I was asked by a caller this morning to publish today’s daily devotional on my blog so here it is:

A New Beginning

Today we inaugurate Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States of America. This makes the 44th time in our great history that power is willingly handed over from one man to another. Many people are praying for Barack Obama to be successful; I am not doing so in an unattached manner. I do not approve of his agenda but God has seen fit to allow this man to lead our nation. Others are praying that President Obama fails; I will not do that either because his fall will be cushioned by our country. So I will pray that he surrenders his life to Jesus Christ and/or he is influenced by godly men and women such as Daniel of the Old Testament influenced pagan kings.

I know Barack Obama professes to be a born again Christian but much like others who have professed Jesus as savior he does not produce the fruit of which Jesus spoke:

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them.”
(Matthew 7:15-20)

I have been told that I should give the new president a chance before I begin opposing him. If I were to do that indiscriminatingly, then I would not be the salt and light Jesus has called me to be. President Obama has clearly stated intended policies that are unbiblical and I must stand in the gap. Nevertheless, I will pray that God in His sovereignty will use President Obama to bring the much needed revival to our nation.

We the People have for far too long relied upon man. We believe that our rights come from government when the Declaration of Independence clearly states that we “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” To have unalienable rights means that those rights are “incapable of being repudiated or transferred to another.”

Many secularists will state that no where in the Declaration of Independence or the US Constitution is the word “God” used and while this is technically correct, it is intellectually dishonest. Even a half-hearted search of the Founding Fathers will uncover a clear and unequivocal belief in the God of the Bible and the Lord Jesus Christ.

At 12:01pm eastern standard time many people are going to believe that salvation has come to America with Barack Obama’s spoken words, “So help me God.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Salvation has come to mankind not with a new resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue today but by an empty tomb over two thousand years ago.

When Mary Magdalene and other women went to the tomb on that Sunday morning to properly care for Jesus’ body they found it empty:

“Then they went in and did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. And it happened, as they were greatly perplexed about this, that behold, two men stood by them in shining garments. Then, as they were afraid and bowed their faces to the earth, they said to them, ‘Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen!’”
(Luke 24:3-6a)

I wonder if Jesus would not ask America why we as a nation seek the eternal among the temporal. Our Founding Fathers clearly did not trust man and set this nation up to be lead and represented by men of virtue, notwithstanding check and balances against such men. In 1802 Judge Nathaniel Freeman addressed the Massachusetts Grand Jury thusly:

“The laws of the Christian system, as embraced by the Bible, must be respected as of high authority in all our courts and it cannot be thought improper for the officers of such government to acknowledge their obligation to be governed by its rule . . . Our government originating in the voluntary compact of a people who in that very instrument profess the Christian religion, it may be considered, not as republic Rome was, a Pagan, but a Christian republic.”

I have been told by well-meaning and not so well-meaning people that my Christian belief should not be a litmus test for whom I vote and again this is contrary to our Founding Fathers. John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court and an author of the Federalist Papers, wrote in 1816:

“Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.”

While we should clearly choose Christian men and women, but if not then at the very least those who embrace biblical principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to represent us.

But even then we as a nation will not survive nor thrive. We the people must be ruled by law, law given to us through God’s written word. It is through the word that a confused yet errantly confident and cocky 23 year old man saw that all he believed about salvation was nothing more than a figment of my imagination. I got saved by reading the Bible because I was seeking the truth no matter where it took me and God’s Word showed that all my works were but filthy rags.

When I realized that even my best by itself was unacceptable to a holy and perfect God, I knew I needed a Savior, one that would redeem me. As Sherri Martin said at lunch yesterday, why would I choose works over grace? Give me grace every time!

If we are to experience the new beginning in America that some 62 million Americans believe will come because of President Obama, we must understand that it will not come because of him. No, it will come because as a nation we have reeducated ourselves on the biblical principles and values that inspired the birth of our nation. And when we as a nation turn back to the Bible to seek the truth and understand our responsibilities as We the People then we will invite God back into our lives and will experience the revival that comes whenever God is among us. And once we have revival in our nation, a new spiritual great awakening, then we will have a spiritual revolution that throws off the shackles of oppressive evil and we once again become the nation of which Abraham Lincoln spoke in his Gettysburg Address:

“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

If we the people will each seek our own personal new beginning in our relationship with Jesus Christ, then our nation will indeed have the new beginning that the majority of this country seeks in its new president.

But if not, then this nation shall labor in vain.

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