How often have we prayed or sung, "God Bless America"? What do we mean when we invoke our Heavenly Father's favor on our country? What are we asking God to do in America? Are we asking for freedom from famine, war and poverty?

At least for born-again Christians, the blessings requested center on more spiritual things such as Christian conversions, revival and spiritual awakening, and bringing society to ever more biblical understandings and practices in its families, churches, laws, and individual and collective morality.

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Our Heavenly Father has given us divine guidance in Holy Scripture on the means to invoke such blessings on society. In 2 Chronicles 7:14, God says, "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 will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land."

This promise was given originally to God's chosen people, the Jews, through Solomon at the dedication of the Temple. God warned that if His people turned away from Him and served other gods, He would uproot them from the land. He was revealing to His people the basis on which His blessings would be poured out.

While America is not Israel, God's dealings with Israel in the Old Testament provide vivid and inspirational examples of how He deals with the redeemed from every segment of the human family. Do promises such as those enumerated in 2 Chronicles 7:14 apply to America and her Christians? Yes, they do. These promises are available to any nation's Christians who are obediently fulfilling the prerequisites.

So what does the America God can bless look like? First, who are the "My people" of 2 Chronicles 7:14 in today's world? For America, they are those people of every Christian denomination who have given their lives to the Lord Jesus and trusted Him alone and His sacrifice on the cross for their salvation.

To "humble ourselves" means to realize that in ourselves we cannot bring about spiritual revival — personal or national. All we can bring to the table concerning personal and national renewal is confession, faith, humility, and obedience.

Of course, prayer is the primary vehicle for human beings to be in conversation with our Heavenly Father, as Jesus teaches us in the Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6:5–15).

The America God can bless is a country with a "critical mass" of born-again Christians who are daily turning "from their wicked ways," seeking His face (i.e., His will), and seeking to do His will.

Such an America would look radically different from our country today. Premarital sex would be rare, as would divorce and out-of-wedlock births, as millions more American Christians would live in obedience to God's morality in their personal and family lives. Our national sin of abortion on demand (child sacrifice to the pagan gods of social convenience and material well-being) would be declared illegal and become largely unimaginable.

America would once again assume its crucial role in speaking out for basic human rights for all people and would see its worldwide Christian evangelization efforts rejuvenated and expanded.

I do not think it can be denied that, in spite of all our shortcomings and failures, God has blessed America. It strains credulity to believe that America could have been as fortunate as she has been over her long and glorious 250-year history without providential intervention. However, if America does not turn back to the God of our Founding Fathers, I fear the blessings will cease.

I believe it must be said that we are already under God's increasing judgment because of our having aborted more than 75 million of our unborn children. I believe there are two major reasons God has not judged America more harshly than He has up to this point.

The first reason is our strong national support for God's chosen people, the Jews, and the State of Israel. God has promised to bless those who bless His people and to judge those who do not (Genesis 12). Second, in spite of our national flaws, we still provide an outsized share of the personnel and material support for worldwide missions and evangelism.

God has revealed to us the model of national blessing — repentance, humility, and obedience. Let us all pray that each of us will embrace the path to blessing and that it will bring about revival, spiritual awakening, and the reformation we so desperately need.

Revival is when God's people get right with God. Awakening is when the Holy Spirit brings a great movement of conversion across society and great numbers are added to the roll call of faith. Reformation occurs when the saved who have been revived, and the lost who have been saved, come together to reform the whole society in accordance with God's moral law. It has happened before and can happen again.

What better way to honor our nation's 250th birthday than through our repentance, obedience, and dedication to help usher in such manifest blessings for our country?

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