God & Country Day

Several of local Churches are celebrating God and country day this Sunday.  Some of our elected officials will be visiting various local churches rather than attending their home church.  For this I am grateful.  Sometimes a guest speaker brings a message or shares a testimony of how Jesus has changed their lives.  If I were to proclaim a message it would come from these passages, “if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14), or this one, “But he gives more grace.  Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God.  Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.  Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.  Be wretched and mourn and weep.  Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.  Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.” (James 4:6-10).  The message to the body of Christ is very clear “Repent of our sins!”  If you have called on Jesus to save you from your sins and to take you home to heaven when you die this message applies to you.  How do we expect a world that is dying apart from Jesus to believe our message if we do not live out the gospel in our own lives? God is not mocked!   The truth is that we will reap what we sow, more than we sow, later than we sow.  Here are some of the sins we may need to repent of “haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies and one who sows discord among brothers” (Proverbs 6:16). “Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies and things like these.  I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” (Galatians 5:19-21) “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.  Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” (Ephesians 4:31)  What sin are you holding on to?  Take a moment to look up 1 John 1:5-10 in your Bible or on your phone.  Ask the Lord to help you to confess all known sin to him.  Join with me in searching our hearts before the Lord and confessing the sin that he shows us we need to repent of.  He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sin if we confess it to him.  Thank you for reading this article today, I pray that this helps us to become a Church that Jesus can use.  I would like to invite you this Sunday to our God and Country day, here at First Baptist Church in downtown Lake City.  If not here then I invite you to attend one of our other Churches in Lake City where God’s word is being taught.