A Season of Hope: Preparing Our Hearts for Easter
1 John 1:9
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
One hundred and sixty years ago on this day, March 30, 1863, Abraham Lincoln issued a Proclamation for a National Day of Prayer, Fasting, and Humiliation:
“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 these nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.
And inasmuch 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 number, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown.
But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand that 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 virtue and wisdom 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 who 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.”
Dear Heavenly Father, these many years later, the words of our 16th President of the United States still speak to the need our nation has—as well as we as individuals— for prayer, humiliation, and repentance before You, our Holy God. We humbly ask for your forgiveness, O God, and set our hearts towards You and your righteousness. These last 32 days of Lent, You have been working on our hearts, to soften and mold them by your Holy Spirit, to conform us to your image, not the world’s. May we forever be changed and dependent on You to lead us through life on your narrow path, recognizing your provision and grace. In the name of your Son who came to give us hope and the promise of Eternity. Amen.
I am honored that you have read my devotion today. Feel free to Like, Follow, and Share this with your friends and this page. To receive Devotions For All Reasons by email every day, go to https://devotionsforallreasons.com and simply click on “Subscribe.” <3
~ painting by Jon McNaughton
