Daily Devotional for Tuesday August 6, 2019

Taking away your guns!!!

(Psalms 51:10; John 3:16)

***DAILY PERSONAL PRAYER FOR YOU: Dear Lord, help me to be a Godly citizen and honor the laws of this nation. Thank You for allowing me to live in a nation where we can have our voice heard through the democratic process that governs us. Help ALL people find peace, joy, and an abundant life wherever they may live in this world. We know that can only come through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Help me to do my part when opportunities present themselves to be part of sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with people throughout the world. Protect this nation from those who would seek to do it harm, and give those in authority the strength to enforce the laws that govern this great land. In the name of Jesus I pray...AMEN!

El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio are the latest places in our nation to experience the horrors of a mass shooting. First, continue to pray for the families who lost loved ones in this senseless act, and for those who were injured to fully recover. I’ve been highly offended by media pundits and politicians who have been mocking “thoughts and prayers,” falsely claiming they are really meaningless. “Thoughts and prayers” aren’t the answer to stopping such senseless violence, they are meant for those who have suffered the loss of a loved one and for the injured to fully recover. PRAYER IS NEVER MEANINGLESS!!!

I also find is rather sickening that the politicians and those in the media screaming the loudest for eroding the 2nd Amendment because of the senseless death of innocent men, women, and children, are the very same people who advocate and cheerlead for the slaughter of innocent children!!!

Ever since the shootings at Columbine High School in 1999, there has been an epidemic of shootings in our nation's schools, stores, movie theaters, parks, places of worship, and everywhere else people come together. Those who have committed these senseless acts of violence that were not inspired by Islam, have been primarily young men. After each one of these incidents the unanswered question remains, why?

In attempting to answer that question, the removal of God from the public square is never discussed. Instead, we get an endless parade of media pundits and politicians debating our nation's gun laws. Now I am all for any laws that can help make guns in our society safer WITHOUT impeding on our Constitutional rights. The fact is, we have law books full of gun laws, many of which are not being properly enforced. The fact is, this issue really has nothing to do with guns, just like those who commit murder with a knife is not about the weapon they chose to use!

From Columbine, to Virginia Tech, to Tucson, to a movie theater in Aurora, Co, to Sandy Hook elementary, to the shootings this past weekend in Texas and Ohil, those responsible for these heinous acts were people who clearly were dealing with MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES and probably should have never been walking the streets! I will never forget a friend in the mental health field share with me several years ago that if you stand in a line at the grocery store, out of every 10 people in that line, 2 have NO BUSINESS being out in public!

Gun control and the Bible. You don't get very far into the Book of Genesis until you see the first act of violence as Cain kills his brother Abel. Since that first act of evil, human history has been fraught with man's violence against other men. Every type of weapon man has dreamed up in his imagination has been used to kill. The first firearms were invented in China in the 12th century. With the current heated debate in this nation over guns, I wanted to look at this issue in a way you won't hear in the news, from a Biblical perspective.

First, the 2nd Amendment of our Constitution gives us the right to bear arms, so unless that Amendment is repealed confiscating guns is not even an option. New laws aren't the answer either since the largest percentage of gun crimes are committed by people who don't obey the laws to begin with. The reality is, there are exhaustive laws already on the books regarding guns, they just aren't being enforced.

The mass shootings over the past decade that have received all of the headlines, have all been perpetrated by Muslim terrorists or people with mental illness. The only logical actions that should be considered are profiling Muslims despite the cries from Muslim advocacy groups and the media, and doing a better job of identifying people who are suffering from some form of mental illness. We need policies to get these people the treatment they need and put into place a way to track those who are most likely to become violent.

Sadly, in the end this is a large country with 330 million people. To enjoy the incredible freedoms we have, it creates an atmosphere for someone who is driven by a perverted theology like Islam and those who are mentally disturbed, to be able to randomly attack innocent people. There simply is not any sort of plan that is going to prevent that from happening from time to time.

THAT MY FRIEND...is why the spiritual state of this nation is so critical. That isn't going to stop random acts of violence, but it will create an entirely different atmosphere than what we are living with today.

We would "do unto others as we would have them do unto us." We would "love our neighbors as ourselves." We would reject the violence that is glorified in the movies, TV, and video games. Instead of treating life like it has no value, we would embrace life as the special gift from God that it is!

I love you and care about you so much. Only true revival can change the spiritual state of our nation, thus changing the environment that exists today which fosters random acts of violence. While the more spectacular acts make the news, every day in large cities and small towns, innocent people are attacked, hurt, and killed. We have become experts in how to commit violent acts against each other.

This is also responsible for a society today that actually embraces and cheers for the 4,000 innocent babies that are slaughtered every 24 hours. It is such a part of our culture, most people never even give it a thought. In this nation where a culture of death flourishes, the next segment of our society to be put to death will be the elderly. Grandma is going to die soon anyway, put her out of her misery now and save the expense of keeping her alive any longer!

We don't have a gun problem in this nation, we have a spiritual problem. If every gun was confiscated and destroyed, we would find whatever was handy to commit acts of violence. The only real answer to the violence in our culture is to turn our hearts to God and start living our lives by HIS laws. Our society will never obey the laws of man unless we first obey the laws of God!!!

In His love and service,

Your friend and brother in Christ,

Bill Keller