Sermon following 911

Standing On The Promises Introduction

Tuesday, September 11th, 2001 will live in our memories forever. The images of those hijacked planes crashing into the twin towers of the World
Trade Center will be etched on our hearts and souls from now on. The sites and sounds of that attack, the pain, anguish and grief of that day will stalk our dreams and haunt the security of our daily lives from now till the day all terrorists are brought to justice.

Make no mistake; I agree with president Bush and so many others. This was an act of the worst kind of evil. This was an evil act of cowardice. What they did is completely unthinkable. We all understand the whole idea of sacrifice. We understand the giving of your life to further a cause. Our Savior did that. And our country honors the heroes of our nation who gave their lives for the freedom we enjoy.

But the difference is, that Jesus, the innocent Son of God, died on the cross so that both the innocent and the guilty wouldn’t have to die. Rather than letting us all die, He did the ultimate selfless thing. He offered Himself as a sacrifice for our sins. He didn’t take 5000 plus innocent bystanders with Him. There was noth9ng selfless about the acts of these terrorists. This was an act of unmitigated, premeditated murder.

You know, the sad thing is that we worship the same God. Jews, Christians and Muslims should be brothers and sisters. We are, Biblically. We worship the same God. And, for the life of me, I can’t see anywhere in Scripture or in the Koran where God would or could condone such an event or such tactics. If these terrorists think God has led them to do this, then I believe the enemy has deceived them.

So, what do we do? How do we constructively vent our anger and deal with our grief and frustration? How do we cope? How do we go on?

As his title suggests, David’s message today says, I think, is that the only thing we have right now is our faith and the promises of God. And through our faith we’re called to STAND ON THE PROMISES OF GOD.


STANDING ON THE PROMISES


We’re called to STAND ON THE PROMISIES, STAND ON OUR FAITH, and AND STAND TOGETHER.

Scripture is full of the promises of God. Psalm 119 is full of many promises that we need to remember. ……………. Listen to theses promises from the portion of our readings this week. Our youth will read the selected verses from Psalm 119 verses 73 through 144.

Youth

Let us pray.

Dear lord guide my words so that they may be a blessing to you.
Open ears so they may hear your word in your name amen.



These promises just read, remind us that we belong to God. It is God’s hands which “have made and fashioned us” as verse 73 says.
This passage reminds us that God is still in charge. Verse 89 says “the lord exists forever” and 144 says, God’s decrees “are righteous forever”.

God has never given up the reins….. God’s never surrendered the driver’s seat……. God has never relinquished the helm to anyone else….. God is still in control…… God is still in the pilot’s seat…….And what we’re called to do is to search the scriptures……. We’re called to let the “word be a lamp to our feet and a light to our path”(verse 105)….. So that we can find those promises that speak of hope and strength and comfort…….. And when like the firm foundation which they are, we’re called to stand upon those promises and trust them as we trust God.

Let God and the word of God (as verse 144 says) “Be our hiding place and our shield.” Let us “hope in Gods Word.” STAND ON THE PROMISES OF GOD.


II Stand on our faith


As we stand on the promises of God we must also stand on our faith.


Our lives have been rocked. Everything that seemed so solid has been shaken.


The twin towers of the World Trade Center. The Pentagon, both Symbols of American strength and stability, have been taken out by terrorist attack. And there are the lives………..both those lost and those changed forever by the four homicidal jet crashes of 9-11. Through a network of connections that will unite us as families and friends and acquaintances across this country, every one of us has been affected by the devastation of that day. As Martin Luther King once said so well, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”



On September 11th, our world experienced horrors beyond any that we might have imagined. We are stunned and over whelmed by the scope and depth of such brutality. Our initial reactions were many: shock, repulsion, desperation, and fear.


Yet, WE ARE A PEOPLE OF PRAYER. Our fear does not immobilize us.
Pray for those whose lives have been so tragically altered.
Pray for our national leaders, prayerfully asking God to give them sound judgment and spiritual insight, so that their actions may be wise and just.
Pray for those who struggle with loss of job and economic jeopardy brought about or exacerbated by this attack.
Pray for the many heroes who give of themselves: police, firefighters, and many other unnamed servants who might have saved themselves, but who died so that others might live.
Pray for those in the military and their families.
Pray for ourselves. Pray that God will give us the faith and courage to pray for our enemy. Pray that God will continue to give us strength to witness to God’s truth of forgiveness and God’s true healing, remembering that we are God’s agents of reconciliation.

This is who we are, a people in prayer and a people of prayer.

WE ARE A PEOPLE OF LOVING DEEDS AND ACTS OF PEACE.

Raise our voices for, and reach out to, our Islamic and Arabic brothers and sisters. In the solidarity of love from the God of us all, offer a hug, a word, a kind gesture.
Let us initiate communal and collaborative prayer vigils and similar signs of solidarity and support with Mosques and other communities that may have been singled out for their race, Faith, and cultural background.
Let our pastors speak out against any and all acts of racial and ethnic mistreatment.
Let laity respond in ways that model compassion and grace, and encourage others to do the same.
Let us clearly demonstrate our connectedness as children of a loving God, to say by our action of love, that the people who claim the name of Christ will not tolerate bigotry toward and violence against our neighbor.


WE ARE PEOPLE OF PEACE.
Our rallying point is the cross of Christ and our outward activity is the Lord’s Supper where we partake of the body and blood of Christ.
We deplore war and urge the peaceful settlement of all disputes among nations.
God calls us to swim upstream against the tide of vengeful retaliation and instead, to seek peaceful alternatives to resolution, and to call our leaders to do the same.
Let our voices be raised to emphatically denounce any resort to nuclear, Chemical, or biological weapons, to hold that all human beings should live in a world free of such arms.
In the prayerful and thoughtful statements of our social principles, we honor those among us whose pacifist voice will never allow us to become complacent about war and violence. Also, we respect those who support the use of force in extreme situations when use of arms may be preferable to unchecked aggression, tyranny, and genocide. We are never satisfied that force of arms is the final answer without equal and connected efforts of restorative justice.
We claim that such justice only resides in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
In light of such horror, we continue with greater intensity our efforts to eradicate poverty, which is the fertile ground for hopelessness, hate, and violence, in so many places.
We honor those who have fallen and we enter into that place of God’s healing, not through acts of vengeance or desires for retaliation, but through our actions of love, through our point of prayer, and through our continuing movement into the life of the risen incarnate Christ.


And so we mourn - mourn the fatalities and the casualties, as well as out own loss of innocence. We have been attacked, and will never feel completely safe again.

But there is one thing we can do, one term we should remember: SCATANA. --- SCATANA is a term for a special military operation, meaning Security Control of Air Traffic And Navigation Aids. In a time of national crisis, all civilian airlines go to the ground, and all military aircraft go in to the air, to provide for strong defense.

On Tuesday 911 the Federal Aviation Administration closed all the nation’s airports for the first time in history. SCATANA. As Christians, we may not have a role in the grounding of any aircraft, but in a time of crisis we are challenged to practice a kind of spiritual SCATANA: To go to the ground, the ground of our being, the foundation of our faith, God, our Creator and Redeemer.

Though jets should crash….. though buildings should crumble……though countless lives should be lost God is in our midst. God is walking with every family who has lost a loved one. God is walking with every person shaken by this attack. God’s heart is just as broken by this travesty against the innocent as ours. God is with us. And God will help us when the morning dawns.

The promise of verse 89 is God remains in control “The lord exist forever: Gods word is firmly fixed in heaven.”

At a time like this we have to go the ground, to the solid ground of our creator, Redeemer and sustainer. The foundation of our faith, God. It’s the only place of any strength and stability.


The second aspect of SCATANA for us, is to prepare a strong defense. Now I don’t mean for us to get in attack mode. That’s the last thing I mean. I think it’s time for us to take our faith seriously. To live it seriously and radically. It’s time for us to live the promise and the teaching of Jesus like we’ve never lived them before.

I read an e-mail that said the Christian faith has gotten so diluted by the commercialism of America and our need for the best and brightest and newest of everything that WWJD, now stood for WHAT WOULD JESUS DRIVE. I know they meant it in jest but it got me to thinking, I’d give up all my toys if I could bring those folks back.


Now is the time for us to get on the defensive through a radical living of our faith. Now , more than ever before, we need to ask WHAT WOULD JESUS DO. We need to be intentional in our walk of faith. Not so we’re ready if anything happens but because right now people are turning to God looking for answers.

Some of those folks have what has been called fear faith or foxhole faith, faith developed in the middle of a crisis. But we know from the parables of Jesus, that often times, that kind of faith shoots up and withers or is choked out by the weeds unless it is nurtured.


We need to live our faith in such a way that our lives are a witness so that we don’t become one of those weeds. We need to live our faith in such a way that it inspires others to walk a little closer to God. We need to live our faith so that others can see that God does make a difference, through the difference they see God making in us,


As we STAND ON THE PROMISES OF GOD, let us also STAND ON OUR FAITH.



III STAND TOGETHER

And finally, we’re called to STAND ON THE PROMISES of GOD, STAND ON OUR FAITH, and STAND TOGETHER.

We need to remember who we are and where we live. We need to remember that this is the land of the free. A land where people of different backgrounds, races, nationalities and religions have come seeking freedom. We can’t let a group of morally bankrupt fanatics take away the one thing that unites us, our freedom by oppressing any group of people.


We can’t take on a mob mentality. We can’t start witch-hunts, going after anyone who looks middle-eastern. We can’t let hate groups have the final say. We can’t allow retaliation against the innocent or we sink to the level of those who perpetrated this against us. We proclaim that we’re different than that. We proclaim that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. Now we have to STAND TOGETHER and NOT STAND for the idiotic acts of hate that have been happening.


Don’t get me wrong, I think we ought to hunt these people down. I think we should be like hound’s on the sent of their prey. I think we ought to go after them with every resource we can muster.

Once we find them, and I don’t have a dought that we will, we need to bring them to justice. Not vengeance, that belongs to God, but good old American justice.


We’re called to STAND ON THE PROMISES OF GOD, STAND ON OUT FAITH, and AND STAND TOGETHER.

There is a word that God will be with us in all circumstances. “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For thought art with me.” Psalm 23

Those who walk in the assurance that God is with them can live at peace in the world of today. They can lie down at night and sleep the peaceful rest. They can see a future out there. They do not rely upon themselves but seek the direction of God in their lives. While all this is going on they live out to the best of their ability the law of love.



In closing:

Maybe you saw the poem that a nine-year-old girl wrote. Rachel Engelland was troubled by the events of 911, just like all of us. Her parents Shawn and Sandra Engelland helped her try to understand what was going on and help her through the trauma. On Wednesday, Rachel’s teacher talked about patriotism, they sang the national Anthem and she told the kids to write in the journals.





Rachel wrote a poem she titled, :”It All Came At Such A Cost.” It goes like this



“Yes a lot of lives were lost”
It came at such a cost.
There wasn’t anything one could do.
But I hope you know I’m praying for you.
Yes, those lost were loved the most,
But if we hold hands from coast to coast,
And sing, sing, sing,
Let the Church bells ring, ring, ring,
We’ll lift each other up so high.
We’ll soar like eagles in the sky.
All the nations will see how we behave.
We’re the home of the free and home of the brave!
The World Trade Center is gone, lives are lost,
It all came at such a cost.

Rachel said she: “wrote it to comfort people,” And I believe it does does.

Yes, they destroyed some of the premises and put some of us in panic mode. Yeah they took innocent lives. Yeah they shook the foundation of our sense of security and certainty. But we stand on the Promises of God for comfort, for strength, for guidance, for hope, for help, for courage. They can’t take that away. And they can’t take our freedom. STAND ON THE PROMISES of GOD, STAND ON OUR FAITH, and STAND TOGETHER.


This is the word of the lord to day



As we turn in our Hymnals to page 374 Standing on the promises, think about how certain it is that we can leave this earth very unexpectedly, if we are not ready there will not be another chance. Receiving Christ involves turning to God from self (a spirit of repentance) and trusting Christ to come into our lives to forgive us of our sins and make us what he wants us to be. Just to agree intellectually that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that he died on the cross for our sins is not enough. Nor is it enough to have an emotional experience. We receive Jesus Christ by faith, as an act of our will. If you feel Christ pulling at your heart you can invite him in right now. God knows your heart so it doesn’t matter what words you use.
I will pray a small prayer now, you can pray along with me if you wish. Once you invite Christ into your heart he promises never to leave you.

Lord Jesus, I want to know you personally. Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life to you and ask you to come in as my savior and lord. Take control of my life. Thank you for forgiving my sin and given me eternal life. Make me the kind of person you want me to be. AMEN

Living Confessed Lives

by:toni smothers


Isaiah 6: 1-8
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were angels, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD ALMIGHTY: the whole earth is full of his glory”
At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD ALMIGHTY.” Then one of the angels flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

In God’s Presence, sin is revealed and sin is healed.

Isaiah knew immediately that he was unclean and unfit before God. He also knew that he lived among a people that were unclean as well. Isaiah’s sin was atoned for by a touch from the coals of the altar. God has atoned for our sin also by sending Jesus to take our guilt upon himself.

Only after the revealing and healing of sin, did Isaiah hear God speak. We cannot expect to hear from the Lord if we are not living confessed lives.

How often do we feel convicted when we come before God? We need to praise God for Jesus’ sacrifice for us and continually confess our sinfulness, asking the Lord to give us new hearts. Then, as cleansed children of God, we can claim the atonement given us by Jesus’ death and resurrection. Our loving Father waits for our true confession and repentance.

Take a moment now to speak to God and ask him to show you anything in your life that is separating you from His love and guidance.



Prayer:
Father, I thank you so much for Jesus and all that He has done to make it possible for us to come to you in full confidence that when we pray you will hear us and forgive us. We confess that we sometimes rationalize our sinfulness and disobedience to your laws and try to pretend that our sin is not so bad, or that You don't notice them, compared to others whose sin is more open and obvious. Please forgive us now, Lord, as we truly repent from all our pretense and rationalization about our sin. Please keep our spirits sensitive to your truth, keep us daily seeking to learn from your Word and help us learn to live more and more like Jesus everyday. Amen.

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Heart to Heart

Heart to Heart
By Toni Smothers

Suppose that one day you could be Jesus. Jesus wakes up in your bed, digs through your stuff to pack your bag of books you’ll need for the day at school. You still have the same problems, your room is still a disaster, your schedule is still hectic and nothing else about your life changes. You dress in your clothes and mumble, "I’m not hungry," to your mom as you leave for school. Or would you stop to appreciate that breakfast and even hug your mom before you go? Jesus’ heart would be yours and he would live your life for one full day. Imagine…

Just for this one day, you live your life with Jesus’ heart instead of your own. His passions would become yours. His love would direct your behavior. What would it be like? Would you look around the school yard just for your friends, dismissing all the regular mob of kids? Or would you find yourself smiling a little like a silly, giddy person, just caught up in the beauty of the day and the wonder of life? Would all the kids seem different? Would each one bring you joy as you casually pass by? How would you perceive the nerdy kids? Do you think you would still make fun of them or be jealous of the popular cover girl club? Any chance you’d feel less stressed, maybe need fewer Tylenol that day? Would you still dread math class? Would you still do what you normally do?

Would you stick to your schedule and still do what you had planned for the day? Take a second to think about a typical day. Would you live it the same way? With Jesus taking over your heart, would anything change?

Guess what? That’s exactly what God’s plan for you is. He wants you to think and act like Christ Jesus. "Your attitude should be the same that Christ Jesus had. Though He was God, he did not demand and cling to his rights as God. He made himself nothing; He took the humble position of a slave and appeared in human form." (Philippians 2:5-7 NLT)

God’s plan for you is nothing short of a new heart. Radical? You bet it is!

So, will your day include compassion towards that fat girl that everyone, including you, usually makes fun of in gym class? Will you be open to learning with an enthusiastic spirit and get all you can from the days work? You see, just because God loves you just the way you are, He won’t ever leave you this way. He wants so much more for you. There isn’t anything you can do to make God love you more or less, but there is so much He can do to help you love yourself and others better. With your heart filled with Jesus you can not act the same way as usual.

Try it out. Get up a little earlier tomorrow. Kneel at your bedside and speak to God. Ask Him to make your heart new. Ask for a heart like Jesus and ask for Him to stay with you all day long. Every time you even think of doing or saying something tacky, a silent tug at your heart will ask you to reevaluate. You don’t have to, of course, because He allows you your free will at all times, but you could choose to listen. You could choose to dump any ugliness for the joy of the Lord.

So what if someone snubs you and acts stupid. Forgive them and keep your joy. If your test score comes back lower than you’d hoped, determine to study more and ask God to help you in that area too. When you get PMS and want to just curl up in a little pity party, think of Christ hanging on the cross. Be nicer to everyone. By comparison, you might find a different perspective on those mood swings. Let every word in the Bible guide you until the words are written in your heart and you know that Jesus lives in you forever.

Christ was scorned by many yet He was ready to forgive everyone before they even asked for His mercy. Can you forgive those who have hurt you and move on? It’s so liberating to begrudge no one and choose love instead. Choose to lay aside what you think you’re entitled to. Rise to a higher standard of living.

Often people excuse selfishness, pride, or evil by claiming their rights. They think, "I can cheat on this test; after all, I deserve to pass this class," or "I can spend all this money on myself – I worked hard for it," or "I can get an abortion, I have a right to control my own body." But as believers, we should have a different attitude, one that enables us to lay aside our rights in order to serve others.

Remember, you can choose your attitude. You can approach life expecting to be served, or you can look for opportunities to serve others, just as Jesus did. Just keep on asking and He’ll help you make the right choices.
________________________________________
Toni Smothers is a child of God, wife, mom, grandmother, writer and lay-speaker. She has had serious exposure to the rougher side of life and from that experience has been left with a heart full of love for others who struggle with learning about our beautiful Savior. Through her writing, Toni delights in helping young people especially, who are seeking to find a true, intimate relationship with their Heavenly Father. You can write to Toni through the Your Letters page of this magazine.

Live in the light

Live in the Light
By Toni Smothers

We live in a culture that puts cell phones in almost every teen’s hip pocket or purse and computers in most of your bedrooms. The media bombards you with what to want, what to wear, what size to be and what is and is not cool. Decadence hides behind tolerance and many of you fall for its lure. Hormones rage, but pre-marital sex is sinful.

Are you kidding me?

Yes, I know that everyone you know is having sex – or at least they act like it. Yet, you know in your heart that abstinence is God’s way. Your skin suddenly looks like the surface of the moon and hipster jeans were not made for any normal body. But, they are cool, so you wear them anyway and just feel self-conscious all the time about the little pouch trying to roll over the top.

Although you can have freedom from sin’s confusion and walk in the light, all that sometimes gets mixed up with what to wear, what’s on the schedule and who is that new kid you saw sitting all alone in the cafeteria? He must be a loser.

Oops, that wasn’t nice. Maybe he’s just new. Well, you can’t worry about some strange kid with all that’s on your mind.

And the most amazing part about your "messed up" life is that in-between all that confusion, you can be so totally forgiven and at peace within yourself – sometimes you forget that.

How can you strive to become more like the One who died for you? How do you actually do that "walk in purity" scenario? It’s not like it comes naturally.

No, it’s not easy to deny yourself and often you don’t want to do the things your parents or other adults want you to do. They sometimes treat you like wind-up toys and the trouble is that half the time you don’t know which direction to go next. They wind you up with advice that seems overly simplistic, like, "Just say no", or "Remember you are a child of God." They honestly seem to think that your life’s nothing but fun and that your choices are easily made because you are a Christian. So, off you go into the real world where you are exposed to a great deal more than "fun". In the end, it’s mostly up to you to figure out how to do the right thing.

So how do you jump in with even a few of your own ideas or thoughts? Who do you trust with the boiling emotions within? Where do you turn when it all gets too much and you feel like you could just freak from the pressure?

Well, you need Jesus with you all the time. You need to make contact with Him though prayer every day. Tell Him what confuses you and find friends who will really be there for you. Check out your local church and Christian youth group. Stay connected to Christian fellowship.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Not every kid in that group is "for real" either, but you do have a better chance of hooking up with some genuine friends. You just might find some friends that don’t talk behind your back, or worse still, rag on you to your face. Then again, there are imposters everywhere in life and those kids aren’t perfect either. God is still working on us all.

So, what does a basically normal, striving-to-be-well-adjusted teenager do? Again I say, go to the source – Jesus who waits with baited breath for your love and worship. Give Jesus a chance and see if He isn’t everything He claims to be.

Know that Jesus doesn’t want to condemn you or make you feel like a failure. He does want you to see your need for Him though. We all mess up sometimes. Show me someone who has never lied, or swiped a few extra of something, or gossiped about others, or gone too far with the opposite sex, or any myriad of things and I’ll show you a mannequin. There isn’t any one of us that can claim to be continually walking in the light besides Jesus Christ. No one can do the right thing 24/7. So you’ll have to resist that prideful part of you that doesn’t want to admit mistakes and tell Him just what you have done in the past and ask for His forgiveness. Pour your heart out to the most compassionate man who ever walked the earth. He can renew you and fill you with his Holy Spirit.

A lot of teens blow the whole religion thing off. They figure that’s for the older generation. But don’t wait till later to find your destiny and purpose. Don’t miss today’s opportunities because you’re too busy to see them or too proud to search for them. Seek the Lord and all He has for you, just as you are. He will slowly guide you down paths that cleanse and restore your spirit. He is the only one who will love you and understand you unconditionally.

In Ephesians 5:16-17(NLT), it says, "So I advise you to live according to your new life in the Holy Spirit. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. The old sinful nature loves to do evil, which is just opposite from what the Holy Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are opposite from what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, and your choices are never free from this conflict."

And that’s why you need Jesus in your heart to talk to and to listen to – so you can make the right choices.


And, I have one other suggestion, try welcoming that new kid who looks lost and dorky. You know he’s got to be suffering with the way he sticks out, being all alone and with no one to befriend him. You may be the only one all day who tries to help him feel acceptance. He might even become a true friend. (Read this month’s article, ‘Where Eagles Soar’, and realize the kind of person you could be missing out on just because he doesn’t look cool and probably isn’t.) At the very least, you can do as Christ commanded in Matthew 25:40 (NLT), "And the King will tell them, I assure you, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me."


* * *


If you need a best friend, I highly recommend Jesus Christ our Lord. He will teach you how to be kind and how to cope.

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Toni Smothers is a child of God, wife, mom, grandmother, writer and lay-speaker. She has had serious exposure to the rougher side of life and from that experience has been left with a heart full of love for others who struggle with learning about our beautiful Savior. Through her writing, Toni delights in helping young people especially, who are seeking to find a true, intimate relationship with their Heavenly Father. You can write to Toni through the Your Letters page of this magazine.

This took Guts (although it shouldn't have)
This is absolutely great ! ! !


A Pastor with GUTS!

Thought you might enjoy this interesting
prayer given in Kansas at
the opening session of their Senate. It seems
prayer still upsets some
people.. When Minister Joe Wright was asked to open
the new session of the Kansas Senate, everyone was expecting the usual generalities, but this is




what they heard:

Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask
your forgiveness and to seek your direction and
guidance. We know Your Word says, 'Woe to those
who call evil good,' but that is exactly what we
have done.

We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed
our values.

We have exploited the poor and called it
the lottery.

We have rewarded laziness and called it
welfare..

We have killed our unborn and called it
choice.

We have shot abortionists and called it
justifiable.

We have neglected to discipline our
children and called it building self esteem....

We have abused power and called it
politics.

We have coveted our neighbor's possessions
and called it ambition.

We have polluted the air with profanity and
pornography and called it freedom of expression.

We have ridiculed the time-honored values
of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.

Search us, Oh, God, and know our hearts
today; cleanse us from every sin and set us free.
Amen!


The response was immediate. A number of
legislators walked out during the prayer in
protest. In 6 short weeks, Central Christian
Church, where Rev. Wright is pastor, logged more than
5,000 phone calls with only 47 of those calls
responding negatively. The church is now receiving
international requests for copies of this prayer
from India , Africa and Korea .

Commentator Paul Harvey aired this prayer on
his radio program, 'The Rest of the Story,'and
received a larger response to this program than any
other he has ever aired.


With the Lord's help, may this prayer sweep
over our nation and wholeheartedly become our
desire so that we again can be called 'one nation
under God.'

If possible, please pass this prayer on to
your friends.... 'If you don't stand for something,
you will fall for everything.'

Think about this: If you forward this
prayer to everyone on your
e-mail list, in less than 30 days it would be
heard by the world.

by Toni Smothers

Life was mute – Few rainbows.
And there were only puny, fleeting sunsets.
No time to notice anything, too many goals.
Too busy - Numb to love’s ever-flowing rhythm.
Trees and flowers swayed, giving beauty to each day.
So what?
God’s perfect truth, His essence – Was a distant myth.
My frozen granite heart knew better.
Life was for self, snatching moments, surviving.
The entire world cannot comfort one heart void of hope.
So what?
Busyness is foolishness – More unstable than whirlwinds.
Worse even than plain falsity, wherein dwells the Devil.
Funny - The evil one knew me well enough to swear he'd won me with his shiny dime.
So What?
So everything - At least according to the Lord.
The One God, Almighty - The author of it all - Creator extraordinaire!
He sent his answers well before I asked for them.
Turns out that I'm more precious than I’d ever dreamt - Jesus told me so.
Why did He care so much that he could not abide my anguish?
Why indeed?
Why had my God claimed me? If ever there was a good reason to ask, "Why me?" I know none better.
But claim me he did - His own, from the very first - Never to be lost again!
Remarkable!
He sweetly sailed thru every grief, searched me, and still He took me to Himself.
A place beyond rainbows, beyond sunsets, and far past shiny dimes.
Thank God!
Thank God for His perfect love, which sweetens all of life.
Its music plays a chorus within all hearts to hear.
Eyes see each sight and sound beam bright with promise.
And Grace and mercy transform all who would come –
Yes, even you - If you only will draw near!

WHAT

So here it is. What have we learned in 2,064 years? "The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance." - Cicero - 55 BC