Gotta get this out

I have been reading in Nehemiah. I think I will probably be spending a lot of time going through this book.

To catch you up to where I'm at in Nehemiah 9 (for those of you who aren't experts in Nehemiah ;)....Nehemiah, the cupbearer to the king, heard about the state of Jerusalem, and God put it in his heart to go there and rebuild the wall. The king let him go for a stated period of time. At this point in the book, the wall is rebuilt. Ezra the priest has read the Book of the Law of Moses before all of the people assembled together. (Verse 8:3b is cool: "And the ears of all the people were attentive to the Book of the Law". :) They celebrate the Feast of Booths (which I believe is in remembrance of God providing during Israel's 40 years of wandering in the desert...but I'm not positive) and after that they gather together again. Chapter nine is a recap of all the awesome works God has done for Israel....and verse 32 is after the recap and where I want to begin.

I was going to just type a couple verses, but I'm going to go ahead with 9:32-37.

³²"Now, therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love, let not all the hardship seem little to you that has come upon us, upon our kings, our princes, our priests, our prophets, our fathers, and all your people, since the time of the kings of Assyria until this day.
³³ Yet you have been righteous in all that has come upon us, for you have dealt faithfully and we have acted wickedly.
³⁴ Our kings, our princes, our priests, and our fathers have not kept your law or paid attention to your commandments and your warnings that you gave them.
³⁵ Even in their own kingdom, and amid your great goodness that you gave them, and in the large and rich land that you set before them, they did not serve you or turn from their wicked works.
³⁶Behold, we are slaves this day; in the land that you gave to our fathers to enjoy its fruit and its good gifts, behold, we are slaves.
³⁷ And its rich yield goes to the kings whom you have set over us because of our sins. They rule over our bodies and over our livestock as they please, and we are in great distress."

Verses 32 and 33 are self explanatory in my thought process here....they are proclaiming the awesomeness and righteousness and faithfulness of God, despite how we act.

Verse 34 smacked me this morning making me think about our country's leadership. Have our leaders kept God's laws, paid attention to His commands and heeded His warnings? Have our citizens required or held our leadership accountable to this?? Have our citizens (read: "we") kept God's laws, paid attention to His commands and heeded His warnings? Ponder and pray on that...

Verse 35....God has given us a great land. America is an amazing country...full of amazing people! Strip away the people and look at the land itself. Such incredible and gorgeous diversity from snowcapped mountains to dry desert plains.....lush farmland, wide open plains perfect for grazing animals....the lakes and rivers and creeks and canyons and cliffs and rolling hills. Just sit and ponder all of that in your mind. This is a great, bountiful and rich country, is it not?! Not only that, but we, as a nation have prospered and don't think for a second it is of our own doing...God's hand has been on our nation and caused us to prosper. As a nation, we have forgotten....we are choosing wickedness.

Verses 36 and 37 tie together. I realize we are not technically slaves. But I am afraid we are being shackled without realizing it. We are allowing the government to step in places it shouldn't be. We are allowing them to choose for us what is right and what is wrong....and our government leadership is not taking into consideration God's Truth, God's Law and God's right and wrong. I touched in the earlier blog post about God having given the governing bodies the right to judge and enforce. That only works if the governing body is still surrendered to God's laws. When it decides it is not accountable to God things go haywire.

We are also being shackled by patterns of lies that we buy into. Lies about separation of God out of government and politics. We are being shackled and blinded by our sin as a nation and the rampant relativism that is so popular and SO WRONG. I have realized through some self examination and prayer that there are areas in my own life where I had accepted those lies and not even known it. I'm sure there are more layers of lies I have bought and don't realize as of yet...but I continue to pray and ask God to peel away those layers of lies until my world view is His world view.

I implore you again to spend some serious time in prayer for our country's leadership, our country's citizens and our country's political and cultural direction. It doesn't take a political analyst or theologin (I am neither!) to look at what The Word says and look at what our law says or our culture says and realize we are not running towards God as a nation.

"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." 2 Chronicles 7:14