How To Receive God's Best Blessings, part 5

When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.  2 Chronicles 7:13-14

God promises to heal our land.  In a recent discussion, one of the sisters commented on how evil and dirty and low down people have become, she expressed grave concern over the senseless murders that are so rampant.  She lamented the great loss of life and how there seems to be so little regard for life.  I felt a sense of despair, thinking how bad it is and how never have the times been so bad.  Headings and sub-headings in both local and national newspapers that day included: "15 year old student shot and killed" ... "mayor sickened by T-shirt logos" ... "health department investigating reports of unlicensed abortions" ... university student shot and killed himself ... "balcony-climbing rapist gets life sentence" ...  "patrolling officers make drug bust" ... "police seek man in fraud scheme" ... "pediatrics group backs same-sex marriage" ... "S. Korea: cyberattack came from China" ... and more.

Before lapsing into a heightened state of despair, I remembered words Solomon penned some 900 years before Jesus was born.  "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new”? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time." (See Ecclesiastes 1:9-10) Uhmmm, man's inhumanity to man is nothing new.  Sin is not new.  Violation of God's commands is not new.  Uhmmm, neither are God's promises new.  They are just as real and meaningful today as they've ever been.  God will heal our land IF we do our parts. What can I do, you may be thinking? Do your part, obey God's commands.  Hear and receive the final word from Solomon's pen found in Ecclesiastes 12:13-14.  "Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil."