Blessed To Be A Blessing

Blessed To Be A Blessing

America Defends The Weak (Holocaust), Delivers The Oppressed (Saddam Hussain), Dispatches Blessings 

Illustration: Current Humanitarian Efforts By American Troops

Washington – In 2006, U.S. military commands plan 556 humanitarian projects in 99 countries.

U.S. forces are improving water supplies in Ecuador, flood barriers in Bangladesh, a medical clinic in Uganda and schools in Kyrgyzstan.  Military experts train local residents to remove land mines in Nicaragua and Vietnam.

By year-end, the U.S. military will have delivered 300,000 daily-rations packages overseas.  Soldiers will have dug wells, built schools, and transported hospital equipment to villages from Croatia to Colombia.  The Army will have trained officials from 11 African countries – Kenya, Ethiopia, Egypt, Eritrea, Djibouti, Seychelles, Burundi, Congo, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania – to respond to disasters and deliver medical care. 

The October 8, 2005, earthquake near Muzaffarabad, Pakistan, killed 87,000 people and stranded thousands in remote mountainous villages. The next day, Lieutenant Colonel Walter Bradley, commander of an Army aviation company preparing for training in Oklahoma, received a call – “could you fly rescue missions in Pakistan, instead?”

“None of us has ever seen this nation,” Bradley told the Washington File.  “But we had to make a decision -- right now, and out the door.”  In three days, they took apart a dozen Chinook helicopters and loaded them on airplanes headed to the region.  “We were flying in the Himalayan Mountains in winter with no weather reports or radio communications,” said Bradley.  The company stayed five months and logged 3,000 flight hours, moved 5,000 refugees and delivered 18 million pounds of supplies.

America Is Truly A Place Of Blessing!

God Blesses America Through His PEOPLE!

1 Timothy 2:1-6 (NIV)

I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone--- [2] for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. [3] This is good, and pleases God our Savior, [4] who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. [5] For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, [6] who gave himself as a ransom for all men---the testimony given in its proper time.

A P.L.E.A. For Believers To Bless America

I. Pray Endlessly

1 Timothy 2:1 (NIV)

I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone---

Illustration: Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln in a call for a Day of National Humiliation, Fasting & Prayer—

“We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But WE HAVE FORGOTTEN GOD. We have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these things were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success we have become to self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.”

What Prayers Should We Offer?

A. Personal

B. Public

C. God's Presence

D. Political System (Voting)

E. Our President

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (NIV)

Be joyful always; [17] pray continually; [18] give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

II. Live Earnestly (Righteously) 

1 Timothy 2:2 (NIV)

for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.

Illustration: John Witherspoon

John Witherspoon—

“He is the best friend of American liberty who is most sincere and active in promoting truth and undefiled religion and who sets himself with the greatest firmness to bear down against profanity and immorality of every kind. Whoever is an avowed enemy to this truth, I scruple not to call him an enemy to his country.”

God's People Should Serve Their…

1. Church

2. City (Civc Groups, PTA's, City Counsels)

3. County (Baldwin County Baptist Association)

4. Country (Local and National Government)

1 Timothy 6:11-12 (NIV)

But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. [12] Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

III. Evangelize Eagerly

1 Timothy 2:3-4 (NIV)

This is good, and pleases God our Savior, [4] who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.

Matthew 9:37-38 (NIV)

Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. [38] Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."

IV. Acknowledge Jesus Eternally 

1 Timothy 2:5-6 (NIV)

For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, [6] who gave himself as a ransom for all men---the testimony given in its proper time.

Our Founding Fathers Believed...

A. The Bible

George Washington—

“Did we bring the Bible these shores? Or did it not rather bring us? The breath of the ancient prophets filled the sails of the tiny ships bringing pioneers to the new world. From those beginnings until now, the Bible has been a teacher to our best men, a rebuke to our worst men and a noble companion of us all.”

B. Our Beginnings Were Blueprinted By God

Daniel Webster—

“More than all, our government and our country were founded from the very first by faith under the Divine light of the Christian religion. Anyone who would wish that this country’s existence had otherwise begun is deceived. Let us not forget the spiritual character of our origin.”

C. The Bond of Country To Christianity

John Quincy Adams—

“The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: It connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.”

God Blessed Us To Bless America