Hello Beloved Readers,
This morning our hearts go out to all the families of those killed and wounded in the 911 attack upon our nations. You are continually in our prayers, and we pray God is comforting you and restoring you and your families in your great loss.
We also pray for our military and their families that are serving so faithfully in Iraq and Afghanistan protecting us and our freedoms while they bring freedom and liberty to those in need. Of course we also pray for our police and fire fighters and first responders families that their loved ones lost their lives that day so tragically.
I don't know about you, but seeing these events again on Fox News this morning re-awakened in me the call for this nation to truly change our ways. We are not the great evil empire many liberals and those who hate the United States suggest. There is no other nation on the planet who has given more to help the people in the world than our nation. We have been a kind and generous nation to the peoples of the world.
I wish the countries that we have sent help, aid, and support to would remember not just our faults, but also the goodness of the American people. They may not like some of our politicians or even our policies sometimes, but they must not forget that God has blessed this nation to be a light in the midst of darkness and help to those who are helpless.
This brings me to my topic this morning to discuss with you. Have we in America forgotten what happened on 9/11/2001? I for one will never forget. I was up early that day in Sam's club getting some supplies for the ministry. I happened to walk by the TV department to see a few people gathering around the TV. I stood there for many minutes when I saw the horror of the 2nd jet fly into the World Trade Center.
When I saw that, I ran home to call my wife to tell her, and I then called my mom and sister and all I knew to make sure they were OK. I didn't know what else was going to happen. Were we safe in our home and schools in Florida? I called the schools to see what they were going to do with the children. The school system decided to let the children out at noon. You better believe I was at their schools ready to pick them up and keep them safe at home.
We all wept at the loss of life and the potential loss of life as the buildings collapsed before our eyes. We were in shock, not just for a day, but for weeks and months, our eyes glued to the TV set. I never kept the TV on at night, but since that day I keep the TV on every night. I can't sleep with out it on now. I wanted to keep alert, be sober, and vigilant to protect and keep safe my family.
Who is to blame for the 9/11 attack? It depends what side of the political spectrum you listen to or whatever religious belief you may have. For me 9/11 was a warning to our nation, to the church in America that our covering from the Lord was being lifted because of the sin that is in our midst.
It would be easy to say it is the secular humanist, atheist, or even Liberals in our nation to be the cause of our decline. It would be easy to accuse the abortionist and the Liberal woman's movement and Planned Parenthood. It would be easy to blame our politicians? Do they have a blame for our present condition in our nation? I will let you decide that.
Dear reader, when we look a little closer though we may have pointed a finger outwardly at others and say "they are the cause" of 9/11. But what about us? Can we see we have 4 more fingers pointing back at us?
Let me make this clear, the people who flew those jets and those who planned it are the "legally responsible" ones for this tragedy, NO ONE ELSE! Our political policies in other nations are not the cause. George Bush or Bill Clinton, or Republicans or Democrats or even the need for oil is the cause.
The actions of these people who did this attack speak for themselves. No matter what their grievance against our nation, killing innocent men, woman and children speaks loudly about their character and nature as people. They legitimize killing innocent people for a political end. There is no justification for any such action as human beings or in any other kind of religion that calls God as their God.
Dialogue, discussion and argument, forgiveness and love could have served their causes much better than killing. People kill because it represents power to them, and that is the reason basic and simple.We must cut through the rhetoric and see the Bible says, "Thou shall not kill." That is a basic tenant of God!
I am not going to debate war, killing or any such thing in this blog, but I want to ask you a question on this day of memorial. Did the church in the USA miss our wake up call? Did we miss our moment to truly repent of the sin in our lives, our families or our churches?
To answer that question we need to look at the fruit in the church since that time? Dear Reader, are you doing anything differently in your walk with God since 9/11? Did you and your family repent of the sin in your life or the lukewarmness that may be in your hearts? Did the Holy Spirit show you that perhaps we have a dead form of religion instead of a true deep abiding relationship with God? Has your church changed or done anything differently now than you did 8 years ago? Did the whole body of believers in your church come together in repentance of our sins like Daniel did for the nation of Israel?
Are you or your church broken over the condition of the church in America? Are you broken that we have deserted our first love? How about that we have put the second commandment above the first and we have worshiped the created thing (our church) above our Creator? Better yet, what about our sin of Babel in the church filled with competition and strife where we have said, " I will make a name for myself or ministry or a tower that will reach into heaven?"
Beloved, Do you pray more now than you did 8 years ago? Is your church meeting daily for prayer? Is there anyone weeping between the porch and the alter as we are commanded in Joel chapter 2 to do, and rend our hearts and not our garments? Are we Pastor's and Leaders doing exactly the same thing today as we did 8 years ago?
Are you services being held in the same way you did then? Are you still getting people home in time for dinner? Are your services still 5- 7 songs, 10 minutes of announcements, 20-30 minutes of preaching, 10 minutes of prayer and out the door we go? Are you still setting the length of time and days of your services? Are you still not allowing the Holy Spirit to have full access to your meetings in worship, prayer and ministry?
Are the people in your church more in love with Jesus than they were 8 years ago? How about you, Pastor? Have you grown closer in your walk with God over these last 8 years? Are you preparing your people to watch, be sober and vigilant? Are you teaching them not for the day of the Lord to come upon them unawares or as a thief in the night?
Can the people God has placed under your care hear the Lord's voice for themselves and follow Him daily? Have they developed a deep sensitivity to the Holy Spirit? Have they learned to wait upon Him for His instructions and directions for their lives? Are they becoming more mature and now teachers as the Apostle admonishes the church that they should be? Have they grown past the elementary doctrines of faith found in Hebrews 6? Are your people ready to lay down their whole life for Christ?
Dear reader, How many times did you answer yes to these questions? If the answer to these questions had more no than yes, we are still in serious trouble as a church in America. If this is true, than we have missed our wake up call to truly repent of the sin in our life, the church and this nation up to this day.
Why is not 2 Chronicles 7:14 bringing our national CHRISTIAN leadership together to repent until we are changed as a Body of Christ and a nation. We talk about it and even preach about it, but we don't do it. Our national church leadership is pointing us to blessings, signs and wonders, Christian movies, politics and more. What they are not doing is bringing the church of Jesus Christ in the USA to it's knees and truly repent of our double mindedness, and our having a love affair with the world as found in the book of James.
In the last 8 years, repentance is still a dirty word for most of the church today. We have said as the Laodecian church has said, "we are rich and in need of nothing?" Does anyone else in the Body of Christ see that we as God's people are truly poor, blind, pitiable and naked as Jesus said?
If the tragedy of 9/11 did not wake up the church to repent with a lasting call to change, what will it take for us to have this lasting change? Do we have to experience a worse national tragedy than this?
Beloved, I have been writing and warning that the North Winds of Adversity are now beginning to sweep over our nation. These winds reflect situations and circumstances that God will allow to cause us to see our true state before Him to give us a chance to repent and change. We don't need to experience another 9/11 if we will "today, hear His voice, and not harden our hearts!"
I happen to listen to Glen Beck's radio show yesterday, he a professing Mormon spoke on the radio about him and his co-workers fasting and praying last Saturday for our nation? He is a Mormon? He is fasting and praying, what about us? What are we doing American Church? What are we seeing today 8 years later after this terrible attack?
Our country is in great need, and we are in the most serious collision course we have ever been on. Yet the church who is called to be a House of Prayer for the Nations doesn't even have to time to fast and pray. We can't even find people to help us pray at our 24/7 prayer center for this kind of prayer and seeking the Lord.
We have met many Pastors and Leaders who say it is a good idea to have this kind of Center, but not one church has joined in laboring with us to pray for our region, city, churches, and leaders accept on the National or Global Day of prayer or a "prayer event." Why is that? Are we too funny looking or something?
Beloved, Prayer events are great, but they are like shooting stars that light the sky only for a moment. We need a continuous city, state and national prayer movement that will shake heaven and change earth. Why are we not doing it? Because we say I am OK, your OK? We refuse to believe we have sinned against God. We refuse to believe that God is hardly even welcome in our meetings? We refuse to believe that our services and meetings are now "user friendly" instead of God friendly.
Our churches are wonderful places for people to come, but awful for God's presence to come too! We have put the needs of men above the needs of our God who needs us to love Him with our whole heart, soul, mind and strength.
Church in America, did we miss our wake up call? Did we miss our moment? Is there still time to repent and change? Can God burn 2nd Chronicles 7:14 in all of our hearts? Will we do it? Will we come together as one voice, one church and one people and repent of our wicked ways and turn from them? Will we seek his face and humble ourselves so He will heal our land?
Let 9/11/2009 be a call to truly turn our hearts back to God and to know His ways. Let it be a time we can begin to say, "search me oh God and see if there be any wicked way in me." Let this memorial 2009 be a time where we "His priest" minister between the porch and the alter with fasting, weeping until every hindrance of broken fellowship with God is restored.
Only then can this nation and the church in the USA be the light we have been called to be in the world. It is not too late, but time is growing shorter. If you are one that God is touching today, please write to me at henry@iamtucson.org. Let is start with you.
We are going to start a national repentance prayer network of prayer warriors starting this month. If you will join us in this national call of repentance, please let me know. I will be writing more details about this shortly.
May God cause us to remember those families who lost their loved ones 8 years ago today, and those who have been wounded or loss their lives since them in our Armed Forces.
Let us remember the innocent civilians that lost their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq as well. Let us not forget what happened ever as our wake up call to truly repent in our nation.
God bless all of you, and God bless America!
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