A Hard Question With an Uncomfortable Answer
I recently wrote a post “What? Do Not Pray For ...” where I shared a passage telling us not to pray for the nation of Israel (at a particular point in time). Before reading this post, I strongly encourage you to read that post first.
The verse in question was:
“As for you, do not pray for this people, and do not lift up cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with Me; for I do not hear you. Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven; and they pour out drink offerings to other gods in order to spite Me. Do they spite Me?” declares the Lord. “Is it not themselves they spite, to their own shame?” (Jeremiah 7:16-19) {emphasis mine}
Jeremiah was told not to pray blessings on Israel because Israel had turned away from God and were serving other Gods.
I was just listening to a “Renewing Your Mind” podcast and the speaker made the statement, “We all want to say, ‘God bless America,’ but we don’t want to hear, ‘God curse America.’” That made me contemplate, “Should we ask God to bless America?”
Over the past decade or more (probably several decades), America has been using its military and economic might to push actions around the globe that are abhorrent to God. We give aid to countries if they legalize and fund abortions, if they promote gay marriage, and if they encourage transgender surgeries and chemical castration. They encourage people and nations to murder unborn children, to redefine marriage as different than what God created it to be, and to sterilize young people confused about their gender, breaking both God’s good creation of male and female and
His command to be fruitful and multiply. You could make the argument that the US has been the largest purveyor of evil in the world. (It breaks my heart to say this.)
It is true that with the past election, America has turned away from many of these evil actions, but have Americans truly repented and turned back to God? I am convinced that neither our leaders nor most of our people have turned back to God in any significant way. It is like famous atheist, Richard Dawkins, saying he misses Christian culture but continuing to reject God and make fun of actual Christians. We can’t have it both ways. We can’t have God’s blessings without God.
Now I am not saying that we shouldn’t pray for America. It is totally appropriate to pray for revival in America. It is good to pray for Americans to repent of their sins and to trust in Jesus. It is great to pray for God to help us to share the gospel and to produce fruit. The issue is that we shouldn’t pray for America’s blessing while she has turned her back on God.
Obviously there are a decent number of Christians in America. That and the fact that America was founded on Christian principles actually means that America will be punished harsher than those nations where people have had little knowledge of the Bible and Jesus. Those who have been shown the gospel and still rejected God will be held to a higher standard and will be punished harsher than those who have never heard the gospel.
I ask you to pray that God would bring revival to America, that He would turn hearts and minds to Himself, and that He would draw our leaders to submit in full trust and obedience to Him. I also pray that God would help all of believers to be faithful stewards with all of the blessings with which He has already showered us and to use us to shine the light of the gospel with America and the rest of the world. I pray that He would help us to live lives fully devoted to Him and will help us to stand out from the crowd of pseudo-Christians and normal people, so we can be used to draw America back to God.
Unfortunately, we may be in a situation, like Jeremiah and Israel, where the nation has turned so far from God that we will be rejected in the same way they reject Jesus. We may have to look upon the nation we love and let go because our citizenship is in heaven. We need to always be more devoted to God and His kingdom than we are to our earthly citizenship.
“Son of man, if a country sins against Me by committing unfaithfulness, and I stretch out My hand against it, destroy its supply of bread, send famine against it and cut off from it both man and beast, even though these three men, Noah, Daniel and Job were in its midst, by their own righteousness they could only deliver themselves,” declares the Lord God. (Ezekiel 14:13-14)
May God guide you in your prayers, your actions, and your faith so that you will be a light in the darkness and never forget where your allegiance lies. I pledge allegiance to my God, my Lord, and my Creator, and to Him alone does my allegiance belong.
Trust Jesus
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For years I've been unable to sing 'God Bless America'. But that's changed. He is blessing America again and America is once again being a light to the world. I don't know how many of our newly elected leaders and advisors are Christians. But I know that God can use anybody, like he used pagan king Nebuchadezzar and king Cyrus. And I praise God for answered prayers. You mentioned a big one - the cessation of federal funding for abortions.
I'm sure that millions of Christians have been praying for that. Then there's the stopping of federal funding for schools and states that teach and promote boys calling themselves girls and wanting to compete in girls sports. Schools will lose their federal funding if they continue teaching transgender nonsense. And now federal agencies are ordered not to persecute Christians and Jews. What a relief. Federal agencies will no longer be secretly funding anti-biblical policies in America and foreign nations.
And several more changes that we've been praying for. It's important to recognize it when prayers are answered and God is moving. Thank Him and praise Him! Perhaps this is like the period of judges, when there were interludes where God intervened between periods of sinful idolatry. The forces of evil are losing many battles, at least for now. Let us rejoice in it while it lasts.
“We need to always be more devoted to God and His kingdom than we are to our earthly citizenship.“
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There unfortunately is some truth found within the fact that Arab nations call America the big satan and “Israel” the little satan. We have forced a lot of evil throughout the world especially the last 4 years with funding transgender ideology in the world. Pray and fight is what is needed by Christ followers to restore America into obedience to Gods Word and therefore receive His blessings. It’s always been an uphill battle and can’t be fought from the couch.