What's Happening In America?

Psalm 33:12 "Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people he chose for his inheritance."

Don’t you wish that the Lord was the God of America?

INTRO.- What’s good about America? How about peace and security?

ILL.- A lady said: Security and peace of mind were part of the reason we moved to a gated community. But both flew out the window the night I called a local pizza shop for a delivery. "I’d like to order a large pepperoni, please," I said, then gave him the address of our condominium.

"We’ll be there in about half an hour," the kid at the other end replied. "Your gate code is still 1238, right?"

ILL.- HOW ABOUT INTEGRITY IN AMERICA? One man wrote: "A package arrived in our mailbox recently. My wife opened the package because it had our address on the package and she believed it could be one of the many sample products that she had signed up for. Inside the package was a man’s wallet containing $51 and many credit cards. Someone had sent the wallet to our address because it seems the man had lived at our address prior to us moving in.

"We went through the wallet trying to get more information that might give us an idea how to return the wallet to it’s proper owner. Inside we found a business card that said the man had been a store manager at a major nation wide consumer electronics store. I once worked with the store manager of the Norman Oklahoma location of this nation wide consumer electronics store so I decided to drive to the store and see if my friend might know the owner of the wallet. My friend was not working that day so I spoke with another manager and an employee who personally knew the owner of the wallet.

"Each of the store employees we spoke with seemed to be utterly amazed that we were trying to return the wallet. The employee who personally knew the owner of the wallet told us something great was going to happen to us for returning the wallet but that is not why we returned the wallet. The reason we returned the wallet is because it was the right thing to do!

"I truly believe integrity is not lost in America. Integrity is not found on the surface you have to dig deep within in to uncover it. I hear people say all the time, ’There are no men of integrity left.’ This is not true. Men and women of integrity are everywhere. Think about this, how many people pass your car, house, and your place of business each day and do not steal from you. The majority of people do not steal and make an effort each day to do what is right. We spend too much time focusing on people without integrity and we forget to celebrate and show gratitude to those those do what is right everyday. INTEGRITY IS NOT LOST IN AMERICA!" So be it.

HERE’S ONE EVEN BETTER.

ILL.- March, 2008. A Starbucks barista (server), 51-year-old Sandie Andersen, donated a kidney to a regular, longtime customer, in order to save her life. 55-year-old Annamarie Ausnes stated during a talk with Andersen that she needed a kidney transplant. The only problem was that her husband and son were not matches, meaning that they could not donate their kidneys to her to save her.

Without hesitation, Andersen offered to have a blood test to see if she matched the customer. The great thing is that she ended up being a perfect match. Andersen donated her kidney to Ausnes at the Virginia Mason Medical Center. In a few