Daily Devotional for Friday September 16, 2005

One Nation Under God

(Deuteronomy 8:19; Proverbs 14:34)

Atheist Michael Newdow is back in the news. Newdow first appeared on the scene in 2002 when his lawsuit to take the words "under God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance was upheld by the very liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. In June 2004, the case made its way to the United States Supreme Court and was dismissed since Newdow had no standing to bring the case in the first place. You may remember he used his 7-year-old daughter as a pawn, claiming her rights were being violated by having to say "under God" in the pledge.

As the story unfolded, he didn't have custody of this child he fathered out of wedlock and in fact, the mother of the child who did have custody had become a Christian. The little girl was being raised in the Christian faith and when asked, stated she had no problem saying "under God" in the Pledge. So Newdow has now found parents of children who agree with his anti-God stand to launch a new lawsuit that will make its way to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, and most likely back to the Supreme Court.

The Devotional below was actually written on July 1, 2002 with the addition of a paragraph highlighted by a (*). This message is as relevant today as it was over 3 years ago and is really a message about the church and OUR RESPONSIBILITY in our culture. May this be a reminder of the work God has called us to do.

I purposely wanted to wait a few days for the emotion of the court ruling on this issue to settle down a bit before I commented. First and most important, let me assure you 100% that this will NEVER become law. Most likely in a review by the entire panel of the 9th circuit, it will be overturned, or, the Supreme Court will over turn it, or if it EVER came to this, the Congress will simply make a Constitutional amendment to overturn it. So don't worry, "one nation, under God" will NOT be taken out of the Pledge of Allegiance. To magnify this point, the very judge who wrote the majority opinion (2-1) put a hold on his ruling the very next day, pending a review of the entire panel of the 9th Circuit Court.

Having said that, let me tell you the REAL story behind this court opinion that WILL be overturned. Like 9/11, like all throughout the Old testament, it is a wake up call to the people of faith, the Christians of this nation! Let me say right now, what happened in this ruling is OUR FAULT. All of the ungodly rulings from our courts the last 40 years, including the legalized slaughter of tens of millions of innocent lives, is OUR FAULT!

In THE EARLY 60's, the church started to become an insignificant part of the lives of many Americans. A nation founded and built on Christina ideals, had gotten to a place that many simply did not think God was important. In that decade you saw the rise of the women's lib movement, the birth of the movement amongst those who viewed homosexuality as a legitimate choice. For the last 40 years, we have simply lost almost 2 full generations of people to the TRUTH of the Bible and to a commitment to a relationship with Jesus Christ. THAT IS OUR FAULT. WE ARE NOW REAPING WHAT WE HAVE SOWN!!!!

All that has happened to the Christians in this nation is simply a by-product of the apathy the CHRISTIANS have expressed over the last 40 years. What happened in Roe v Wade was OUR FAULT. What happened this past week was OUR FAULT. We need to quit blaming the world at large for these issues, and accept the responsibility that we have simply not been doing our job effectively! We abandoned our culture over 40 years ago.

*We retreated behind the four walls of our churches, we set up our own TV networks, radio networks, publishing houses, and WE ARE THE ONES WHO TOOK GOD OUT OF THE CULTURE!!! We need to quit blaming lost souls like Michael Newdow and the ACLU. These are nothing but lost people doing what lost people do, live in rebellion to God. What else do you expect them to do? The blame for taking God out of the marketplace lies at the feet of Christians! We found it much more comfortable and profitable to set up our own subculture, what I often refer to as the "Christian trough," and we retreated there taking God and the message of hope and salvation through Jesus Christ with us. Instead of being the light and salt God called us to be, instead of taking Christ to the people, we have forced people to come to the "trough" if they want to hear the Truth of God's Word. Oh, and when they come, they better make sure to bring some money.

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What can YOU do? Pray and serve. Today is a wake up call for all of God's children to realize how serious this battle is. We have it way too easy here in the United States. We have the freedom to worship God any way that we want, we face minimal if any persecution, we have the resources of the greatest nation in the world. Yet despite all of that, the majority of God's children here are spiritually fat and lazy. We pay very little cost to be called a child of God.

I think about those early Christians, how they sat in the Roman prisons, waiting to be fed to the lions. They knew that there was a price to be a Christian, and were happy to pay it. I think about how a handful of common men after our Lord's death, burial, and resurrection turned the world of their day upside down with the Good News of Jesus Christ. How? They were sold out and committed to share the Gospel with everyone. They knew the price of being a Christian was their very life. It no longer belonged to them, but belonged to God.

I pray that today will be a wake up call in your life that being a Christian has a price attached to it. So many are focused on this brief time here, instead of the eternity that awaits each of us. They forget that their role here is to be a servant, not be served. I take this message today to the masses, because the majority of the spiritual leaders of our day have no vision, they have no leadership skills, they have no fire to send the people of God out into this sin-filled and evil world and proclaim that Jesus Christ is the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords!!!!!!

My word for you tonight is quit waiting for your pastor, or some evangelist, or a TV preacher, or anyone else to do great things for God. THAT IS WHY GOD HAS RAISED YOU UP IN THESE LAST DAYS. TO DO GREAT THINGS FOR HIM. No football player ever won the Super Bowl, no baseball player ever won the World Series by sitting in he stands. You have to get out on the field and work hard every day, give it 100%, and expect God to use you to share the hope and love of Christ with this dying world.

I love you and care about you so much. I am not afraid of the events of today, I am challenged by them. I see them as an incredible opportunity to share Christ with a world that is hurting, lost, and looking for answers. We have the answers for this world, and they are in a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Bad things will happen to good people in this evil world until God brings this world to an end. We ARE living in the end times according to Scripture. We each have a responsibility as a Christian to be about our Father's business until either Christ comes or God tells us our work here is over and calls us home. May we never forget that we must work while it is still light, that night is coming. May you and your family be richly blessed during these extraordinary times in which we live.

A dear friend of mine who does not believe in God recently wrote that "Christians were an insignificant gaggle of humanity". I took his words to heart. While our forefathers were anything BUT an "insignificant gaggle, I am sad to say his words may be true of the Christians of today. If Jesus tarries, we MUST become significant in our culture today. That will ONLY happen if we take our faith seriously and rise up. The ruling on the "Pledge" is nothing more then a wake-up call to Christians to get out of our pews and out into the marketplace and tell those who living without the hope of Christ in their heart, HE IS THE ANSWER THEY ARE LOOKING FOR!!!