Weekly Recommendation: "Can God Bless America?"

I have not been able to do a recommendation for some time because my laptop has been sick and I have been limited to when I could get online. But since this is the 4th of July weekend I thought it best to recommend an important book that goes along the lines of what we saw in 2 Chronicles 7:14 on Sunday Morning and what we discussed from 1 Timothy 2:1ff.

John MacArthur is perhaps my favorite pastor/theologian/author living today. He has had an immense impact on my life. After 9/11 he wrote a little book called "Can God Bless America?: The Biblical Pathway to Blessing." In it, MacArthur asks the question, not can God bless America, but should God bless America. Using 2 Chronicles 7:14 as his main text, MacArthur walks the reader through the importance of our nation repenting, praying, and humbling ourselves before our Maker. How can we expect blessings from God when we ignore Him in our lives?

Although this book is short, it is an important book nonetheless. I have previously written a review for this book. I conclude with this:

Although the book is short, it is quit eye opening. MacArthur calls out our hypocrisy. Most Americans, to this day, want God's favor, we just don't want God. We want God to give with nothing in return. We think that we can demand of God rather than God demand of us. MacArthur calls us back to the truth: God is in command, God makes the demands. We are called to submit, repent, and receive the grace of God. And as long as our culture remains content with our sin, the more likely we will receive, not God's blessing, but His curse.

Such words are too strong for our culture. We are soaked in our national pride and have convinced ourselves that we are too special to receive God's curse. Yet, the Biblical record makes clear that a culture engulfed in sin like ours is not deserving of God's blessings but only His curse.

But there is hope. MacArthur shows his readers that we can repent, we can receive God's blessings. He offers various Biblical examples such as Nineveh in the book of Jonah to prove his point. If we repent, truly repent, like Nineveh, God will bless us. But if we continue to compromise and dive deeper and deeper into morality, God will judge us however He sees fit (see Rom. 1). Although such words are hard on the ears, they need to break our hearts. Let us, as a nation and culture, heed his words and repent. Let us as Christians offer the gospel, not the watered-down message we have been feeding everybody. The moment we Christians diluted our message was the minute we turned away from God. Lord forgive us for such sin.

Bonhoeffer: The Meaning of Poor In Spirit and the Joy of Being Spiritual Bankrupt

Sunday morning we will be begin by looking at the subject of joy and we will be looking at the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12). The first of 9 "blesseds" regards those who are "poor in spirit" (Matthew 5:3). While studying what Jesus meant by this, I came across the following quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book, The Cost of Discipleship:

They are poor . . . They have no security, no possession to call their own, not even a foot of earth to call their home, no earthly society to claim their absolute allegiance. Nay more, they have no spiritual power, experience or knowledge to afford them consolation or security. For his sake they have lost all. In following him they lost even their own selves, and everything that could make them rich. Now they are poor -- so inexperienced, so stupid, that they have no other hope but him who called them. -107

I love this quote. It is a good summary of what Jesus means by "blessed are the poor in spirit." Jesus says that those who are truly happy, those who have real joy, are those who are utterly spiritually bankrupt. It is Jesus, and Jesus alone, who can turn things on their head like this. Jesus calls us to recognize that only when we realize that we are already spiritual destitute can find true joy in the gospel of Christ. And it is the poor in the spirit who will "inherit the kingdom of heaven." It is only whenever we acknowledge that we have nothing and yet gain everything that we can be truly happy and live a life of joy.