Pray for our Nation - Jeremiah 19

I don't want my blog to become a doomsayer blog, but my highest priority in life it to follow the Lord. I want to fear Him more than I fear man. As I'm reading through Jeremiah I can't help but think it is timely for our nation, as I've mentioned before.

I will be posting other things on my blog (a review of Fireproof which I watched last night is forthcoming) - but expect that each morning as I read Jeremiah and the Lord points out verses to be applied to our nation at this time - I will be sharing.

Today I read Jeremiah 19 - the Lord brought the following verses to the forefront:

For they have forsaken me and made this a place of foreign gods; they have burned sacrificies in it to gods that neither they nor their fathers nor kings of Judah ever knew, and they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent. They have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as offerings to Baal - something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind. (verses 4-5)

This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel says: "Listen! I am going to bring on this city and the villages around it every disaster I pronounced against them, because they were stiff-necked and would not listen to my words." (verse 15)

I started thinking about this - we don't necessarily worship stone idols anymore and we don't take our children out in the valleys and throw them in the fire. At least not literally. But this nation, this world in many cases - is still doing these things, the gods have just changed their names and the sacrifices have changed faces.

What gods do we serve in this nation right now?

* Tolerance (political - correctness) - God's Word and Will should rule our lives, not the fear of offending someone because we speak the Truth. Truth is often offensive because it brings to light our sins, something we desparately want to keep in the dark. But some day we must account for these. I'd rather repent of them now than have to explain them to my Creater later as I stand before His Throne.

* Convenience - abortion, greed, we only think of ourselves and we want what we want now. If it may hurt others, we justify it in some way. It does not matter what spin we put on sin, Truth is Truth and sin can NOT be justified.

* Self - We may say we are looking out for others, but in the end we only care about one person, us! And deep down we don't even really like that person. We can not show love if we don't know and understand love. God is LOVE. Without Him we are hopeless. The only true and fulfilling way to live is for Him, not for ourselves!

I keep coming back to Jeremiah 2:11-13

"Has a nation ever changed its gods? (Yet they are not gods at all.) But my people have exchanged their Glory for worthless idols. Be appalled at this, O heavens, and shudder with great horror," declares the Lord. My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water."

Please join me in prayer (repentence & intercession) for this nation. Let us turn from our broken cisterns that we have dug and run to the cistern of the Lord, the spring of Living Water!

Pray for our Nation - Jeremiah 18

If you are a Christian who believes with all your heart that the Bible is the inspired Living Word of God, I implore you to join me in praying for this nation. Not just through the elections, although I believe this is a crucial time for our country. This is a turning point.

However, the elections on their own will not be enough to save this country. We need to have our hearts remade. Individually and as a nation. In the beginning of Jeremiah 18, the Lord tells Jeremiah to visit the potter. While there Jeremiah watches the potter reshaping a marred clay pot in his hands, he reshapes it as he sees as being best to him because he is the expert. The clay pot doesn't know what is best - only the potter does. This is us, our nation - we are that marred clay pot. We need to acknowledge this and ask the Potter to reshape us as He knows best because only He is the expert!

Jeremiah 18:7 - 10

If at any time I announce that a nation or or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.