A Nugget from New Life Network
Scripture for the Day (August 21, 2017)
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8, NIV)
Let me ask you a question. If you were a betting person and had to bet on whether the United States was on the brink of revival or ruin, which way would you bet? If you had to bet on civil war or unity, which way would you bet? If you had to bet on global nuclear war or global peace, which way would you bet?
If you listen to the news media and all the educated talking heads you would put your bet on ruin, civil war and global nuclear war. But thanks be to God we don’t have to put our trust in them! Thank God we have a secret weapon that most of these talking heads know nothing about and have never met. His ways are higher than their ways and His love and concern for His people is far above anything they can even imagine.
There is no question that if you look at things in the natural, you could get concerned. However, we walk by faith and not by sight. We have not been given a spirit of fear but of power, love, and a sound mind. Whatever ditches and traps that are laid for us and our leaders will turn out to be ditches that the ditch diggers and trap builders fall into themselves. The snares that are laid will snare the very ones that are laying the snares (Psalms 7:15-16; 9:15-16; 10:2).
Do you not know that it is darkest just before the dawn? Do you not know that where sin abounds, grace does much more abound? Do you not know that the enemy was partying down when Jesus was crucified on the cross? The enemy thought he had won, but Sunday was coming!!! What looked like a victory for our enemy turned into a humiliating and eternal defeat.
This nation was built on the Word of God! Have we done everything right? No, but who has? We have all sinned and come short of the glory of the Lord. Judging our ancestors is a very slippery slope. There is no one that can produce an ancestral lineage free of sin, not even Jesus. Some of the greatest men and women of the Bible were murderers and harlots. We all need to be careful about judging other people and other generations because that judgment will turn around and bite us.
We would all be better off to take heed to the wisdom supplied by our Creator and some of our own leaders of the past:
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. (Matthew 22:37-40)
Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. (Matthew 7:1-2)
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” (Martin Luther King, Jr.)
It’s not too late people of God! Pray for revival! Pray for our nation! Pray for our elected leaders! Don’t get distracted! Just do the Word! God will hear our cries and He will heal our land!!!
