April 30th Devotional

Read:

As I was meditating on the powerful words from great leaders of our United States of America, I couldn't help to feel a great great pain within me. I began to shed tears from reading the words I believe was straight from the heart of our Father God. Today I want us to read about the leaders of our country who had some guts to stand up for America. I think we need the voice of Abraham Lincoln screaming out to our nation today, "Keep The National Day Of Prayer!" I don't know how long God is going to tolerate this nation under whatever it is under, but I don't believe that God wants us to give up just yet. Lets not put away our bible in hoplessness, and just look up to the heavens alone and wait on the Lord to return. We need to have a desire for Christ to come back for His church, but we still have a bit of work to do yet. I believe that God is wanting us to reflect today on great men who couldn't have spoken prophetically any clearer for what we need today. I feel the pain in me as I am writing this devotion. I beg you church to kneel with me right now in prayer for our nation, and after this prayer I'm about to write below this devotion, I want you to look and reflect on some great words our leaders have spoken for America. Let's pray.

Prayer:

Lord, we come to you in your precious name for America. Forgive us Lord. Forgive us Lord for not be concerned for our next generation. Forgive us Lord for being complacent in the church and not reaching out to the community as a whole. We repent Father God for where we have gotten to, and ask that if there is any glimmer of hope left for this nation to reach down with your mighty hand and touch this nation. Help us to have a backbone to speak truth in your mighty name. We do pray for our president of the United States, and we ask that you plot new Christian leaders in Congress to stand up for God in America. Amen

From George Washington's "Inaugural Speech to Both Houses of Congress," April 30, 1789:
"Such being the impressions under which I have, in obedience to the public summons, repaired to the present station, it would be peculiarly improper to omit, in this first official act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States a government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes....No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency. . . . We ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained and since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered as deeply, perhaps finally, staked on the experiment, not to mention Abraham Lincoln honoring the national day of prayer, Warren Harding speaking of his conviction that the fundamental trouble with the people of the United States is they have gotten too far AWAY FROM GOD. Dewight D. Eisenhower spoke that the purpose of the United people was set forth in the pages of the BIBLE, and the bible continues to inspire us.

by Keith Edwards