A KINDER GENTLER NATION
by Holly Mills
"And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee,
and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing" (Genesis
12:2)
God spoke these words to Abraham thousands of years ago and this
promise was fulfilled through the birth of Isaac and his
descendents, who eventually formed the Israel nations. We loved
God and followed His laws and our lands were blessed and we
prospered. We were a kind and gentle nation. We had respect for
our fellow man and helped each other as best we could. We helped
each other in the good times as well as the bad. Our lands and
our resources were ours and for the most part we tried to keep
everything running smoothly because we cared and respected what
we had been given. Companies were formed and provided jobs for
people to live and contributed to the community and helped it to
prosper. We went to church every week and thanked God for His
blessings.
What has happened to this "kinder gentler nation"? We have lost
control of our resources and no one seems to care what is
happening to our environment. Our lands, rivers and oceans are
being exploited for profit rather than us maintaining them so
that they can provide us with a living and a healthy environment
to live in. Our companies are either moving their head offices to
other lands or they are outsourcing many of the jobs overseas.
They no longer care about providing jobs for the community and to
help it prosper, they only care about their profit margin.
We also seem to have lost respect for each other. We have become
very much a "what is best for me" culture and only help others
when it is convenient for us. Many young people have little or no
supervision and are roaming the streets at all hours. A lot of
them are very angry. We have let future generations down by not
walking with the Lord and teaching them to follow Christ.
We have not given them any hope.
It is time we acknowledge why we were great nations and so
blessed. We were not great because of anything we personally did
or because we were lucky to live in these lands. We were great
because God loved us and wanted to have a relationship with us.
He wanted us to be a Servant people to the world. We were to love
the Lord our God and obey Him. "That your days may be multiplied,
and the days of your children, in the land which the LORD sware
unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the
earth. For if ye shall diligently keep all these commandments
which I command you, to do them, to love the Lord your God, to
walk in all his ways, and to cleave unto him; Then will the Lord
drive out all these nations from before you and ye shall possess
greater nations and mightier than yourselves" (Deut. 11:21-23).
God gave us these lands and we were to take care of them and walk
with Him. We were Christian nations and we honoured the Lord
Jesus Christ as our Saviour. Without Christ we are nothing and we
can expect nothing good to come out of all that is currently
happening in our lands until we return to Him.
"But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all
things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are
-all things, and we by him" (1 Cor.8:6).
These are dark days for our Israel nations and for the world. I
am adding this wonderful poem by Minnie Louise Haskins to the end
of this article as I believe it is a poem of such encouragement
to us all at this time. King George VI used it in his 1939
Christmas message and it was chosen by the Royal Family to be
read at the Queen Mother's funeral.
I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year "Give me
a light that I may tread safely into the unknown." And he
replied:" Go out into the darkness and put your hand into
the hand of God. That shall be better than light and safer
than a known way!" So I went forth and finding the Hand of
God trod gladly into the night.
M. Louise Haskins (1875-1957)
Put your hand into the hand of God. Jesus said, "I am the way,
the truth, and the life:" (John 14:6).
......
From "Thy Kingdom Come" magazine - September 2010 - a publication
of The Association of the Covenant People, Burnaby, B.C. Canada.
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