Call His Name
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 forgive their sin and will heal their land. 2 Chronicles
7:14
Earlier
while I was praying I was taken by a verse in Scripture that used the
words, “Jesus Christ” not hard to find that name in Scripture, so
a bit odd that it would just stop me in my reading. I sat for a few
minutes just thinking about that name, about other verses about the
name. The two that kept running through my mind were Proverbs 18:10
where it says, “The name of the Lord is a strong tower, the
righteous run to it and are safe.” And Philippians 2:10-11, “that
at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and
under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.”
I
knew that there was a message in those verses for me and given a
current situation in my life I was pretty sure I knew what it was
until God focused me on the victims from the Orlando tragedy. For
days I have been seeing and hearing the word “senseless” used in
reference to that horror. At first glance it does seem senseless but
to that person who caused all that carnage there was more than sense,
there was purpose. It is a purpose I find abhorrent, but a purpose
nonetheless.
Here
in America, we've become so “tolerant” that God's people are
afraid to speak, afraid to stand up, lest they find themselves
bloodied and gasping for life. The people in that nightclub wear a
label that makes some want to point fingers, insist that they
couldn't possibly love God. I disagree. I do not know a single soul,
dead or alive, who was there that night. This I know, I am a
Christian, who loves, honors and adores my God but I am also a
sinner. If heaven forbid, an incident like this one, occurs in the
local grocery or cafe, I could be a victim as well. The people who
were killed were not killed because of their lifestyle. They were
killed because we've opened the door to the thief. John 10:10 says,
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have
come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (emphasis
mine) The thief comes only to do harm. He is bold. He doesn't wait
for invitations. He just barges in and yet, he doesn't have to work
that hard anymore. Why? Because we Americans have thrown the door
wide open for him. We're so busy pointing fingers at what we see as
another person's sin that we don't deal with our own. We judge far
more than we pray or love.
That
is not a condemnation of the life choices that are made by the people
who frequented that club. It is a condemnation of so called
Christians who throw the name of our Lord around as if it were used
tissue paper. It is a condemnation of people who confess Jesus with
their lips and walk out the door and deny Him with their lives, as
Brennan Manning so perfectly phrased it.
There
will always be people full of hate in the world but we are not
defenseless against them. If those of us called by God's name would
bow our heads and pray, love faster and far more often than we judge,
live as Jesus called us and taught us to live then, then we would see
more victory and less defeat.
We
cannot wring our hands, shake our heads and bemoan the fact that evil
is rampant in our world, in our very own country. We need to take it
back. We need to fight with the best weapon we have and that is
prayer. We need to wage war on our knees. We need to
stop pointing fingers and start raising hands in praise.
God's
Word says that if we humble ourselves and pray He will heal our land.
God never, ever lies. We need to take Him at His word and pray.
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