"Lovest thou Me?"

I believe as many of you do that if anything is going to happen in our lives, families and our country that there must be a crying out to God in repentance. If we are honest with ourselves there is very little of "God" in our lives, families and country. In the south the sin is "nominal Christianity" which is NOT Christian but religion. In the north you have secularism, which is the systematic removal of God from every aspect of our lives, families and country. We must stop complaining and start confessing with a divine Holy Spirt wrought contrition! May we do as Peter did in denying the Lord, "And Peter went out and wept bitterly" (Luke 22:62). 

I have been reading a couple of books by Andrew Murray, one on prayer and the other on having a deeper Christian life. This is an excerpt that has helped me and my prayer is it will stir in you as well.

Dear Christians, do you not long to be brought nigh unto God? Would you not give anything to walk in close fellowship with Jesus every day? Would you not count it a pearl of great price to have the light and love of God shining in you all the day? Oh, come and fall down and make confession of sin; and, if you will do it, Jesus will come and meet you and He will ask you, “Lovest thou Me?” And, if you say, “Yes, Lord,” very quickly He will ask again, “Lovest thou Me?”—and if you say, “Yes, Lord,” again, He will ask a third time, “Lovest thou Me?”—and your heart will be filled with an unutterable sadness, and your heart will get still more broken down and bruised by the question, and you will say, “Lord, I have not lived as I should, but still I love Thee and I give myself to Thee.” Oh, beloved may God give us grace now, that, with Peter, we may go out, and, if need be, weep bitterly. If we do not weep bitterly,—we are not going to force tears—shall we not sigh very deeply, and bow very humbly, and cry very earnestly, “O God, reveal to me the carnal life in which I have been living: reveal to me what has been hindering me from having my life full of the Holy Ghost”? Shall we not cry, “Lord, break my heart into utter self-despair, and, oh! bring me in helplessness to wait for the Divine power, for the power of the Holy Ghost, to take possession and to fill me with a new life given all to Jesus?”

 Andrew Murray, The Deeper Christian Life (Chicago; New York; Toronto: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1895).