My Life on Earth

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

"Rend your heart"

Joel 2:12-14a "'Even now,' declares the Lord, 'return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.' Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity. Who knows? He may turn and have pity and leave behind a blessing..."

The Hebrew word for rend is qara a primitive root meaning; to rend, literally or figuratively (revile, paint the eyes, as if enlarging them) cut out, rend, surely, tear.

God has really impressed a need for me and all of us Christians to pray for our nation and the people of this nation. We have turned from God and his ways, we have turned to the lustful things of this world, sex, drugs, wanting it all right now, not asking God, abortion, gay marriage, etc. 1 John 15-16 says, "Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world - the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes, and the boasting of what he has and does - comes not from the Father but from the world." So much of what we do is totally against God, and he has had mercy on us, but at some point if we do not turn back to Him, His mercy will be lifted from us.

Most people, whether Christian or not, know the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, if not I beg of you to go read if; Genesis 19. I believe we, the US, has become the modern day Sodom and Gomorrah; we need to be begging the Lord for forgiveness and to have mercy on us as; he did Lot. I know to many this may seem like just gloom and doom, but it is not. I ask you a question, when was the last time you called out to God for guidance, wisdom, seeking his will for your life? Do you just go through your day as though you are in charge of it, or do you recognize all things as being from God or allowed by God? James 1:16a-17 says, "Don't be deceived, my dear brothers. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows."

I am by no means perfect, I make many mistakes and ask forgiveness many times, so don't think I am just talking to you, I am talking to myself as well. But I do seek God's good and perfect will for my life, his guidance. I know if I seek His will and His guidance He will guide me to what and where he wants me to be and do.

If you are reading this and don't know the Christ as your Savior, then John 3:16 is for you, "For God SO loved the world that He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."


1 comment:

Jacob said...

I watched a sermon from Deeper Sunday and a guy was talking about just this topic. About how the people would drift away from God and America would go into hardship, an then a Nation-wide revival would break out and things would be good again. Like I said in one of my blogs, I feel like we're close to a true revival. We just need to keep praying for our nation to know Christ. :-) I'm so excited about it!