“I Begins With Me”


BIBLE READING: 2 Chronicles 5-7

        We want God to heal our land, and we want our nation to change. But as we look at the problems in our country, we want to point at someone else a lot of times. We say the problems are due to Washington, DC, or Hollywood or the White House. But God says the source of the problems is His house, the church.
God lays out His prescription in 2 Chronicles 7:14: “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
Notice God says, “If My people who are called by My name . . .” He doesn’t say a thing about secular culture. He talks to His own people. That is you. That is me. “If My people . . .”
I think one of the problems in our nation today is there are a lot of people running around who think they are Christians, but they really are not. In fact, the Bible says, “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified” (2 Corinthians 13:5 NKJV). Or, as the J. B. Phillips New Testament puts it, “You should be looking at yourselves to make sure that you are really Christ’s.”
Then there are those who are living a double life. They put on a good performance at church. They say all the right things. But they are living a life that is completely contradictory to what the Bible says about how a Christian ought to live.
A spiritual awakening starts with God’s people. It starts with you and me.
                                                                                                                                                                              -Greg Laurie

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