July 2 marks the 233rd anniversary of our legal separation from Great Britain. It was on this day in 1776, that the Second Continental Congress voted to approve a resolution of independence.

The next day, John Adams, the man who would become our second president, wrote to his wife Abigail:

I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward for evermore.

As it turned out, Adams' timing was off by a couple of days. July 4, the day the formal document was approved, became the nation's official birthday, but the die was cast on the day our Founding Fathers, "with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence," mutually pledged to each other their "Lives, Fortunes and sacred Honor" to establish and defend the United States of America.

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Adams proudly put his name on that document. He was a Christian, as were the overwhelming majority of the signers of Declaration of Independence, and for some 200 years, the laws of our nation were a reflection of the moral laws God set forth in the Bible. As a result, the hand of Providence remained over this country, allowing us to become the most affluent, influential and powerful nation on earth.

In the last few decades, we have turned away from God, the way the Children of Israel turned their back on the great I AM. It is not surprising, that His hand of protection now has been lifted.

That is why many Christians will be forgoing the traditional celebrations this year, using this birthday as a day of repentance. This Sunday, July 5, is a call to fall on your knees, repent of your sins and pray for forgiveness and healing in our land.

Robert Knight laid out the dramatic changes that now threaten our very existence in his book, "Fighting for America's Soul."

As Knight points out, these changes violate our constitutionally guaranteed freedoms, while creating "group-based 'rights' that are used to punish individuals who do not conform to the New Age vision of limitless government, 'equality' over freedom, the eclipse of American sovereignty and the transformation of biblical morality into a form of 'bigotry' punishable by law."

Why do I, as individual, and we, as churches, need to repent? Aren't these things out of my/our control?

Not at all. Here in the United States of America, we the people are, in affect, Caesar, and the overwhelming majority are Christians. There is no excuse for what we have allowed to happen to this land. There is no such thing as a value-free law or a value-free piece of legislation. Therefore, if we aren't electing lawmakers who are passing laws based on our values, somebody else is.

The truth is that we, as Christians, have become too comfortable, too given to the pursuit of wealth, fame, entertainment and personal pleasures to spend our time watching what is happening in the halls of government.

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We don't carefully examine the candidates before we vote. We don't consider their stand, even on the moral issues. In short, we select our president and the rest of our representatives the same way a 7-year-old selects her Barbie doll.

Once in office, we treat our elected representatives like kings and queens. We don't hold them accountable for what they do. Most of us don't even know how or where to begin.

We, as Christians, have ignored the biblical prohibitions and warnings against borrowing and have allowed our country to become a debtor nation to communist China and other anti god nations.

We, as Christians, want the government to provide for our every need. We have elevated government to the place that God once occupied in our lives.

We, as Christians, have been afflicted with "terminal niceness." We would rather wink and nod at immorality than confront it.

We, as Christians, pretend that we don't know that an unborn child is a human being, created in God's image, with certain inalienable rights.

We, as Christians, have allowed our tax dollars to pay for abortions and "safe sex" education that encourages our young people to experiment with fornication and homosexuality.

We, as Christians, have been silent and allowed good to be called evil and evil to be called good.

Shame on us!

It is, indeed, time to humbly fall on our knees, ask for forgiveness and be willing to turn from our wicked, slothful ways. When we do that we have the assurance that God will hear from heaven and heal our land.