God Bless America? Part 1: This Land Isn’t Your Land

Your land must not be sold on a permanent basis, because you do not own it; it belongs to God, and you are like foreigners who are allowed to make use of it. (Leviticus 25:23 GNT)

 

Anybody else as enthusiastic as I am to have the smoldering ruin of 2021 in our rearview mirror?

 

I’m sure that many of you reading this are kindling a new sense of optimism that 2022 will be the year we clean house and undo the damage that America has sustained. I feel that as well, to a certain extent. Nevertheless, I have a couple of questions scratching at the back door of my brain.

 

CAN America truly be saved at this point?

 

SHOULD America (as we have known it) be saved at all?

 

Now put down your pitchforks and your Boom Bottles; this is all hypothetical. All I am trying to do here is to keep a Truthseeker’s perspective on some very volatile situations.

 

None of you need to be reimnded, I expect, of how easy it is to get caught up in the emotion of partisan bickering. I have to remind myself daily to be wise about when to engage and when not to in matters political. I frequently make the wrong choice, so no judging or finger-pointing here.

 

My point is that we like to say, “God bless America,” but why would we really ever think He would do that? After all…

 

To him, all the nations don’t amount to anything.
He considers them to be worthless.
In fact, they are less than nothing in his sight. (Isaiah 40:17 NIRV)

 

So why would we think it was ever God’s plan to save America?

Hail Murica. 

People > Places

 

Jesus’ final command to us before He left Earth was (emphasis mine):

Go to the people of all nations and make them my disciples. Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to do everything I have told you. I will be with you always, even until the end of the world. (Matthew 28:19-20 CEV)

We see from this that God’s plan is personal, not national. Yes, His original plan was for Israel to be His chosen nation, but the entire Bible is a testimony to how well that worked out.

 

Jesus commanded us to go to all nations, not to save all nations. Indeed in John’s vision of heaven in Revelation 7, the great multitude was from every nation, tribe, people, and language.

 

The reality we don’t want to admit is that the United States of America is not a Christian nation. Rather, it is a nation that has Christians in it. God doesn’t bless America; He blesses faith. There is no promise in scripture that any nation will be saved, but that those who are saved will become a nation:

 

But you are God’s “chosen generation,” his “royal priesthood,” his “holy nation,” his “peculiar people”—all the old titles of God’s people now belong to you. It is for you now to demonstrate the goodness of him who has called you out of darkness into his amazing light. (1 Peter 2:9 PHILLIPS)

 

So, to reiterate, the goal of an American Truthseeker is not to try to save America, but to save Americans by showing them what the true and better nation is—the Kingdom of God.

We don’t do this through political campaigning or social media bullying or even street-corner preaching.

We do this by simply living out our holy calling. Even if we only do this much, we will stand out in this culture in a way that will attract attention. Not all of this attention will be positive though.

So, when we find ourselves surrounded by detractors, and we will, we must all remember one thing.

 

(And to find out what that one thing is, come back for Part 2—Fight the Real Enemy.)

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