Why are there so many struggling churches, churches that are weak and ineffective? There are many answers floating around out there. To many other things going on to attract the attention of people is the primary reason stated most often. It is true, too. But why are there so many things going on? There was a time when practically nothing was open on Sunday except the hospitals. Now, though, it is brunch at restaurants, all retail is open (except for places like Hobby Lobby, who are often put down for being closed), sports dominate on Sundays. In other words, fun stuff. The reason this has happened is because most people, including Christians, want these things. We want to shoehorn worship into an hour on Sunday morning and be done with it. This attitude has come about because most Christians have quit praying in earnest and have let the Word of God sit on the night stand untouched from Sunday to Sunday. We depend on a quickie prayer and a five-minute devotional, yet love to sing about the “Sweet Hour of Prayer” and “Standing on the Promises.” At least so long as it fits that hour.

          Why is this country in such a mess that we had as our presidential choice a woman who has real issues with telling the truth and a man who is vulgar and crass? There are many answers floating around out there. There are two distinct cultures out there, one being a culture of entitlement and the other being a culture conservative thought. The person who represents the culture we hold dear and who makes the most noise about it is the choice we have, whether they are smart enough to find their way out of a paper bag or not. Whoever is president or whoever is in Congress or whoever is our local “leaders” were put there by the voters.

          Churches struggle because Christians ignore prayer and the Word of God. The country struggles because people get their knowledge of the news from TV and radio and the internet and print media, and when they get that news they listen to whoever is the loudest or boldest. Christians spend too much time on other things to be able to spend the time to draw close to the Lord and Americans spend too much time on other things to dig deeper to make informed decisions. We want the easy way and then we want to complain about it.

          And yet, it has never been easier to find a Bible version you can read and understand. I use a web page that gives me 37 English versions of the Bible. I can increase the font size, some of the versions have audio and all of them have access to Bible Study tools. Finding a verse or passage is super easy and the whole web site is user friendly. And, of course, prayer has always been an easy thing to do.

          And, it has never been easier to find information to become well informed about the political aspect of our country. Why would anyone listen exclusively to CNN or Rush Limbaugh or Fox News or any of that? All these people and organizations have their own agenda. Nothing wrong with having an agenda, but there is something wrong with adopting someone’s agenda as your own without critically studying it. Dig a little deeper. If you are reading this, you have access to the internet. There is a lot of junk out there, but there is gold, too.

          At Christmas, Christians get all upset when the cashier at Wal-Mart wishes them happy holidays rather than Merry Christmas, yet the indignities that the Word of God suffers the rest of the year goes unnoticed. When someone on TV or radio says something is unconstitutional, Americans get upset, yet few Americans make it a habit of reading the Constitution or the Declaration. It is all at your fingertips. I have the Constitution and the Declaration in my computer. The Constitution is 28 pages on my computer in a font I can easily read. Most of you who like to read will do that in one setting with no problem. The Declaration is 3 pages long.

          This is Independence Day. Make a promise to God that you will not continue to be a slave to a devotional book or even your preacher when it comes to learning Scripture. Make another promise to yourself that you will not continue to be a slave to the Cooper Andersons or the Rush Limbaughs or the networks to form your opinions and to get your news. Stand up for Jesus and stand up for America.

          Blessings.