There comes a time, every so often, when a writer, pastor or whomever comes upon a revelation they did NOT know before. One sits in the sanctuary or in the quiet peace alone, sometimes reading, sometimes praying, sometimes listening to a sermon─when the Lord will touch you and suddenly you will have a certain amount of understanding. This evidently was meant for this particular time and place and if nothing else is ever done in your life, this should be the one thing you make certain to take place.
Most everything we do is on impulse, one person wants: such-n-such and you then try and fill that need, am I not correct? The point is, how much time do we truly put into “prayer” and by this I mean actual, truthful, “fervent prayer?” How many of us are either tired, bored, depressed, whatever the case─to actually come before the Lord and ask HIS blessings on what truly matters in this life? Oh sure we all do the usual, “Lord please give me this or that, blah, blah, blah”…for ourselves…as many blessing as HE thinks we deserve. Come on now! That is just plain…heresy to the Lord! Is this all we can think of…to PRAY about?
What about the “separation of church and state?”
“NO prayer in our schools?”
The changes our elected officials are making…“IN OUR NAME?”
How about the justice of all our judges?
How about our citizens…their SIN before the Lord?
What of the direction our fellow Americans are moving in: perverse actions, homosexuality, pornography, taking the Lord’s name in vain ALL THE TIME?
The divorces, the “living together,” the “Prosperity Gospel” and the “Feel Good Gospel” in our pulpits, of all things?
Is this OUR SIN as well? Are we a part of this problem, as well as those that commit these SINS before the Lord? Do NOT sit back, getting all smug about yourself because WE are indeed at fault for these things…as if we had committed them ourselves! WE allowed these things to come and take place…ON OUR WATCH!
Has it never occurred to anyone, that we are RESPONSIBLE by virtue of allowing these things to take place, when we should have been on our knees and confessing each and every one of them before the Lord, as they took place? This is called APATHY. What was the saying, “Bad things happen when good men fail to stand up for what is good and right?”
I would say that is our state of affairs, right now, wouldn’t you? Where was the thunder of knees hitting the floor every time we went to war, every time the government chose to conduct our children’s upbringing, instead of the parents? Or when the message of pastors and preachers (which was to be the Gospel of Jesus Christ on the cross) became something else all together?
Even worse, as YOU sat there and listened to that message and did NOTHING! What do YOU think Jesus Christ went to the cross at Calvary for? For us to sit around and pat each other on the back, for garbage sermons, hypocritical prayer, false motivations, inept attitudes every day and in every action?
THAT IS WRONG!!!
Do YOU really think the Lord is hearing any of our PRAYERS…when they are worthless Prayers to HIM just looking for blessings for our selves and to hell with everyone else? How far have we fallen now? Let me share this with you, it is from the “Love Worth Finding Ministry” as taught be Adrian Rogers and it was a small devotional in my email, but worth more than every word in it!
BIBLE MEDITATION
“We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from Thy precepts and from Thy judgments” (Daniel 9:5).
DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT
Daniel prayed, “We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from Thy precepts and Thy judgments.” You ask, “Did Daniel do all that?” No, Daniel simply included himself in his prayer for his nation.
Does God hold me accountable for the abortion in America? Yes! Does God hold me accountable for the pornography?Yes! For the drug addiction, alcoholism, materialism, humanism? Yes, He does. Friend, if the church had done what she ought to have done, and if we would do what we ought to do, then these problems would be healed. And while we may not commit these sins, they are still our sins. Verse 20 of this same chapter makes it so clear: “While I was speaking, and praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel….
Now, people who don’t know God aren’t going to confess the sin of this nation. Like Daniel, we must set our face and pray with reflection and repentance, confessing our sin and the sin of America. Only sin that is confessed is forgiven.
ACTION POINT
Have you ever set your face to prayer? So much of our prayer, I hate to say, is casual prayer, prayer that comes with almost a take-it-or-leave-it attitude. When are we going to set our face before God with fasting and determination?
I listen to Adrian Rogers on the radio and on the Net and I am certain that he is a true born-again Christian designated by the Lord to teach and preach the Word of God. I am also convinced that Adrian does so with the direction from the Lord. This devotional was the focal point, that led to my writing this article.
Matthew 7.13-14: “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”
This is then, the exact spot…”Where the rubber meets the road”…sort of thinking! If we are RESPONSIBLE for the actions of our citizens and the officials over us and yet we never bring this SIN before the Lord and ask HIS forgiveness…for allowing these things…for NOT bringing it before HIM as it took place…then we are living in SIN!
Will we still be one of the FEW?
John 3.16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”