God Bless America

While it is very important that we, as Christian Americans, be devoted to and love our country, it is not our home. We are on a journey, and by God's grace and mercy, we've been born or brought here temporarily. We who know Christ and are bought by His blood are on our way to heaven.
All too often it seems that we develop an attitude that we are blessed by God because we are Americans; or that we deserve God's blessing because we are Americans. We forget that God has given us what we have and He has created who we are. God doesn't give to us because of what we already have or we are. In the Old Testament, God created a nation out of His people, He didn't choose a nation and call them His people. We sometimes seem to be saying, "God, look at us, we are America, bless us." We find pride in that Godly people founded our nation on Biblical principles and expect that we are assured God's continued blessing on our nation. I don't believe God wants us to turn to Him for the sake of our nation. I believe that our nation can be blessed for our sakes. Our nation will be strengthened when we are a God-seeking, praying nation of believers. It is for the sake of God that we should seek Him, not for what He can do for our country. When we as a nation seek God, He will bless us. When we desire God rather than blessings, we will be blessed. When we seek God, we will find grace and mercy.
It seems that if we are moving toward God and our heavenly home, and realize that all we have here, including our country, is temporary, then we will find more pleasure in the temporal. God will reward us along the road that leads to Him; but He must be the goal. All the blessings along the way are by-products of hearts that are pure and single-minded in pursuit of God.

©2003 by rod lewis