By James Wilson
We
human beings have never been really good at keeping the covenants we make with
God or with each other. Noah had a
drinking problem and Abraham passed his wife off as his sister out of fear of a
pagan king. Americans declared all men
created equal and then pretended blacks and Indians were not really people in
order to justify enslaving and brutalizing them. In each case the people sinning were doing
what they thought they had to do in the absence of a God Who is anything but
absent. The good news is we can know and
serve a loving God who permits and even encourages do-overs. The do-overs are called repentance.
Repentance
means to turn about. It includes turning
away from our covenant breaking ways, but it centers on turning toward –
re-focusing – on God and the promises we and He have exchanged. Part of the reason God never abandoned us
over – for example – slavery is the reality that a substantial minority of
Americans saw it for the evil it was and worked tirelessly to replace it with
the authentic vision of equality expressed in Declaration and
Constitution. It is axiomatic that God
never abandons a city or nation for its evil, but only when there is no
critical mass of righteous ones with whom He can work. Check the stories of Sodom and Gomorrah,
Moses bargaining with God for the preservation of apostate Israel in the
wilderness, or even Elijah complaining in his little cave.
There
exists a grassroots ministry called The National Day of Repentance. Less than two years old and launched by word
of mouth and a fledgling (at the time) web site it is now operating in more
than forty states and thirty nations. The
sole purpose of this ministry is to encourage Christians to re-focus our
attention on God and His covenant with us – as though that were more important
than restoring our constitution and nation – because it is. We also happen to believe wholeheartedly that
this re-focus on covenant will lead to restoration of constitution and nation
one way or another. That is the way
things happened in the Bible. That is
the way things happened in American history as well, from the first Great
Awakening that enabled the American Revolution and the documents that framed
it, to the second that enabled the end of slavery, to the third that brought
the success of the Civil Rights Movement and the advent of Morning in America
under Ronald Reagan’s presidency.
The
next scheduled National Day of Repentance is April 30 – the anniversary of
George Washington’s First Inaugural that he personally bathed in prayer, and of
Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 called-for Day of Prayer, Fasting and Humiliation. (Funny how two of our founding fathers most
associated with no real faith – by some foolish scholars – are the most
pronounced in their calling on God for His mercy over the nation.) The web site – no longer fledgling – is www.dayofrepentance.org. Any who wish to participate need only engage
some act of corporate re-focus on God on that day, or beginning on that
day. Those who represent a Christian
ministry of any sort are invited to go on the web site, accept the incredibly
generic statement of faith, and post their activity in case others might take
inspiration from knowing about it.
In
California the drought is being addressed by the Rain and Reign Coalition, a
gathering of some forty ministries that cross denominational lines and pray for
the growing of repentant – re-focused – hearts across the state. We repent – turn away – daily of the shedding
of innocent blood, the idolatry of human reason, sexual infidelity and
perversion, and the breaking of covenant from treaties to families. We repent – turn toward – daily for God’s
mercy in breaking the high pressure ridge that holds back the rain and the highly
pressured hearts that hold back the prosperity and joy that is His promise for
California. Any wishing to participate
can begin to pray daily as we do.
Some
– perhaps many – see this as pious tripe.
Good enough. How have our efforts worked out for us the past decade or
so? In Jeremiah 31 God promises a new
covenant written on every human heart that turns to Him and to bring all of His
blessings to bear through those hearts. He makes the same promises in Isaiah
59, Ezekiel 11, and Joel 2 and 3. They
are always preceded by a period of repentance – that we might be enabled to
receive Him. It is the same with every American
Awakening. What have we got to lose?
Encouragement
comes in the next posting.
James A. Wilson is the author of Living
As Ambassadors of Relationships and The
Holy Spirit and the End Times – available at local bookstores or by
e-mailing him at
praynorthstate@charter.net
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