Daily Devotional for Tuesday February 25, 2003
One Nation Under God!
(Deuteronomy 8:19, Proverbs 14:34)
One nation...under GOD!!! Last summer, there was much controverter when an atheist named Michael Nudow used his young daughter to file and win the first stage of a lawsuit to have the words "under God" removed from the Pledge of Allegiance. 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 keep the words "under God" in the pledge. 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 summer was OUR FAULT. We need to quit blaming the world at large for these issues, and accept the responsibility that we have simply net been doing our job effectively!
What can YOU do? Pray and serve. This 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 today is to 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 our world 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 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.
IN GOD WE TRUST!!!!!
In His love and service, Your friend and brother in Christ, Bill Keller