Tuesday, November 20, 2018

For Our Good Always

Deuteronomy 6: 24

So the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God for our good always and for our survival, as it is today.

God had given Israel the Ten Commandments and all the rules and regulations of how to live them out in their lives. 

History shows that when they obeyed God and followed His ways, they became a very prosperous and wealthy Nation; but when they enjoyed the wealth and prosperity, they forgot God and thought they'd got it all themselves, so they lost it all and were overtaken by their enemies. 

The Book of Judges is a record of a repeating cycle of prosperity, apathy, idolatry, bondage, crying out to God, deliverance, and prosperity again. Over and over. 

Then God gave them a king, and the "good kings" who followed the Lord God did good for the people, bringing prosperity, and the "bad kings" who worshipped idols brought evil and trouble on the Nation. 

This process still progresses today. We have different names for the same principles and practices, but they still produce the same results and consequences.

There are people in slavery today, and some of them don't even realize it, but are in denial of the bondage that holds them. 

And our Nation has fallen so far from the prosperity we enjoyed for so long, that resulted from our following God's ways from the beginning. And we are seeing our prosperity diminish. Our money has inflated and our cost of living has increased. Our children will not experience the level of wealth we have had, and each generation is further diminished.

If God's people here who are called by His Name, would humble themselves and pray and seek His Face and turn from their evil ways, then God will hear from Heaven, will forgive their sins and will heal our land (II Chronicles 7:14). 

God is still God, sin is still sin, and the World still operates on the same basis as it always did, as this is how He designed this Earth to operate. 

O my Father, it really is for our good and our survival as a Nation to fear only You and demonstrate it by observing and living according to Your statutes. Only understanding Your ways will preserve our Nation; only returning to the principles upon which this Nation was founded; only a rising up of Your children in righteousness and purity to put down the iniquity of the wicked will preserve this Nation and ensure our survival as a Nation.

O Father, please strengthen Your children, protect our pastors and leaders and their families in this spiritual warfare we are waging against the very gates of hell!

Heal us, Father, and make pure Your children, and reach out to find all Your lost sheep, that every little lamb will be found, rescued, and brought in. And unite Your church, that there will be one fold with one Shepherd. 

Let our love for one another be a powerful witness to Your Love for each of the persons You have made. Let the word of our testamony and the Blood of the Lamb be our victory over the machinations of our enemy (Revelation 12:11). 

Even so, come, Lord Jesus!