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We have been blessed as a nation and as a people of God. As we approach four hundred years of existence, there are many signs that God is trying to get our attention, but we have not seen them as calls to repentance. Just as God kept warning the Israelites to turn from their idolatrous ways before he allowed them to be destroyed so is He calling America before it is too late? We have been lulled by our comfortable lifestyle to think all is well when it is not. God has given us successive and financial warnings every seven years since 1973. In 2008, the stock market fell 777 points in one day. We are fast approaching another seven-year anniversary in September of 2015. You may be asking the question of why God is calling us to repentance. The answer has many components. We have turned from God and His ways. We have aborted over fifty million babies. Half of all marriages end in divorce. Fornication, adultery, sexual perversion and pornography are rampant. Money and comfort have become our gods. We believe that we will get to heaven if we are just good people. Many churches are only teaching half the gospel of Jesus Christ – salvation and are ignoring healing and deliverance. Sickness is exploding due to un-forgiveness and sin and the lack of repentance for it. God is calling us to repentance as individuals and as a nation. Sin is not a word we often hear or use anymore, but it is what has put us and America on God’s Watch List.
Easter is not about egg hunts and family dinners and celebrating Spring. It is the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and His overcoming of death and the power of the devil. His shed blood has covered and paid for our sins. We are free to experience all that He has purchased for us. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and cannot experience the blessing purchased for us. If we choose not to recognize our sins and confess them and ask for forgiveness, then we will surely reap the discipline of God. His love and desire for us to be saved cannot allow us to continue as we are. Forgiveness is not the only benefit achieved by Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection. We are called to walk in His power and authority on earth to defeat the devil, darkness, wickedness and disease. We need to recognize all the ways that we have strayed from God and His will for our lives and repent so that His resurrection power can be at work in our lives, and all the blessings that He has prepared for us can come to us.