August 29, 2024

           Change Begins with You

Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save,

Nor his ear too dull to hear.

But your iniquities have separated you from your God;

Your sins have hidden his face from you,

so that he will not hear.

For your hands are stained with blood,

your fingers with guilt.

Your lips have spoken falsely,

and your tongue mutters wicked things.

– Isaiah 59:1-3

We pray for our nation to turn back to Him. We pray that God will remember us and once again bless our land. We pray that He will deliver us from the evil forces that threaten our values. We expect God to save us from ourselves.

We are quick to point out the sins of others. We are certain that our sins, few that they might be, are not keeping our nation from prosperity and God’s favor. Our ways are good. Our walk is certain. Except it isn’t.

We have failed to provide for the least among us. We demand anyone in need jump through hoops we’ve created so that they may prove themselves worthy. We hold close to our money and possessions. We’ve worked hard to provide for ourselves and our families and we are certain that anyone in need must be lazy or on drugs.

We have judged what is not ours to judge. We have turned away from the needy, the poor, the abused. We have failed to care for the elderly, the widow and the orphan. We have demanded blessings for ourselves without thought or care for anyone else.

We live in a self-indulgent society with little care for anyone else. Money has become our god. It’s second only to the god of ourselves. We wonder where God is in our nation. We fail to see the stain on our own hands even as we point our fingers to those we see as godless.

What can we do to turn our nation back to the God we proclaim? Change begins with each individual. It’s not a sweeping national election or even a local food bank or church. Change begins when each person who proclaims Christ as Lord and Savior actually begins to live as Jesus lived.

Do you want our nation to change? Then do your part. Be kind. Show compassion. Give where you can without judgment or reservation. Be humble. Put others before yourself. Love your enemies. Pray fervently and never fail to listen to the Holy Spirit as He directs you.

God can heal our land. But first let’s show Him that we are willing to serve His people and not our own agendas.

August 1, 2024

                                              Love or Hate?

If I speak in tongues of human beings and of angels but I don’t have love, I’m a clanging gong or a clashing cymbal.

– 1 Corinthians 13:1

The Apostle Paul wrote these words to a church that was fighting within itself. He was trying to teach fellow believers how to get along with each other.

We’re so familiar with this passage because it is frequently used at weddings. That was never Paul’s intention. I suppose it’s easier to think of this as being a wedding instruction rather than an admonition directed at the infighting we see today in our churches and in our country.

Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs. – 1 Corinthians 13:4-5

It seems these days that I am always blocking things on social media that I don’t want to see from people I don’t even know. It breaks my heart that friends I care about, people I believe are good people, think it’s okay to share untruths and hate-filled diatribes against those who disagree with them.

Our country has turned on itself. We are so busy pointing fingers at each other, demanding that someone else turn back to God, that we’ve missed our own sins. We have failed to take the plank out of our own eyes.

Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. – 1 Corinthians 13:6

What is truth? Truly. Do you know? Have you read the Bible for yourself? Have you spent time in prayer asking and listening? Or are you merely passing on what someone else has told you? Are you holding on to hate and justifying yourself by proclaiming that it’s your opinion?

As people of God we are called to love, regardless of whether we agree with someone or not. We are called to be kind, even when someone else isn’t. We are called to be humble, not rude or self-seeking. Do others know of your faith by your words and actions?

Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love – but the greatest of these is love.

– 1 Corinthians 13:13

February 3, 2022

 

Look in the Mirror

 

‘“Why has the LORD dealt thus with this great city?”

And they will answer, “Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD their God and worshipped other gods and served them.”’

-- Jeremiah 22:8-9

 

They cry out for God to intervene. They loudly ask people to pray for God to return, to turn our nation around and back to Him. They point fingers and spew hard words at anyone who disagrees. They pray even as they harden their hearts toward others. They fail to see themselves as they really are.

 

Our nation is so very polarized. We have those who proclaim their faith even as they hold up individuals as saviors. They demand laws to protect themselves from those who aren’t like them. And they use the Bible to justify their actions. Can’t they see who they really are?

 

You can’t truly love God while you hate others who were made in His image. You can’t love like Jesus while demanding that others stay out of “your” country. You can’t minister to the poor while your words and hardened hearts blame them for their poverty.

 

We have become a nation that worships ourselves and our own agendas. We are a people who proclaim our rights even as we demand that others get out of our way so we can do as we please. We are more interested in our possessions – money, cars, homes – than people. We have filled our churches with modern-day Pharisees who claim to know God intimately but who have missed Him amongst all our rhetoric.

 

Why is our country torn apart? Because we have made gods of ourselves rather than worshipping the one, true God. Look in the mirror. Examine your own heart. Stop justifying yourself with lies.