Stopping COVID-19 is understandably an important focus these days. Many families are living with heart-wrenching stories from experiencing the disease or its impact. An end to it means long-awaited relief from the widespread fear, suffering, and disruption brought on by the pandemic. 

There’s a lot of hope that the vaccines that have begun to be distributed will do the trick, and this hope is based largely on the role vaccines have played in past efforts to stop other diseases. What is less considered, though, is the mental process going on in regard to all of this. Yes, mental. The cure of disease has a mental and actually spiritual nature to it. And this fact has significant implications that need to be understood and taken into consideration in the pursuit of health. 

Along with instructing his followers to heal the sick, Christ Jesus asked them to “cast out devils” (Matthew 10:8). The term devils as used in the Bible is understood by people in a number of different ways. But one way we might think of the devils Jesus told us to cast out is as the tormenting human beliefs in an opposite power to God that can make us sick or sinful. And because Jesus so clearly understood God to be the supreme power that we can turn to in times of trouble, it is this same understanding of God that empowers our ability to meet this demand.