The American Family Association passed along this message from Dr. David Jeremiah, who, of course, is one of America’s leading pastors and an author and broadcaster … and, we might add, is an enLighten listener:
This time, vote your values, your beliefs, your convictions. Over the last years that I have traveled, I’ve been asked this question over and over again: “Dr. Jeremiah, do you think God is finished with America?” But that is the wrong question. The right question is, “Is America finished with God?” Over these next days as we pray…and vote, we can send a strong message to the watching world that we are still one nation under God.
God’s Grace . . .
In addition to pondering the message above … read this one by Reverend Mark Adams, the Senior Pastor of Redland Baptist Church in Rockville, Maryland! Reverend Adams writes …
In his new book, “Grace – More Than We Deserve, Greater Than We Imagine”, Max Lucado shares the following true story:
“A Chinese man named Li Fuyan had tried every treatment imaginable to ease his throbbing headaches. Nothing helped. An X-ray finally revealed the culprit. A rusty four-inch knife blade had been lodged in his skull for four years. In an attack by a robber, Fuyan had suffered lacerations on the right side of his jaw. He didn’t know the blade had broken off inside his head. No wonder he suffered from such STABBING pain.
“We can’t live with foreign objects buried in our bodies. Or our souls. What would an X-ray of your interior reveal? Regrets over an [earlier] relationship? Remorse over a poor choice? Shame about the marriage that didn’t work, the habit you couldn’t quit, the temptation you didn’t resist, or the courage you couldn’t find? Guilt lies hidden beneath the surface, festering, irritating. Sometimes so deeply embedded you don’t know the cause.”
Lucado is right! When we sin and refuse to confess it to God it becomes like a knife blade lodged in the soul creating pain and misery. King David discovered this principle. When he refused to confess his sin with Bathsheba he said, “I was weak and miserable, and I groaned all day long. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat.” (Psalm 32:3-4) Then, when he decided to come clean with God, he prayed, “O Lord, do not rebuke me in Your anger or discipline me in Your wrath. For Your arrows have pierced me, and Your hand has come down upon me…there is no health in my body; my bones have no soundness because of my sin. My wounds fester and are loathsome because of my sinful folly. My back is filled with searing pain…Against You and You only have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You are justified when You speak and blameless when You judge.” (Psalm 38, 51)
© 2012 Mark Adams
Thank you, Pastor Mark, for that thoughtful message.
If you have something insightful or thoughtful that you’d like to share with us that we might consider sharing with your fellow enLighten listeners, please send it along now. Thank you.
