It Starts with Us / Greg Laurie

 It Starts with Us

“But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: ‘God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble’” (James 4:6 NKJV).

Conquered by the Roman Empire, the Jewish people were under Roman control. And they didn’t like it one bit. They wanted the Romans out, and they thought Jesus the Messiah would overthrow the power of Rome.

They expected Him to establish His earthly kingdom then and there. In fact, Luke 19:11 tells us, “He [Jesus] spoke another parable, because He was near Jerusalem and because they thought the kingdom of God would appear immediately” (NKJV).

The people failed to understand the prophecies in Scripture, which said that before the Messiah would come and rule the earth, He first would come and die for the sins of the world. Before He would sit on the throne, He would go to the cross.

So Jesus wasn’t coming to overthrow Rome; He was coming to establish His kingdom in human hearts by dying for us on the cross.

This reminds us that when God wants to send a spiritual awakening to a nation, it starts first with His people.

God said, “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14 NKJV).

Notice that God didn’t say, “If the government will humble themselves . . .” or “If Hollywood will humble themselves. . . .” Rather, God said, “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves. . . .”

Under George Washington’s leadership during the Revolutionary War, warships displayed flags with an image of a pine tree and the words “An Appeal to Heaven.” Washington understood that our only hope to become a nation was by the intervention of God.

In the same way, if we want to see God heal our nation today, we need to appeal to Heaven.