Before We Ask God to Change America, Ask Him to Change Us

Jeremiah 7: 23-24 – “But this command I gave them: ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’ But they did not obey or incline their ear.

The heartbreaking part of the Old Testament is how hard God worked to draw the hearts of His people to Himself and how that over the generations they continued to reject Him. All God wanted was a people who would genuinely love Him. I think most of us can relate to that.

What most of us don’t understand and what the Jews didn’t understand was that God’s love language is obedience. That’s true for Jesus as well. Jesus said in John 14:21 “Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.” Then four verses later He said it in reverse in John14:25 “If you love me you will keep my commandments.”

Our loving submission and faithful obedience to His will is how God and Jesus define love for them. You may not like the way that sounds but God the Father and Jesus His son both said it. You’ll have to take that up with them.

It’s really kind of simple. God wants us to love Him enough to obey Him, but you can’t fake it, because He knows our hearts, just as He knew the hearts of the Israelites in Jeramiah’s day. Read Jeremiah Chapter 7 and see. The Jews were going through the motions. They attended the temple, participated in the worship, they even offered sacrifices to God, but it was halfhearted and they still had idolatrous hearts. So God rejects their worship and eventually let Babylon come in a destroy them as a nation. God even let the temple that they trusted in be torn down.

So, what’s the lesson here for us?

Well, it doesn’t take a lot of spiritual insight to see the wickedness in America. And it only takes a little more to see the hypocrisy and complacency in the church. The churches in our country are constantly looking for revival because we know that we are not the people God wants us to be.

Then what’s the answer?

I can tell you right now that the answer is NOT try harder. I don’t mean to sound depressing, but I don’t believe any of us are capable of being the people God wants us to be, because He wants us to be like Christ (Galatians 2:20). But I do believe that God is more than able to make us like Christ.

The answer is actually simple. ASK HIM! Get on your knees with me and let’s genuinely and sincerely ask God to change our hearts and make us like His Son. When you suddenly begin saying YES to God’s will in your life you can know two things for sure:

Number 1, God is working in your life,

and 2. You love God.