Time for a Heart Check!

One of the greatest blessings in knowing Jesus as our Savior and Lord is that no matter what happens in this world, we are not shaken.

Whatever storms come, whatever trials we may face, our lives are built on the Solid Rock of Christ. Our foundation never crumbles. Our hope doesn’t waver. Our mission doesn’t change.

No matter what happens in 2020 in our personal lives, our nation, or the world, we are still called by God to the same simple things:

1. Love the Lord our God with all our hearts, minds, souls, and strength.

2. Love all other people with the divine, agape love of Christ.

We are citizens of the heavenly kingdom of King Jesus.

We rest in God’s love, promises, truth, and sovereignty. We are His ambassadors, sharing the Gospel of hope, shining for Christ in the darkness, no matter how dark that darkness may get. We implore people to be reconciled to God through Jesus and the cross, inviting everyone into the life boats as the Titanic is sinking.

We know that we are part of the united Body of Christ around the world, crying out to God in unity for His will to be done and His kingdom to come on earth. We pray together against everything God calls evil and invite His righteousness into our government, businesses, churches, Hollywood, media, schools, and homes.

We know that those who oppose God’s Word are ensnared by the real enemy and are deceived. It is the enemy’s voice speaking through them. They need to be set free from their chains.

We know that Jesus loves them dearly and wants to extend repentance, salvation, and eternal life to them to invite them to join His family and kingdom. We know He came to set prisoners free!

We also know that God will eventually bring judgment on nations who continue to sin and refuse to repent. Time may be short for our country. We have no time to waste.

We do not see with worldly eyes but know that God is at work in mighty ways behind the scenes, accomplishing His good purposes. So we do not lose hope. We are not discouraged. We are not dismayed.

We can reach out to others with love, courage, and strength, because we see them with Jesus’ eyes and love them with His heart just like He loved us when we were still enemies of the cross.

Our hope is not in any human or political party. Our hope is in Jesus, alone.

Whoever sits in the White House, Jesus sits on the throne in the highest heavens. He will accomplish His good purposes and no one can thwart His plan.

We will continue to yield ourselves fully to the Lordship of Jesus and offer ourselves as instruments of His love, healing, truth, and peace to those who are perishing in the darkness.

We will be on our knees, faithfully interceding and standing in the gap for the lost to be found and for wrong to be set right.

We will respond to opposition with spiritual weapons and the power of prayer and the Holy Spirit. We will overcome evil with good, kindness, love, and compassion.

We will seek, more than ever before, to be the salt and light Jesus calls us to be as we draw nearer to Him and deepen in our faith and love for Him. The closer we are to Jesus, the more impact He can have on the world through us.

If we have freedom, we will seek to reach everyone we can with God’s love and gospel. If we face persecution, we will do the same.

Please do not give in to fear, dear sisters! Millions and millions of Christians are praying and fasting in unity around the world to see a great movement of God in America and the world.

He is about to do something breathtaking!

God is at work right now in mighty ways.

He will purify and refine His people. He will give us strength, courage, and boldness to stand for truth and do what is right in His eyes. And He will do what it takes to draw many who are lost to Christ.

It may be a bumpy road. Our faith may be tested more than ever before in our lifetimes. That’s okay. As long as Jesus has the reins, we don’t have to be afraid.

God is with us, if we belong to Christ. We can stand on His promises. We don’t have to freak out.

May God prepare and equip us for what lies ahead. May He empower us to trust Him and to walk by faith. May He be greatly glorified in each of our lives, our families, America, and the world.

May we be instruments of His righteousness, love, blessing, and peace in our families, communities, and beyond.

Pray with Me:

Lord,

We invite You to expose sin and darkness wherever it may be found. In our hearts. In our families. In the church. In our communities, the media, Hollywood, schools, businesses, or the government.

Let Your light shine and show the depth of the corruption in our souls in our nation that we might humble ourselves and repent of anything that offends You. Show us any wicked way in us and lead us in the way everlasting. Please cleanse us, Your people. Let us be in right relationship with You.

We ask for a mighty movement of Your Spirit to draw millions to Yourself in this time of chaos and upheaval. And we ask for You to help us live to please You. Help us to see opportunities to share Your love, truth, gospel, and kindness with hurting people who desperately need You.

Amen!

Much love, dear sisters! ❤

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Let’s keep our comments focused on the Lord not any party or politician, please. Thank you so much!

9 comments

  1. Thank you for this. I have a strong trust in gods sovereignty but have found myself fallen into a sadness over all this. I think Bc there were so many believers praying and I guess I expected god to move in a certain decisive way to show wickedness wouldn’t prevail. I think it’s a sense of disappointment I can’t seem to shake right now.

    1. Jeanne,

      Sometimes God delays His answer in order to bring about more glory and greater good for His people. It is tempting to feel despair as we see the extremely divided state of our nation and how so many seem hell-bent on rebelling against God. We know where that leads for nations who forsake the Lord.

      And yet, we also know that God is with us. His Word is true. His promises are sure. And He is faithful to those who love and trust in Him.

      Perhaps the church will be humbled. Perhaps both political parties will be humbled.

      Perhaps we will see things get worse first in order to do things we can’t begin to imagine. Sometimes people have to get to a pretty low point to repent and turn to God. We may not be there yet.

      Let’s invite God to move in His way and in His time. He knows what is best for believers and for America. He will never fail.

      1. PS
        It is a sad situation. I think it is totally appropriate to feel grieved over the spiritual state of our country and over the division and hatred. How we need the Lord’s healing!

  2. Agreed April 🙂 It is hard when it seems that we look for God but see only evil always seeming to prevail. And yet I think that we are in a spiritual situation that is extremely similar to what happened between Elijah and Jezebel, and the false prophets who ate at her table. A false gospel had been brought into Israel, bringing corruption and deception. Jezebel was wicked and her husband compromising and cowardly and that robbed the nation of truth and justice. Just as today, there is a false gospel in our churches and corruption in many places and people’s hearts have been led astray. In 1 Kings 18, the contest between the true and false God is staged. The part that really stood out to me was this: 1 Kings 18:36-38. Notice what verse 37 says about what God is doing.

    36At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: “O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command.37Answer me, O LORD, answer me, so these people will know that you, O LORD, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.”38Then the fire of the LORD fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.

    Many around me are saying that the rapture is about to happen and there will be no more revivals prior to this. These seem to love debating pre trib, post trip and that sort of thing. That may be true. It is possible that the idea of a great awakening is a false peace sort of thing. It is also possible that this is a sort of ” As long as I have my comfy berth on the Ark, if you aren’t saved by then , oh well” sort of thing as well. But this is what I feel in my heart. We are in a generation that is almost biblically illiterate. Even in christian churches some studies show that a very low percentage even know what a biblical worldview actually is or who hold one. Our people do not have the slightest notion or experience of the Holy or of obedience nor do they understand why the cross is necessary or live from it . It is most often barely mentioned. They do not know their right hand from their left so commonplace is sin in our culture. Few were raised with any understanding of the bible or God.

    Look what God says of corrupt Nineveh to whom He sent the resistant Jonah: Jonah 4:11
    And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?

    I think not knowing between your right or your left is the same as having lost all sense of the boundaries between right and wrong, good and evil, as if there wasn’t a real God.

    I pray that my felt sense is right and that it is God who pointed out this verse to me, and that this is indeed God’s desire for there to be a genuine awakening of the kind that has the scales fall from eyes and hearts and people on their faces crying out for forgiveness and mercy. My sense is that there needs to be a clear blast of the trumpet as far as the distinguishing between the Holy and the profane in our day. This generation is almost it seems without a truly biblical witness to Who God is, what He requires and what righteousness and truth look like and what grace is, and is not though here and there , there are voices crying out saying ” this is not the ancient way, turn aside”. The ancient pathways need to be restored to view, though satan has tried to rub out all the evidence that there even is such a thing. The church must return to her moorings in Christ and roots in holiness. God come, pour out Your Holy Spirit upon us we ask! Lord save all these including us who will perish apart from You, grant us Your mercy and passion for souls that we would live for You and You alone and nothing else and save us from these idols, passions and desires that blind and block and turn aside that we may be yet again fit vessels for your service.

    1. SevenTimes,

      It is upsetting when it seems like evil is winning. And yet, we know that ultimately, God will deal with evil in total justice and righteousness.

      God always wants all people to repent and turn to Him and be saved – 1 Tim. 2:4. That is His greatest desire for each precious person He created. What extreme lengths He went to for us to make a way for us to call on Him and be saved!

      He has graciously extended a long period of time to America for us to repent of our sin and turn to Him. We, overall, have not done that. There will be a point at which time will be over and judgment will fall.

      I don’t know God’s plans. But it could be that we are about to go through a purifying fire as the church and as a country. Perhaps that is what it takes for many to turn to God. How I long to see us all turn to the Lord while there is time.

      Sometimes it is a painful path that takes us to a place of blessing.

      Thank you for praying with me!

    1. Martha M,

      It is very possible for us to make a politician into an idol, something/someone we trust more than God.

      I believe this is a time of humbling for the church and believers. I believe we will be entering into a difficult time of purification, but it is much needed.

      I also believe this may become a time of humbling for both parties and our entire nation soon.

      Most of all, may God be glorified!

  3. Hi April,
    Thanks for this hopeful and positive post.
    I just made the mistake of going to a pro-life website and looking at the comments. I was unprepared for the onslaught of hatred and anger towards those who voted pro-choice. Pro-life Christians are meant to be hoping and loving people but so many of us succumb to hatred, anger and bitterness very quickly. I plan to stay away from pro-life websites for a while. I don’t want my heart to be infected by such malice.
    I pray that all people would focus on loving God, loving others and making the world a better place.
    May we all focus on scripture because the word of God is all good news.
    May we focus on purifying our hearts and being peaceful and hopeful even in the most terrible circumstances.
    May we seek our security in Christ and Christ alone and not in any human being.
    May we be people of prayer.

    Nneka

    1. Nneka,

      I am very sad to hear this report. 🙁

      We can’t win people to Jesus with hatred. Only with God’s love and kindness.

      May God forgive us and help us see our sin that we might repent. May He refine us to make us more like Jesus and fruitful for His kingdom.
      This world needs us to be salt and light. We can’t act like the world and be a godly witness for Jesus to the world.

      Thank you for your prayers and encouragement.

      Much love in Christ!

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