It’s Only Too Late if We Give Up

The past is tricky. It can appear to look better than it was, especially when you are stuck in an unpleasant present.
If we look at our current circumstances and discover there is more to complain about than celebrate, chances are we can be found pining for times that never existed any further than beyond the playgrounds in our mind.
Goals are necessary for human beings to grow up. On the other hand, expectations can be the kiss of death because life rarely cooperates with our agendas.
Where do we go when we look in the mirror and see too much cynicism and little optimism staring back at us?
Do I believe our country is moving in a healthy and hearty direction? Not on your life.
I sense that as a nation, we are busy running from who and what we should be running to, and championing causes and ideas that should be sitting outside in the trash. My solution to this national pollution has nothing with us returning to the “good old days.”
There hasn’t been a moment since Adam and Eve were evicted from the Garden of Eden that sin hasn’t been mixed with even the best efforts of humanity. Our success as Americans has happened, even though the people are made up of more selfish flesh than selfless spirit.
What has gotten us to where we are today? I guess that it wasn’t us promoting a “selfie” generation where everyone gets a trophy and nobody has to face correction and consequence, unless it deals in the matters of faith. When did “faith in God” become a criminal act?
While our society outlaws prayer in school and bans the Bible from libraries, it bends backward to not offend sin. What happened to sin? Everybody pretends it isn’t there while its rotten fruit stares us in the face.
You can’t have it both ways. Our founding fathers believed that all humanity was created equal. Did you see the key verb of that sentence?
We are not a higher evolved form of animals. Every man and woman of every nation on this planet has been formed in the image of God. This changes everything.
It gives us a purpose to seek a higher love. It means men and women should be expected to act noble and love their neighbors as themselves. If you subtract faith from the equation, what do you have left?
If you want that question answered, read today’s news stories.
How many more school shootings will it take to remind us that along with learning the alphabet, we need to be retaught our Ps and Qs? What happened to respect for authority?
If children aren’t taught these principles, then don’t be surprised by the hell we all will experience otherwise.
The separation of church and state was never meant to keep faith out of our culture. It was a means to keep the government from legislating a particular religion.
 I have to smile because not too long ago when I was invited to pray at a community function, I was told what I could and couldn’t say. I shared that I wasn’t attending to recite prose, but to talk to the Lord on our behalves, and that means a regular conversation.
Celebrating Christmas doesn’t shove Jesus down the throats of unbelievers. It teaches the entire world to acknowledge a historical event. The birth of Jesus was the most influential event that the world has witnessed.
Suddenly, we have more citizens criticizing Christmas music during a holiday concert than we have fathers and mothers upset about the way their children talk to adults.
As millions of Christians flee the Middle East and Christianity’s homeland becomes increasingly bereft of followers of Jesus, an odd anomaly is occurring. Christianity in states around the Gulf of Mexico is surging.
Amid a shocking exodus in neighboring countries, there has been a jump in its Christian population. Believers are shining their light despite how popular or unpopular it may be.
These Christians aren’t being obnoxious individuals who shove the Bible in your face. These disciples are being like Jesus if He was there, and according to the Bible, He is there.
I no longer depend on politics to do what people can do as the Body of Christ. It goes beyond memorizing Bible verses. It is teaching people about our legacy and history as Americans.
It is getting our heroes of yesteryear out of the boxes in our attic, and letting a new generation know from whence we came. Ask your children if they can finish the sentence, “Listen my children and you will hear…”
If they can’t, it is because this nation has been consumed with itself and turns its people into self-righteous hypocrites, rather than patriotic servants who, like Nathan Hale would say, “I regret that I have only one life to give to my country.” How can we expect our children to lay down their lives for what is right when they hardly have been taught what true sacrifice is about?
 If it is truly too late for America, why are we still here? It is time to do what Jesus called us to do when He challenged us to let our lights shine bright, that we turn what is dark to new life.
Don’t follow the crowd when you can follow the Lord. Don’t tell others that Jesus loves them until you are ready to love them too. Do some digging into history.
We can be proud to be Americans, as long as we remember that we were founded to be one nation under God and that is nothing to apologize about. God makes a better leader than some human egomaniac. America is not a Christian nation, but it is a nation with people who call themselves Christians.
Because of that, we have the freedom to love God and one another without the fear of wrongdoing.
I have been reading about the life and ministry of George Whitefield. The United States of America was born because of the way God used this passionate preacher of the gospel.
Let me close with this quote:
“John Wesley tells of a dream he had. In the dream, he was ushered to the gates of Hell. There he asked, ‘Are there any Presbyterians here?’ ‘Yes,’ came the answer.
“Then he asked, ‘Are there any Baptists, Episcopalians, or Methodists?’ The answer was yes each time. Much distressed, Wesley was ushered to the gates of Heaven.
“There he asked the same question, and the answer was no.
“To this, Wesley asked, ‘Who, then, is inside?’ The answer came back, ‘There are only Christians here.'”
Let’s be more united in Jesus than divided by our labels that won’t make it to Heaven.
ED. NOTE: The author is the senior pastor of The Lighthouse Church, 1248 Route 9 South, Court House.