Oh, That We Would Rend Our Hearts and Return to God!

"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 I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land." (2 Chronicles 7:14)

"Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity." (Joel 2:13)

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In the past few days I have been having a sense of urgency to ask all Christians in this nation to rise up and pray! Things are not okay. Something is not right. This morning the words of Joel 2:13 came to mind and as the morning wore on I quickly forgot that I had promised myself to blog on what was in my heart. However, an email from one young man jolted me to the reality that perhaps I am not the only one walking around with a deep sense of anguish in my spirit. 

I feel like standing on rooftops and screaming, "People, can't you see? Can't you see the wrath of the Lord? Can't you see that this nation is bleeding, our walls are completely torn down, and we are a naked people?" My conversations have changed in the past few weeks or so. I no longer want to be part of godless chatter or seemingly intellectual discussions that sink me further away from the cry that is in my heart. I long to know my Father's heart. What is He saying? What is He concerned about? And how will I know if I do not spend time with Him?

The walls of the nation have been and continue to be destroyed. You may ask, "How?" and brush me aside. Well, look at what we have done to ourselves. We are a people deeply steeped in tribalism. We are Christians by word of mouth. Our hearts are far from what Christianity demands of us, otherwise why would we, those of us who say we are Christians, continue to write and speak tribalism everywhere and every time? We are a corrupt people; a people that give and take bribes without blushing and yet we stand and call on the Name of the Lord, as if it was a name such as given to any Tom, Dick or Harry. We are a people who tolerate sin and give excuses for sinful behavior, without batting an eyelid, and say to those who condemn sin, "Stop being judgmental!" When people warn us about sin it is because they love us not to condemn us! It is because they only wish the very best for us! So let us embrace correction and/or discipline because even God disciplines those He loves (Hebrews 12:5-11).

Each passing day has brought upon me the fear of God. God is NOT MAN. HE IS GOD ETERNAL! He gives life, He takes it away! No man has the power to create him/herself. No man can do what God can do! Each reading of His Word has revealed to me a God Who is to be feared. While He is the God of love, is He not still the same God about whom we are warned, " It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (in the context of Hebrews 10:26-35)? People, GOD must be feared; He is the Creator of the Universe, and He sits in holiness and righteousness, and not even the 24 elders, the millions of angels or the 4 creatures dare stand in His presence. They bow and bow and bow some more, eternally crying out, "You are holy, holy, holy God Almighty!" and so who are we to trivialize Him, to mock Him, to relate with Him as one would relate with a plaything?

Yesterday evening on my way to some destination within the City Centre, I sat in a bus, and the radio was on. In the silence of the bus, the female co-host in the radio show called up a young lady (they were both obviously very young) and she (the radio co-host) went on and on about an apparent message from this lady's boyfriend that was plain sexual in nature. She fell short of describing the sexual act itself. Now from where I sat I could see a woman my mother's age and quite a good number of mature smartly dressed people. Even the young lady next to me was decent, looked like a college girl, who knew what she was working towards. The silence in the bus was deafening. My trip was short. While I thankfully alighted from the bus it was unfortunate that I had had no opportunity to tell the driver what I thought about what was airing in the bus he was driving. Lately I have found myself warning myself that if sin does not make me weep then my conscience is slowly dying and so as I thought about everyone else in that bus who would endure the foolish conversations on air to their destinations I wondered, "Have we sank this low?" Unfortunately, the answer is "Yes!"

I write as one who is not perfect but as one who is crying for this nation and for this generation. I write as one who feels a deep pain in my heart that cannot go away however much I mask it with TV, food, fun, friends, and everything else. There is a gnawing pain in my spirit for this land; a land that once walked in the fear of God has sold its heritage and we now find pleasure in everything else except the pursuit of God and His ordinances. I cry that as Christians, prayer is no longer one of the things we pursue gladly; instead we seek ways to entertain ourselves and to justify our carnal lifestyles. I weep as one who no longer hears about youth involvement in missions and outreaches to those who truly need the gospel; instead we are entertaining the young people's "soulish" desires in the church, and the older they grow, they suddenly realize they do not know God - not in the way that Moses, Jeremiah, Joshua, Peter, Deborah, etc knew Him - and sometimes it may be too late to know Him because as one lies on their deathbed (ridden with cancer or an injury at a young age) they know they are leaving the earth to meet with their Maker but after a life only half or quarter fulfilled!

Oh, that we would rend our hearts and return to God! That we would rather be called "Jesus freaks" than lose opportunities to grow in intimacy with God! That we would rather spend our waking moments seeking His face, repenting, turning our hearts over to Him, and allowing Him to transform us into His likeness! That we would rather be found at the place of prayer than among crowds of men and women who care less about who you truly are! That we would rather lose friends but gain Jesus Christ as our First Love! That we would rather be shunned for being "too spiritual" than lose our relationship with God!

Time is running out. No one knows the day or the hour. No one knows when the Savior will return. No one knows when the Lord will come calling. None of us knows God's time and yet for the season that He has placed us here on earth as His children, won't we be found in His presence? What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul? Is it more important to attend a cocktail party or to attend a prayer meeting? Is it more important to be part of a book club or be part of a Bible study? You may find me a freak (I know) but in all honesty, when as a Christian, you find your passion is more geared towards things that do not nurture your spirit man, then there is a problem. I am not saying business dinners, cocktail parties, book clubs, mountain climbing, etc are wrong. In fact we do need to be all-round individuals BUT there needs to be the constant assessment of how much we are nurturing our relationship with God. Christianity is about making tough choices. It's about sacrifice. It's about letting go of what would most likely deter us from pursuing God and His righteousness and embracing that which will enrich our relationship with our First Love, Jesus Christ. It is so true that we cannot serve both God and mammon. The Bible is so true - every counsel in that Book is true - try going against the counsel and you quickly find out there are dire consequences.

Well, we need to pray. Pray we must! The Lord is calling us to rend our hearts and return to Him. Rending our hearts means tearing our hearts apart, stripping ourselves bare, so that He Who knows our hearts can show us by His Holy Spirit the things we need to let go off or deal with. He is asking us to lay our all bare. He is asking us to unmask ourselves before Him and allow Him to deal with the decay that has piled up in our hearts. Did you know that the Lord has given us the assurance that He would never despise a broken and contrite heart (Psalm 51:17)? He wants us to allow Him to rip our hearts open and then work in us by His Holy Spirit. He desires to be the One doing the work in us. It is not an easy process but because His Spirit is the balm He will use we can trust Him to know what to do. When we begin to rend our hearts then our attitudes change, our perspectives change, and we are transformed from deep within, reflecting His love and grace. Only then can we effectively reach out to those in our circles who are hurting and in pain because we can begin to identify with where they are at and what they are dealing with.

My prayer today is that we would rise up and begin to pray; not just talking to God, but literally lying prostrate in His presence and weeping for us, for our children, for our families, for our neighbors, for our friends, for our nation, because we are all a wicked people, a wicked generation. None of us is righteous. No, none! As we weep then the hardness of our hearts will be shred into pieces and we will begin to pray in accordance to His will by the help of His Spirit. When led to pray in accordance to His will, we begin to realize that who we are and what we want and/or desire, do not really matter - all that matters is His heart and His purposes! We die in His presence so that He can live in us and through us.

Let us arise brothers and sisters and may the good Lord, Who is compassionate and ever gracious, grant us the grace and the strength to press on in prayer until His purposes are accomplished in this generation. If we can lay a foundation of prayer and the fear of God in this nation then we are assured that this Jubilee year marks the beginning of new happenings in this nation and beyond, to the entire continent of Africa. Do you love Jesus? Seek Him. Do you long to be intimate with Him and know His voice? Spend time with Him in prayer and in the reading and meditating of His Word.

This is the time: let us rend our hearts and not our garments. Let us return to Him. He is compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, loving and He will relent from sending calamity our way.