I came across these words just now, written by a retired pastor and author, Dean Davis. Every word he writes resonates very deeply in my own heart also, and so I share these words with you in the hope that they will be used to lift and encourage your precious soul this day. – Pastor John Samson

A word for my fellow Christian patriots:

Years ago, a great preacher delivered a sermon entitled The Power of an Alternate Affection. He drew his inspiration from a ride home on his horse. Throughout the first half of the journey he had to fight the horse, which wanted to go back. But during the second half, he had to fight the horse from racing ahead, so badly did it want to get home. The horse experienced a change in affection, and with that, a fresh power to run towards its new goal.

The preacher’s point was that the miracle of the New Birth creates a new and powerful affection: an affection for God, Christ, and the things above. No longer is the Christian inclined to run towards the world, the flesh, and the devil. Now he is racing towards the Kingdom of God.

On this most consequential morning (Jan. 6) I want to draw upon this sermon to speak to the hearts of Christian patriots here in America. Like you, I have a deep love for the old America, which, per the Declaration and the Constitution, enshrined as supreme the value of faith and ordered liberty in the religious, economic, and political spheres, under the laws of nature and nature’s God. While (apart from what is revealed in Scripture) we can never know for sure what the future holds, God does enable us to see trouble coming (Pr. 27:12). The events of 2020 convince me that trouble is coming, and that the America I knew and loved may well be gone forever.

And so, with a humble submission to the Sovereign Lord who alone knows the future, I want to encourage you with this word: In days ahead it may well be necessary for us to ask the Lord to produce in us a deep change of affection. We will, of course, always love the old America, as President Trump and many other great patriots still do. But it seems likely to me that that America is gone forever.

I hope I am wrong. But if I am not, I see only one solution, one path to soundness of mind and a steady, ongoing experience of the love, hope, and joy for which we were created. We shall have to transfer much of our affection for our earthly homeland to our heavenly. We shall have to set our minds–and our affections–on things above (Col. 3:1f). As never before, we shall have to attach our love and loyalty to a City and a Nation whose architect and builder is God (Heb. 11:10).

During his days on earth, the Lord Jesus depicted his Church as a City set upon a hill, and as the Light of the World. As the new America collapses still more fully into the darkness and chaos of the World-System, multitudes of frightened souls will be looking for truth, order, stability, security, peace, joy, hope, and love. As they look, they will need to see the Church at her very best, as a bright and shining City settled on a heavenly mountain high above the dark valleys and dangerous roads below. But for that to happen, you and I as individuals will have to experience, as never before, the power of alternate affection: an affection for the City and Homeland of God, and for their King.

I cannot imagine ever losing my love for the old America. But what I can see, and what helps me in this time of deep loss and sorrow, is that all that was good, and true, and beautiful in the old America was actually on loan to us from the Homeland above; and that we have it in spades forever, with no possibility of loss, when we are safe and sound in Jesus Christ.

In the months and years ahead I will be asking the Lord to help me experience the power of an alternate affection, so that I am not overwhelmed by sorrow and anger at the loss of my earthly country, but filled with the hope, joy, and love that so abundantly fills the City of God. In the power of those affections I will still fight to preserve the old America, but will do so as never before with my hope and affections set upon the New.

Please pray for me as I do, as I shall for you.

Love and Blessings to you all in 2021.

Dean Davis