Patriotism Starts First With Obeying The Lord & His Word
Word-Of-The-Day: ‘(12) Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people He chose for His inheritance. (13) From heaven the Lord looks down and sees all mankind; (14) from His dwelling place He watches all who live on earth— (15) He who forms the hearts of all, who considers everything they do. (16) No king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great strength. (17) A horse is a vain hope for deliverance; despite all its great strength it cannot save. (18) But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear Him, on those whose hope is in His unfailing love, (19) to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine. (20) We wait in hope for the Lord; He is our help and our shield. (21) In Him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in His holy name. (22) May your unfailing love be with us, Lord, even as we put our hope in You.’ (Psalm 33:12-22)
Psalm 33 is a hymnal psalm, one that is a praise of God written in song, or lyrical presentation. The first half (33:1-11) is a call to praise God for all of His attributes, while the second half (33:12-22) is a call to God to bless the nation that praises Him. It is known that nothing can save a nation except for its Faithfulness to the Lord.
Patriotism is a love for your home nation; for the United States this love has been waning but there are still a majority of citizens, though growing thin, who still stand without prompting for the National Anthem, pledging allegiance to ‘Old Glory’, and many who have served in the US military or the Civil Service. It is perhaps not as held in the high esteem as before, but the US citizen upholds the principles of America, its Constitution, and responds to the duties and responsibilities a citizen has within the construct. A recent event shows that our youth still have some pride in their nation, as the US Men’s Junior Hockey team celebrated their World Championship, gold medal win by singing in unison the Star-Spangled Banner, our National Anthem.
There are those who are patriotic and are not of God, but one cannot fully understand patriotism and love of the nation without first and foremost loving God and being a believer in Christ. For the United States to be truly at its best requires the people to be obeying God and His Word, so that the blessings of Lord and His hand of protection is upon the nation as a whole. Many who consider themselves patriotic point to America being strong due to the robust economy, or power the military but without God’s hand it means nothing. The Founding Fathers, including Thomas Jefferson, had strong profiles of Faith in the Lord and based the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution on this Faith, that God was the foundation of our nation.
The US has been blessed and prosperous, and had its highest degrees of patriotism during the first half of the 20th century, at the end of World War II, when Faith in Christ and Christian morality, or the Biblical Worldview, was at the peak of popularity in America. As we have seen since then, through today, there has been a corresponding decline in the worship and Faith of God and His Word, and patriotism. If we want to see an increase in patriotism in the US, we who are Believers in Christ must go and perform Great Commission work to provide others the Gospel of Christ and make disciples of those not reached in the radius of our hometowns. To be fully patriotic is to first be fully Christian and a Follower of Christ in His Word. For the US to be blessed and strong, it needs its citizens worshipping the Lord and worthy to be blessed and protected.
