We must be prudent in our choice of who becomes the leader of our nation, no doubt about it. But there are way too many Christians who are way more concerned about the White House than the kingdom of God. Presidents will come and go, nations will rise and fall, but God will remain forever!
In the old testament, God made several covenants, or promises with Israel. But time and time again, Israel would turn her back on Him and end up becoming a conquered people, or even become an enslaved nation in exile. One of the most quoted old testament verses, which is one of the many covenants between Israel and God, can be found in 2 Chronicles 7:14. Let me show the whole section where this verse is found, though.
11 Thus Solomon finished the house of the Lord and the king’s house. All that Solomon had planned to do in the house of the Lord and in his own house he successfully accomplished. 12 Then the Lord appeared to Solomon in the night and said to him: “I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice. 13 When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, 14 if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. 15 Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place. 16 For now I have chosen and consecrated this house that my name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time. 17 And as for you, if you will walk before me as David your father walked, doing according to all that I have commanded you and keeping my statutes and my rules, 18 then I will establish your royal throne, as I covenanted with David your father, saying, ‘You shall not lack a man to rule Israel.’19 “But if you[b] turn aside and forsake my statutes and my commandments that I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, 20 then I will pluck you[c] up from my land that I have given you, and this house that I have consecrated for my name, I will cast out of my sight, and I will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples. 21 And at this house, which was exalted, everyone passing by will be astonished and say, ‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house?’ 22 Then they will say, ‘Because they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore he has brought all this disaster on them.’”
So if you read the section of verses 11-18, God promises to heal the land. But He does so at the prayerful request of all the people. He doesn’t say when, He doesn’t say how long, He doesn’t say if the healing will lead to abundance or just sustenance. However, He promises to heal the land if the people will pray. He is the solution. But take a look further on in verses 19-22, He also lays out what will happen if the people of Israel turn their back on Him once more. We can learn a lot from the relationship of God and Israel. We are NOT Israel, so a lot of this is anecdotal and not prophesy to us and America. However, He is the same God today, yesterday, and tomorrow. And I believe that if we will pray fervently, and live our lives as salt and light and share the good news of the gospel of Jesus, there is a chance that He could heal our land. I would also venture to say that we are already headed towards the outlined verses of 19-22…but then isnt all of humanity, every single day? Solomon wrote in the book of Ecclesiastes 1:2-14
2 Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
3 What does man gain by all the toil
at which he toils under the sun?
4 A generation goes, and a generation comes,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises, and the sun goes down,
and hastens to the place where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and goes around to the north;
around and around goes the wind,
and on its circuits the wind returns.
7 All streams run to the sea,
but the sea is not full;
to the place where the streams flow,
there they flow again.
8 All things are full of weariness;
a man cannot utter it;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
nor the ear filled with hearing.
9 What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there a thing of which it is said,
“See, this is new”?
It has been already
in the ages before us.
11 There is no remembrance of former things,
nor will there be any remembrance
of later things yet to be
among those who come after.
12 I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 14 I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.
That is a bleak passage, but it also reminds us that no evil is new, no sin has been newly created, only its manifestation. All the sins we see around us are nothing more than new iterations of older practices and thought patterns. Corruption is just a fancy way of saying selfish. Isn’t that really the root of all sin? Our call as believers is all the same, though. To live out our lives in such a way as to bring attention to the Glory of the Lord.
Will you pledge to be a part of the solution to our nation? Will you begin to live out your life as a believer where others can actually know who you belong to? How can you seek to bring people to the throne of God, where there are no term limits but much grace and mercy and love?
Thanks for sharing! Great read. I vote to be a Kingdom Builder!