7 Steps to End Godlessness in Your City
So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless (James 2:17 NLT).
As the world gets further away from God, what can we do? We must have the kind of faith that leads to actions.
James 2:20 confronts us with this challenging truth: “faith without works is dead.”
Our first act of faith is to turn to God and, in areas where we are failing, seek Him and His Kingdom (see Matthew 6:33). Where we have lost a biblical worldview and slipped into a secular worldview, we must be willing to change our minds and see things from God’s perspective, running at full speed to Him. That all begins with hearing God and obeying out of faith and love. We must ask ourselves the hard questions like: Who have we been listening to? Who really has our ear and attention? Are we allowing the national media to create false narratives? Are we allowing them to consign us to live in fear through their lies and deception? After all, if faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God (see Romans 10:17), then fear and dismay comes by hearing the six o’clock news, college professors, corrupt politicians, and backslidden preachers.
Seek His Kingdom First
We must seek God and His Kingdom with the full intent to obey Him rather than man. Loyalty to Jesus and His Word in simple faith obedience is paramount. In Acts 5, Peter and the apostles gave us a perfect example of what it looks like:
And when they had brought them, they set them before the council. And the high priest asked them saying, “Did we not strictly command you not to teach in this name? And look, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this Man’s blood on us!” But Peter and the other apostles answered and said: “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:27-29).
They had been arrested once for disobeying man’s law that contradicted God’s mandate to go into all the world and preach the gospel in Jesus’ name. An angel orchestrated a jailbreak and told them to keep preaching in Jesus’ name. Despite being repeatedly forbidden to do so, and under the threat of further persecution and imprisonment, they chose to stay faithful and loyal to Christ, preaching in His name. They understood that their commitment did not end when it clashed with the world. That is true for us as well.
Love and Obey Christ
As a counterculture, we must know what it means to say we love Christ. In John 14:15, Jesus says, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” It is out of our love for Jesus that we keep His commandments. Our love is manifest out of our faith obedience to Him as Lord. In John 14:21, Jesus also said, “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me.” We should know if we really love God or not. We also should be able to tell who else loves God. His commandments are His Word. “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love” (John 15:10). My favorite of all is Luke 6:46: “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say?” I love that. Those of us in the counterculture call Him Lord, so we need to obey and simply follow what Jesus has to say.
Going Into Battle
In 1 Chronicles 12, David is assembling an army for battle. He is drawing from every tribe trained warriors with certain skill sets for battle. To be effective in war, he knew he needed the best from each tribe because they offered different skill sets for battle. In our spiritual warfare in the New Testament, we need different members of the body of Christ to learn from and draw from to war a good warfare. I just want to share from Scripture a few of the skill sets the twelve tribes of Israel had.
From the tribe of Gad these warriors “were army commanders. The weakest among them could take on a hundred regular troops, and the strongest could take on a thousand!” (1 Chronicles 12:14 NLT). In verse 24, “From the tribe of Judah, there were 6,800 warriors armed with shields and spears” (NLT). Then verse 25: “From the tribe of Simeon, there were 7,100 brave warriors” (NLT). Zebulun offered some things for battle that were interesting and enlightening: “There were 50,000 skilled warriors…completely loyal to David” (1 Chronicles 12:33 NLT).
Be Loyal to God’s Word
We must be loyal to Jesus and His Word. It seems people’s loyalties are with and to anything but Jesus. We cannot be the watchman God’s called us to be without complete loyalty to Jesus as His bride. We must be wed to Him, not the philosophies of today’s world or culture. We are to be married to Him, not politics or political parties.
Part of our new identity is our relationship with Jesus where we are one spirit with the Lord (see 1 Corinthians 6:17). Just as a husband and wife are one flesh in holy matrimony, we are now united to Jesus and have become His body on the earth. We are to be faithful and loyal to Him as our husband King. Jesus loves us and is a jealous husband, desirous of our total devotion to Him.
First Chronicles 12:32 refers to the sons of Issachar. There were 200 leaders of their tribe who had an interesting skill set: “All these men understood the signs of the times and knew the best course for Israel to take” (NLT). We need men and women who are loyal to Jesus and can discern the times and season we are in and communicate what the church needs to do—actions of faith. God is raising up multiple voices from multiple streams with discernment of the times, God’s wisdom, and what to do.
Truth has a ring to it, and you can train your ear to hear. Jesus said many times, “If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear” (Mark 4:23; 7:16; see also Revelation 2:7,11,17,29; 3:6). As we choose to hear, we become more sensitive to hearing what God is saying. When we choose to not hear, our ability to hear God is impeded.
Speak Boldly for Righteousness
The counterculture is emerging and making a difference, but we need more men and women who are Christ-centered and heed His voice. Politics is an example of where we see duplicity of loyalty. When politics is lord and we are married to it, Jesus and the Word are compromised for the ascendancy of our political agendas. Jesus and His Word must trump everything (no pun intended).
While I am totally against politics in our pulpits, we must take the pulpit to our politics. From the pulpit, we must stand for life, truth, liberty, and justice for all. We must defend voter rights and election integrity, or our democracy and a representative republic will be gone. Voter ID must be required to ensure legal votes, and we cannot fear being accused of voter suppression and racism. This is the accusation used to silence any opposition to voter fraud and election integrity. We must eliminate unrestricted mail-in voting, printing of fake ballots, and counting the same ballots multiple times. We must remove any opportunity for hidden algorithms programmed into voting machine software that purposely and automatically alter official vote counts. We must immediately halt illegal votes, out-of-state votes, dead people, and yes, even cartoon characters from voting in our elections (no, really!).
We must also shut the door that allows one individual to cast multiple votes. Finally, web access of our voting systems must be totally eliminated to assure there is no opportunity for foreign or domestic interference. This is just a morsel of the deep corruption contributing to our loss of voter integrity in America and around the world. This must change, or we will be enslaved.
Demand Integrity
Anyone who doesn’t demand integrity for our elections should not be office. Only those who are corrupt would sanction corruption. Our vote is sacred and our peaceful way of bringing about change. Again, something as simple as voter ID is attacked. You must have an ID to fly on a plane or travel to other countries. (Are all airlines racist?)
An ID is required to drive a car or rent one, enter a bar, purchase liquor or cigarettes, or get a marriage license. Why is it wrong for someone to verify who they are and their age before allowing them to vote? It is not wrong. Every illegal vote cancels out a legal vote. Every dead person’s vote undermines the integrity of a live person and the value of their vote.
We must get back to voting on one day and not drag the deadlines along to accommodate fraud. In an absentee ballot, identification must be verified and signed before a notary public. Why would unverified and uncertified mail-in ballots be allowed? Because there are those who want to corrupt the system in order to bring it down. Elected officials must be held accountable to the same laws they impose upon us. These are just a few examples that in a moral and just society would not be controversial.
Exhibit Proactive Faith
The much-needed reforms in our culture can only be achieved by a Third Great Awakening. The hearts of men must be changed first (revival) before the behavior can be changed (reformed). We must lead people to Christ and then make disciples (disciplined followers of Jesus). We must be willing to suffer for our faith, speaking the truth in love—a concept foreign to the average American Christian. We must be willing to lead our nation back to a biblical worldview of government. One that is limited and serves us, not us them. One that is pro-life, pro-liberty, and pro-religious freedom without threat of censorship, persecution, prosecution, or execution for our faith.
Why would we vote for anyone who hates the Constitution and our country? We say we love our children and need to act like it. Get involved in their education and make sure they are not exposed to immorality that defiles their moral innocence before they are mature enough to discern good from evil. Make sure they aren’t being taught to hate their country or their fellowman. Get on the school board and pro- tect your children. Get involved in your city council to make sure the police are not defunded knowing they are there to punish evil and protect good (see Romans 13:1-7; 1 Peter 2:14).
We must be proactive in our faith and engage in all these cultural issues. For good to prevail, we must be willing to suffer pushback from evil. We must stand for God’s Kingdom to come and His will be done in the earth as it is in heaven (see Matthew 6:9). We need to fear God (reverence, be in awe of) and not be afraid of man. “The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe” (Proverbs 29:25).
Simply put, we must:
Repent of a secular worldview and adopt a biblical one.
Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.
Obey God versus man, which equals life.
Be loyal to Jesus over anything else.
Be a watchman over your heart, family, city, and nation.
Feed the lambs and sheep with knowledge and understanding, which is wisdom.
Take the pulpit to politics.
Stand for life, truth, liberty, and justice for all.
Finally, my dear brothers and sisters:
Pray and stand for revival (people saved) that leads to reform (make disciples).
Pray for those in authority.
Pray for discernment on what is being taught to our children.
Seek reformation in our schools, police departments, and local government.
Stand for election integrity and seek to require voter ID for every vote.
Hold elected officials accountable to the rule of law.
Vote for people who love this country and desire to follow the Constitution.
Get involved locally by attending school board meetings and city council meetings to see what is being done and pushed for.
If led, seek public office to serve your community.
Do the right thing regardless of the cost.
Engage by faith and speak the truth in love.
