who’ve died with Him on His cross and been raised with Him from the dead!

Christ’s substitution for us by God is that complete! But all that was not just to save us from sin, but most importantly, it was to show God’s righteousness – how right He is for dealing with us in this way.

And how right He is! By first justifying us, God Himself has corrected our wrongdoings and wrong state of sin, also our denials of His goodness. He did this by giving us His Son who willingly took the punishment that was due to us for our rebellion, and who took the entire blame-of-guilt for our sinful failings and rebellion.

But not only did Christ take our sin into His body on the cross and destroy it, but because He lived free from sin, that is, because He lived a perfectly righteous life and died an innocent man’s death, then God is now able to give us His own right standing with Himself, which is the life-source and life-energy of Christ.

Through simply believing in what God has done for us in-&-through His Son, God claims us also as being as right with Him as His own Son is. This is all because Jesus lived free from sin and died as an innocent man so that we could be free as well.

Hereby we are given the crown of God’s righteousness, simply by believing in what God has done for us in-&-through His Son, and through loving His appearing. For Holy Spirit has gathered these very words as our Father’s decree:

Since it was because of one man’s trespass (Adam’s sin) that death reigned through that one man, (then) much more it will be true that those who receive the abundance of God’s grace (through the love He’s shown us by the cross) and the free gift of (His) righteousness (that they will) reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ ~Romans 5:17.

We have received the abundance of God’s grace through our knowledge and practice of the gospel and the free gift of His righteousness through this same gospel, therefore we have a crown of righteousness laid up for us as we go on loving His appearing.

So, we can say boldly, along with Paul the apostle: “…there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved His appearing”.

For we too, love Christ’s appearing, not only because we know He’s clothed us with His own righteousness, but because we know that He’s all-the-while, making us like His glorious self – fit to rule in right wisdom and right standing with our royal Dad.

Let our Corona appear!

…like the awesome, sparkling glow of the sun’s corona. This is a picture taken with filters but it can also be seen in a full eclipse of the sun when the moon is hiding the sun’s full strength but the corona surrounds the moon.

…like the foreboding sight of power lines glowing, sparkling and buzzing as their periphery shows a high voltage charge as a corona:

…or like on a clear, moist, moonlit night as the moon’s light develops an extra glow at this ‘edge of its influence’ as a corona:

These are all the appearance and look of a corona, and carry the name: corona. One wonders if the coronavirus has the claim of having a similar peripheral influence on our body’s cells, but it wouldn’t come to make us into royalty, nor into winners but is an enemy and must be treated as an enemy.

So, whether you’re sparkling as one who’s been “hidden behind a lesser light” because you’ve deferred to the prominence of that lessor one, or whether you’ve just “shone on your own”, also: whether you’ve been “hand-in-hand with those who hold power” as conducting that same power and influence, still: you will need your “moist, moonlit night”:

For nothing is hidden except to be made manifest; nor is anything secret except to come to light, ~Jesus’ words in Mark 4:22, ESV.

Therefore we can carry that same confidence, that nothing is hidden except that it is purposed to be made manifest, and that all secrets will come to the light eventually. Such confidence is our own corona, for it has been won for us by Another’s life freely given.