In God We Trust
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 I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
On September 15, 1940, the Reverend Peter Marshall gave a sermon entitled, “Why Should God Bless America.” With the war in Europe raging and fears rising that the United States might get pulled into the conflict, he offered these words that are as powerful today and they were then:
“The plea of the Church today is not that people shall call upon God to return to our democracy and bless it…but rather that we shall together cause our democracy to return to God and be blessed.
Let us remember that we are a republic under God…let us remember that on each of our metal coins we have stamped a statement which must not be permitted to become a lie or an infamous blasphemy.
‘In God we trust’…so speak the coins that rattle in our pockets.
What does it mean to trust in God? Certainly, no conception of trust in God can ever make any sense until we understand that He will only prosper our ways and bless us when our ways begin to be His ways…and we begin to keep the conditions He has laid down for nation blessing…
- humility
• a commitment to pray
• seek God’s face
• turn from our wicked ways
We cannot fool God…let us not be deluded into thinking we can fool ourselves.”
Dear Father in heaven, how foolish we are these many years later, in assuming that You will bless our nation without any willingness or action on our part to take seriously what is required of us. We humbly beg your forgiveness for offending You and for our arrogance in thinking it doesn’t matter what we think, say or choose to do. We acknowledge our wicked ways that go against your precepts. Turn our cold, hardened hearts into soft flesh to be molded into Christlikeness. And we commit to pray, in Your holy name, for our democracy to return to You, and to be blessed. To God be the glory. Amen.
As a devoted Christ-follower, Marsha has walked this twisting, winding, bumpy road called life, giving her many opportunities to serve Him. Besides owning and managing a Tea business for twenty-two years, her focus has been to minister to women as a leader, teacher, mentor and public speaker.
At this point in her life, she has a great sense of urgency to share the love of Christ with men and women from all walks of life through the written word. She has been married for 56 years and is the mother of two married daughters and grandmother of four.
You can contact her through her Devotions For All Reasons Facebook page, the website of the same name, as well as: Tea For All Reasons, Food For All Reasons (both shared with her daughter, Jen) and England For All Reasons, shared with her husband, Jake
“WHERE IS YOUR FAITH?” (A TESTIMONY OF HEALING FROM MY FRIEND)
ONCE when I was feeling afraid about a physical trouble, I opened the Bible and started reading about Jesus Christ and his disciples, caught in a storm at sea. The disciples were frantic, afraid they might not survive. Not Jesus. He rebuked the violent elements, and the storm stopped. Then he asked his students, “Where is your faith?”1 That question seemed to look me right in the eye, so to speak. “Where is your faith?” it demanded. “In God–or in the difficulty you’re facing? In the promise of healing or in the prospect of failure? Where is your faith?”
Mentally I sat up straight, amazed to discover at that moment that I had plenty of faith, all right–but it was all in the wrong place! I had faith that I couldn’t master the ailment. Faith it would go on forever. Even faith it might do me in. So much faith in the trouble and so little in God!
This was a sobering realization, since my natural inclination was to trust God. I didn’t want to dishonor Him by doubting His care. After all, through studying and practicing the teachings of the Bible , I had experienced many proofs of His healing love, enough to be convinced that I could count on His help at all times. So rather than feel afraid, I could draw on my understanding of God’s invariably good nature, withdraw my faith in the difficulty, and place it entirely in Him. That’s what I did, and I was healed.
If you’re facing a challenge and feeling uncertain and maybe afraid, you too may want to ask yourself, “Where is my faith?” Is it in the prospect of a bleak future? In the specter of relentless suffering? Are your hopes for happiness and healing placed in the charismatic personality of a mortal or in material things like drugs and diets?
The point is, any confidence we place in the human mind undercuts our faith in God and thus cripples our ability to demonstrate His saving power in our lives. This is why it helps to identify any areas of misplaced faith, anything where something other than God’s goodness is occupying our thought. Then, as we re-channel our trust to the side of God, we’ll find we’re able to master life’s difficulties with greater poise and certainty. Our ability to practice Christian healing for ourselves and others will proportionately increase.
A growing faith in God is a sure sign of spiritual progress. It means that the invisible things of Spirit are becoming more real to us than the visible things of earth. The New English Bible translates the passage “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”3 in this way: “Faith gives substance to our hopes, and makes us certain of realities we do not see.” Faith gives us the courage to persevere through those times when, to the material senses, there may be no outward sign of progress.
If we’re consistently short on faith, though, this doesn’t mean we are unworthy of redemption and healing. It does mean, however, that we need to get to know God better. We need to gain a more spiritual view of existence.
The faith that heals isn’t the exclusive privilege of select individuals; it’s something every sincere person can attain, since it grows out of understanding God. And everyone can come to understand God.
Your friend -His servant,
Isaac Otieno