Everywhere I go these days, I hear more and more talk about God and America. I hear people who, proportedly claim to be Christians, bemoaning the demise of a supposedly Christian entity called the United States of America. I hear reports of “so called” Christians doing vile things such as picketing the funeral of a fallen soldier. They hold signs with slogans such as:’ This is God’s judgement on America!” and “God hates Fags!”. You know what God really hates? He hates being misrepresented. He hates people behaving disrespectfully toward each other. He hates it when people who claim to be His people conduct themselves in poor taste and without consideration of other peoples feelings. He hates it when people don’t have enought love in their heart to let someone else grieve in peace.
The instance to which I am refering is now before the Supreme Court of the United States. Simply because the “church”( which really isn’t, its the Synagogue of Satan) is conducting itself in a manner that is both dishonorable to God and an embarrasment to His Kingdom. Christ’s Kingdom is not of this world, as He said. He also said not to be afraid because; He has overcome the world. These screaming people don’t want God to judge the world (or America) because, the really don’t want His Kingdom to come like the say in worship services every Sunday. They want to keep their life, their 21st century American life, the one that they think is so Godly. The life that Paul describes as being worldly. You know, the love of the world and the things of the world, poliltics, economics, patriotic fervor, etc, etc,etc. By the way, if that last statement ruffles your feathers, I’m not knocking patriotic people. I think its an honorable thing to serve, and love your country. I’m greatful I live in America. However, love of God and your neighbor should come first. A big part of that love includes accurately representing his heart for his creation.
So, what does all this have to do with the rise and fall of the Roman Empire? I thought the parallels would be obvious. However, for the purpose of clairity I will explain my position furthur. God used the commerce, literacy and far reaching power of the Roman Empire as a vehicle to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ through out the known world of Europe and the Mediterrean during the first, second, and third centuries C.E. Then in arrogance the Romans perverted that Gospel and replaced it with one of their own. ( see www.churchhistoryforeveryman.com and www.therestoftheoldoldstory.com ). An insult which God promptly judged by overthrowing the Roman Empire. He destroyed them politically, economically, and militarially. (I didn’t mention morallity because I don’t think the worlds morallity can be destroyed: it has none.) Is this not the same senario being played out in this country? People who claim to love God really need to wake up to the fact that the American Gospel is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Look at what many American Christians believe and practice, then compare that to what most 1st and 2nd century C.E. Christians believed and practiced. I believe you will see a vast contrast. God has used the commerce, literacy, and far reaching power of America to spread the Gospel of Christ through out the world. However, over time the Gospel of Jesus Christ has become the American Gospel. Oh, I’m sorry. What is the American Gospel? A part of it might be: money solves your problems and you can legislate morality because a new heart takes too long. Oh, yeah and those arguements about church and state……perhaps conservative evengelicals really need to reconsider their position before they alienate anyone else from God. Jesus isn’t a Republican, or a Democrat, or even American. His only affiation was with His Father, and still is. His warning to all generations was: ” If you love anything more than me you are not worthy of me.” Think about it.
By the way, people who love and act out of love for one another, are born of God and know God, because God is Love 1John4:7,8. Can any rational person claim that carrying a sign that says” God hates fags” to a funeral where people are grieving a lost loved one is acting out of love???
bryggja art & illustration 
Amen. I think a whole book could be written on all the ways the enemy distracts us from the simple gospel of trusting God (not ourselves) and coming together in love to learn to give our lives away to serve. Religious systems have always been the worst, as they tend toward substituting men’s thoughts for God. George MacDonald stated that the greatest heresy of the “churches” of his day was that they didn’t believe in the Spirit of God, so they substituted their thoughts and opinions to get people to do what they thought they should do. If we want to get people to actually trust in the power of God to change them, the best thing we can do is work to trust him to change us, by doing the things we know he actually wants us to do, because he commands us to do them. How much more would it change the world, if, unlike the “Pope” on his throne, and unlike the “great preachers and evangelists” on TV, if all the people who would be followers of Christ got together in loving real extended families of God and just started giving their lives away recklessly, serving others around them by example, like Mother Theresa, like Paul, like Jesus? Wouldn’t that be amazing? Wouldn’t that change the world!
I thought that I should clarify believing in the Spirit of God for anyone who has been exposed to the “spirit-filled” churches. I don’t mean “falling out under the power”, or “prospering”, or alot of other things that you can’t find being taught in either word or deed by Jesus. I mean something much more like, being empowered to live out, “What would Jesus do?” What did he do? He didn’t care about the riches of this earth, making his home, not with his earthly family, but with whoever obeyed his father. Not building an extravagant showplace for a family of two or four, shutting out people with problems, but spending time giving hope to the hopeless dirty thieving collaborators of a foreign, ungodly government , whores, junkies, winos, demoniacs, and the other “horrible” people, not becoming like them, but deliveing them, through his actual presence, to turn to God. Not going to the other side of the earth to be a missionary, but being one everywhere he went, especially to his neighborhood. Not patting the rich and religious on the back, so he could “get in good with them”, and so they could remain self-satisfied, but rebuking them for being unloving, so that they, too might be saved from themselves to the likeness of a loving God, who is constantly giving himself away for us.