By retired Senator John Grant
Like a city that is broken into and without walls is a man who has no control over his spirit. Proverbs 25:28
The concept of the wall is prominent in the Scriptures. The Book of Nehemiah tells of the rebuilding of the wall that surrounds the city of Jerusalem. The Book of Revelation, when describing the new Jerusalem, places great emphasis on the wall that surrounds the holy city and on the twelve foundations of the wall.
There have been walls throughout, the most notable in our time was the wall that separated east and west Berlin. Its dismantling marked the beginning of the end of the “Cold War.”
I walked through the Brandenburg Gate only a few months after the beginning of the dismantling. As I took in the sight of the massive wall, I bent over and picked up a small part of the wall, and today, it sits on my desk as a reminder of how people and nations can become divided and ultimately reconciled.
Another wall needs to be removed as well – the wall between humanity and God. That barrier was built in the Garden of Eden when a man and a woman committed the first act of rebellion against God (Genesis 3). And we all have continued that rebellion ever since. Can you visualize that impenetrable wall? Isaiah 59:2 says: “your sins have cut you off from God.”
Jesus’ death and resurrection, however, has made reconciliation with God possible. All those who accept Christ’s sacrifice for sin will have the barrier of sin torn down and be reconciled to God. He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation. (Ephesians 2:14).
What are the walls in your life and how do they separate you from fellowship with God? We need to remove what we think we need and replace it with what we actually need.
God wants us to submit to Him by humbling ourselves and praying, as we seek His face and turn from our wicked ways. Then the wall between us and God comes down and He not only hears us and heals us, but He promises to forgive our sin and heal our land.
Of how our sins both individually and as a nation need to be forgiven and of how our land in these divisive times needs a healing. Remember it all begins with you!
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SOMETIMES TRUE STORIES
Some of the world’s greatest men and women have been saddled with disabilities and adversities but have managed to overcome them, observed author and evangelical leader Ted W. Engstrom.
Engstrom offered these illustrations to prove his point.
• “Cripple him, and you have a Sir Walter Scott.”
• “Lock him in a prison cell, and you have a John Bunyan.”
• “Bury him in the snows of Valley Forge, and you have a George Washington.”
• “Raise him in abject poverty, and you have an Abraham Lincoln.”
• “Subject him to bitter religious prejudice, and you have a Benjamin Disraeli.”
• “Strike him down with infantile paralysis, and he becomes a Franklin D. Roosevelt.”
• “Burn him so severely in a schoolhouse fire that the doctors say he will never walk again, and you have a Glenn Cunningham, who set a world’s record in 1934 for running a mile in 4 minutes, 6.7 seconds.”
• “Deafen a genius composer, and you have a Ludwig van Beethoven.”
• “Have him or her born black in a society filled with racial discrimination, and you have a Booker T. Washington, a Harriet Tubman, a Marian Anderson, or a George Washington Carver.”
• “Make him the first child to survive in a poor Italian family of eighteen children, and you have an Enrico Caruso.”
• “Have him born of parents who survived a Nazi concentration camp, paralyze him from the waist down when he is four, and you have an incomparable concert violinist, Itzhak Perlman.”
• “Call him a slow learner, ‘retarded,’ and write him off as uneducable, and you have an Albert Einstein.
All of these examples speak to the power of persistence and the quality of determination. It’s a trait we see in the apostle Paul, who overcame a “thorn in the flesh,” misrepresentation by false teachers, beatings, stoning, imprisonment, and numerous hardships in his missionary travels. We get a glimpse of his indomitable spirit from Philippians 3:13-14.
Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? John 11:25-26
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QUOTES YOU CAN USE
Leave nothing for tomorrow which can be done today. Abraham Lincoln
Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? John 11:25-26
Let’s not make changes, let’s make only improvements. Wally Byam
The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men. Aristotle
At night we tie the dog up and let the kids run loose. Ken Whitten
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