9.18.13

Isaiah 26:15 Oh Lord, you have made our nation great; yes, you have made us great.  You have extended our borders, and we give you the glory.

My Thoughts

Because of the 40 days of prayer at our Church, for our city, this verse really stood out to me this morning.  How often do we thank God for making America great? I know that I have not done this probably ever.  Lately all I hear about our nation is grumbling and complaining.  All my life I have heard grumbling and complaining about what is wrong in America... and hardly ever do I hear, on a daily basis, praise for all that we have in America.  Twenty-four hour news does not help that fact at all!! Always telling us what is wrong and hardly ever telling us what is right.  I have noticed we are most thankful just after something horrific like a flood or a shooting.

In Isaiah 28:24a it says, "Does a farmer always plow and never sow?" Then I thought of Monday's Bible Study and how we talked of how important our words are!!  God spoke the world into being by His words.  Our prayers move God into action on our behalf.  Those are words of faith.  Our words of thanksgiving make God are joy to God's ears, I think they make Him want to do more for us. On the other end our grumbling and complaining makes Satin know just what bothers us and they set Him into motion.  We need to think of our words as seeds planted for our family, for our neighbors, for our nation.  We will reap what we sow and we need to be sowing good with our words.  In prayer, in praise, in thanksgiving, in conversaton with others. 

We have the power to change our nation, by using our words. And when we are having a bad day are are unhappy with how things are going then we can take a tip from the Disney movie Bambi. Thumper's mother taught Thumper, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." My keeping our mouths shut when negative things pop up in our brains we don't give Satin ammunition. We can take that a step further by doing what the Bible tells us and think on things that are whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy (Philippians 4:8). We can actually change our thoughts to what is good, then bad won't be there to come our of our mouths. 

I hear people say all the time, "Our country is falling apart and there is nothing I can do about it!"  There is something we can do people!  We can use our words, we can be thankful for all the good and praise God for it. We can pray to God for what is honorable and true and right to happen in our country and set God's angels in motion! We can think on what is good, so that we will talk on what is good.  Our words are powerful people, so very powerful! Jesus said that if we had faith the size of a mustard seed we could speak and move a mountain (Matthew 17:20). Our words and our faith together can make amazing changes in our country! Grumbling and complaining is the opposite of faith.  Our faith does not need to be in our government, our faith does not need to be in our president. Our faith needs to be in God.

Our words matter!  I challenge you...I beg you ... to write this verse down and carry it with you and each time you find yourself wanting to complain about America, instead say "Oh Lord, you have made our nation great; yes, you have made us great.  You have extended our borders and we give you the glory!  (Isaiah 26:15) And ask your friends to do the same!