(Editor's Note: This article appeared in the July 2022 print edition of The Stand)
“You are the light of the world,” we are told in Matthew 5:14. “A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden” (NKJV). America, once widely perceived as a city on a hill, is losing her brightness.
Independence Day is a good time to measure our brightness factor – individually, as the church, and as a nation.
I love America, and I know she has documented foundations in Judeo-Christian values, laws, and principles. However, I still pray the Lord’s Prayer, which includes the potential for God’s judgment: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
God’s holiness tolerates no sin in His glorious realm, so I can only imagine His righteous anger at America’s current behaviors.
Christians must remember the power of our God. As the judge of the quick and the dead, He can change things faster than we can gasp in astonishment or horror.
Have American Christians become too proud in our independence and our faulty desire to “be true to ourselves” that we no longer admit the value of a broken spirit before God?
Are we at the pig trough with the prodigal son finally realizing we should return to our Father – even as a servant instead of a child? (Luke 15:11-32).
Are we ready to completely surrender to God instead of our selfishness?
Are we afraid to take up our cross?
We are admonished in Matthew 10:38-39:
And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.
Taking up the cross in today’s culture is more than wearing one around your neck, tattooing one on your body, or hanging one in your car. The cross is covered with the blood of the only One who can save those who admit their sin according to God’s standards.
The Devil wants us to misunderstand or disregard what God calls sin, because if we do that, then we can neither ask for forgiveness nor understand the need to repent. Satan finds sadistic glee as he injects just enough truth in his lies to tickle many ears, thus deceiving many who are so sure they are saved (Matthew 7:21-23).
Jesus never said following Him would be easy. If anyone told you so, remember this: The Bible doesn’t support it.
Jesus called people to count the cost while simultaneously reminding them, “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” (Mark 8:36).
To gain the world is to deny the profit of the Holy Spirit leading each of us to repent through an understanding of sin as God defines it in His Word. Don’t let the devil or his minions mislead you.
Right now, America seems to flout God’s laws. Lawlessness is called sin in the Bible, and sin always brings judgment. America is like a house in torrential floods of sin rushing toward a waterfall and imminent destruction. Who can rescue us in such a horrible and terrifying situation?
Only God.
God may let America fall, but please, if you call yourself a Christian, don’t let it be because the devil has fooled you about what God calls sin. Open your eyes to the evil that the world calls good. Dare to pray the prayer that leads to repentance.
