Reflections From Romans

For the past 50 days, our church has been involved in a period of daily prayer and supplication, asking God for a mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We've been praying for this revival for not only us as a church body but also for our community, nation and world. I believe that we are all in a desperate need of annointing from God's Holy Spirit, to help us take off the spiritual scales that blind our eyes and constrict our hearts. Each and every day, we hear how God and His authority for our lives is not only challenged but removed. Look at the issues that are "hot points" for the upcoming elections. See how lines are being drawn in the sand and sides are being taken.

Could you ever imagine a day where the things that lead political and social discussions today are so prominent and pervasive when only 15-20 years ago, no one would even dare bring them up?

Just look all around us and see how immoral America has become. How can any of us in good faith (and I use that term "faith" loosely because it seems so many of us refuse to have any) even dare to ask God for anything when we refuse to do what He asks from us? We cry and wail and moan because of things like school shootings, terrorist attacks, murders, wars, crime, injustice, over taxation. We're extremely quick to blame God for allowing these things to occur but when it comes to keeping Him in the forefront of our minds, hearts and lives, forget it.

We're too smart to believe in an all-powerful etheral being who supposedly created the world and all life within it. We've become too intellectual to believe in the same principles and values our country was founded upon. We've even gotten to become psychic in our deliberations because now, not only are these "old fashioned values" irrelevant to us, we can now boast that these values and morals were never what our forefathers intended.

Really?

Hmmm. Seems a bit contradictory to me that a room full of men over 200 years ago came to a complete and unified understanding that our country was going to be founded on the precepts of belief in a supreme being. In fact, this "supreme being" is mentioned at the very beginning of the Declaration of Independence.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness..."

Unfortunately, many have distorted this into fitting into a particular or personal agenda. In fact, something contained within the first few lines of the Declaration caught my attention.

"...and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them..."

The "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God". Again, there is mention and acknowledgement of a God of nature who governs a set of laws of which all people live by. These are laws and behaviors that come about by a more superior design and structure. Just think about it.

The sun rising and setting each day. The grass and flowers growing in and out of season. The miracle of life and the ability to recreate it...naturally. The laws of physics. For example, if you release a ball from the top of a building, it will always fall to the ground. That's the law of gravity. You cannot see it, you cannot touch it but you cannot deny it's existence or it's effects.

Why, then, is it so hard to believe in God, whom we cannot see, yet we would never doubt gravity, that which is also invisible? Because we can see the immediate effects (ie: gravity) instead of waiting to see the long-term ones (ie: God's blessings and existence)?

I have recently started another website on myspace.com and I'm utterly shocked and disturbed at what I see. I never could have imagined how many people are witches, atheists, homosexual, bi-sexual, pan-sexual, vampires, sociopaths, open drug abusers, sexual voyeurs and exhibitionists, anti-Christ, anti-establishment and anti-authority.

How and where did all this come about? What caused all these issues to suddenly reach epidemic proportions? How did these "ideals" spread so rampantly?

I'll tell you how.

Because we've turned our backs on God. We've gone above and beyond to remove Him and His influence upon our lives. We've become self-reliant on ourselves and our own abilities instead of becoming submissive to His will for us. Perhaps there's always been a contingent in human populus who've chosen to rebel in any way they can but it just seems like instead of people encouraging and supporting each other, we're all out to destroy and degrade anything we can.

Traditional morals and values.
Traditional families.
Traditional celebrations and holidays.
Traditional life.

And because of this, we all live in the times we do. We can't point our fingers at God anymore for "allowing things to happen" when we are content to just sit by to watch them happen. They say history has a way of repeating itself and I've found that to be true. In fact, what we see going on in modern America today also happened back in the time of the apostle Paul. He even wrote about these events, warning anyone who read his letters to turn back from their immoral ways.

Romans 1:20-35 (New International Version)

"20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
28 Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.

29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

32 Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them."

Does any of this sound anything even remotely like America today?

We are in a desperate need of spiritual revival and an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We so desperately need to submit to the Lord, beg for His forgiveness from our evil ways, repent of these sins and commit our lives unto Him. Pray with us today and ask Him to forgive us and save us from the snares of sin.

May God have mercy on us all.