The Reason God Wants to Bless Our Country
With our Independence Day festivities, a lot of us will be belting out Irving Berlin’s classic song “God Bless America.”
God bless America, land that I love.
Stand beside her and guide her
Through the night with the light from above.
From the mountains to the prairies,
To the oceans white with foam,
God bless America, my home sweet home.
God bless America, my home sweet home.
And why not sing this song? We certainly want God to bless America! God has blessed America before, right? After all, we’re the greatest country in the world! [cue fireworks]
But why do we want God to bless America? We want the peace, the prosperity, and the ability to pick up a decent wi-fi signal. We want to maintain our lifestyles with our creature comforts, 401ks, and good coffee.
God has blessed America in so many ways. We are far from a perfect country. No one would dispute that our country is divided and has multiple problems to tackle, Nevertheless, I still see ways God has been gracious to us. But His blessing—His graciousness—is not for our own comfort and self-centered living.
As we get patriotic, let’s make this Old Testament prayer for the nation of Israel a prayer for America.
“May God be gracious to us and bless us; may he make his face shine upon us so that your way may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations” (Ps. 67:1-2).
As we pray this psalm, pay attention to the reason we make this our prayer: “… so that your way may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations.”
We are to take advantage of the ways God has blessed us so that we can make Him known. We are to spread the gospel! We have received so much at His hand, and let’s take advantage of that and use those blessings to share the gospel.
God wants to bless our country, but such blessing is not automatic. Consider a declaration God made to Solomon about the nation of Israel.
“If I shut the sky so there is no rain, or if I command the grasshopper to consume the land, or if I send pestilence on my people, and my people, who bear my name, humble themselves, pray and seek my face, and turn from their evil ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land” (2 Chron. 7:13-14).
This statement was to God’s chosen people, and I am not equating America with Old Testament Israel. However, there is a principle we can pull from this. Do we want God’s blessing on our lives? We will only experience that if we humble ourselves before Him, repent of our sin, and seek His face.
Too many of us want this to happen, and we pray it broadly for our country. But there will be no humility and repentance before God in our country until there is humility and repentance in our churches. And there will be no humility and repentance in our churches until it begins in our individual lives.
Until it begins in you.
Picture this. The people of God—individually and collectively—get right with God, and spiritual awakening spreads through our country. As a result, we experience God’s blessing, which leads to God’s exaltation and glory. Our prayer for blessing becomes a prayer for God’s blessing upon the whole of humanity.
“… so that your way may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations.”
God, we need you.
Subscribe to this blog at the top of the page! And encourage others by sharing this post.
For a printable version: click here.
This post supports the study “Praying for Our Nation” in Bible Studies for Life and YOU.
Podcast
Join Lynn Pryor and Chris Johnson as they discuss this topic:
Banner photo by Daniel Foster on Unsplash.
