America repent? First things first!

See many YouTube videos, MySpace pages, blogs about the evil in our country and how as a country we need to come back to God. We point to the recent court decision in California on homosexual marriage, the numbers of abortions, the porn industry etc....

But it's so easy for the people of God to call out to the nation to repent, to stand up and point fingers of God's judgment agains sin. And of course if we stand out there calling the nation to repent, then we don't need to look in the mirror and hear the call of God on our lives to repent.

And I'm becoming more convinced that before America comes back to God, America's churches need to come back to God. Not on behalf of America and her sin, but to take a good hard look at ourselves and repent over and over again for our complacency, for our addiction, for our immorality, for our divorces, for our greed and materialism.

I wonder if Jesus is calling out to his church like he did in Laodicea. He's standing outside adnd wants to come back in. It's his church and He wants it back. And this is not just about the liberal and dead churches. So many of us evangelicals with all of our programs, and staff and middle class culture and values... So easy as the conservative slice of the Christian pie to point fingers and call all the liberals and legalists to repent. And miss the fact like the Laodicean church, we think we're rich strong well fed when maybe we're miserable poor blind and naked.

He wants us all to turn to him in repentance. It's interesting that Jesus and John's first messages to their generation when they broke on the scene was, "Repent, the kingdom of God is at hand!" Maybe it's time to start again