TODAY’S SIGNATURE VERSE ••• He who covers his sins will not prosper, But whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy. (Proverbs 28:13 NKJV)
PRAISE & PRAYER PROMPT ••• Yesterday morning, I decided to have a guest for today’s blog… if you’ve read for a while, you know I never do this, but I think you’ll agree — his words are powerful and needed to be shared. I made this decision before the news of the suicide bombing in Afghanistan, which killed over 100 people, as well as 13 American troops. After hearing that, my decision felt even more right. These words are timely, and important. Before I turn things over to our guest, let me remind you of two important passages:
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)
He who covers his sins will not prosper, But whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy. (Proverbs 28:13)
The only hope this nation has is a return to God. We’ve forgotten Him and turned away from Him. Our leaders may occasionally quote Scripture, but there’s a difference between reading God’s Word and knowing God’s Word… there’s a difference between quoting a verse and embracing a verse… there’s a difference between acknowledging God and surrendering to God. After all, as my guest said, “those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord” and “we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!”
Our guest today demonstrates this… His words explain the importance of a nation humbled before God. How I wish our leaders today would see this wisdom for themselves.
Today’s prayer? Pray for America. Pray for our leaders. Pray for our troops. Pray for the families who lost loved ones. Pray for those stranded in Afghanistan. And most of all, please pray for revival.
All that said, today, I welcome my guest, Abraham Lincoln… and I pray that America will, once again, humble herself before her Creator…
By the President of the United States of America.
A Proclamation.
Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God, in all the affairs of men and of nations, has, by a resolution, requested the President to designate and set apart a day for National prayer and humiliation.
And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.
And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!
It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.
Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th. day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer. And I do hereby request all the People to abstain, on that day, from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.
All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering Country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this thirtieth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh.
By the President: Abraham Lincoln
William H. Seward, Secretary of State.
SHARING ••• My Grace-Full Life is written by Denise Heidel. You are welcome to share anything I write, but please credit my writing and graphics accordingly. Visit www.MyGraceFullLife.com to read past blogs. Subscribe through my website to have My Grace-Full Life delivered to your email. You can unsubscribe at any time. Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are from the NKJV translation.
