We Must Own This War

We the people own this war against God. Tempting as it may be to shift responsibility to our national leaders, we cannot forget that our leadership does only what we permit. Unfortunately, we have permitted a national assault against God.

America is exceptional because it is a nation founded upon biblical principles. When we fight for these values to be upheld and preserved, we are fighting to see God’s truth upheld and preserved within our nation. As such, there is a place and a need for vigilant Christian citizens to actively engage in politics. However, the value of such politics rests in seeing these biblical principles realized. In other words, the solutions to our national difficulties must always be primarily spiritual, not merely political.

The strength of our American government has always rested upon its moral alignment with God. Indeed, founding father and former president John Adams warned that our Constitution was made only for a religious and moral people: “We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by morality and Religion. Avarice, Ambition, Revenge or Gallantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”^[1]

According to John Adams, it is not simply the Constitution we must fervently protect if we wish to keep America strong, nor is it a political philosophy. It is the morality of America’s citizenry, shepherded by the church, that must be safeguarded. As goes the church, so goes the nation.

When the American church chooses to remain silent on political and culturally controversial matters that are fundamentally moral, is it any wonder how our nation has lost respect for God’s opinion regarding life’s most significant issues? When pastors are more afraid of offending people than of offending God, is it any wonder how our nation has made tolerance a greater virtue than righteousness? When God’s people are more committed to the American Dream than they are to the Great Commission, is it any wonder how our nation has become obsessively materialistic?

As Martin Luther King Jr. famously preached, “The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.”^[2] If we have any hope of resolving our national conflict with God, we, as the people of God, must own our role in this war.

This article comes from Heart of a Forerunner: How to Be a Relevant and Influential Voice in a Wayward Nation

Download your free copy here.