The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will let you hear my words.” So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do.
Then the word of the Lord came to me: “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the Lord. Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it.
While Saturday is viewed as the birthday of the nation, today (July 2nd) is the anniversary of the date the Continental Congress actually voted to pass the resolution to declare independence from Great Britain, adopting what would be signed 2 days later as the Declaration of Independence. This began a season of tremendous hardship and blessing, as the Lord guided and sustained a people who had been primed to move in faith since their inception, and increasingly shaped by faith for a couple of decades prior to the outbreak of hostilities between the colonies and the kingdom they belonged to.
One of the underlying reasons for most of the migration to the colonies had been a yearning to worship the Lord freely, without crowns or state 
churches being able to impose specific forms of worship or punish those who understood Scripture differently after the Reformation that had swept across Europe two centuries before, bringing war and persecution across the land. This left a unique seed and imprint of faith on the people of the various colonies and frontiers in what would eventually become the United States of America. This seed was watered deeply in the early to mid -1700s by the Great Awakening, led by the likes of Jonathan Edwards, and most notably, one of the original “Holy Club” members – George Whitefield. By the mid-1700s the colonies were awash in firmly converted souls filled with religious zeal and a desire for freedom to worship the Lord and share the gospel.
When war between Britain and America came, and the outcome resulted in the beginning of the end of one nation’s influence on this continent and the rise of a new nation of a unique and different sort than had been seen in history, there arose alongside the new government a continuing movement, led by a lone clergyman, ordained in England, sent to the colonies, who refused to be recalled when all others from the Church of England fled home to safety. Francis Asbury continued to ride across the landscape, preaching, visiting, encouraging, putting out the fires of schism, and laying a foundation of fully involved clergy and laity not only in what became the Methodist Church, but in the states and communities that were influenced by the movement.
His fervor for holiness and for spreading the Gospel helped a nation turn from wickedness to the Lord in a time of great distress and trial. The result of his work, alongside other committed to the spread of the gospel was: a nation formed in the face of enormous odds, a nation blessed in the midst of great challenge and trial, a nation infused with the recognition that it was God from whom our rights and blessings came, and a nation who, however imperfectly, sought to rise to the ideal of free men, made in the image of God, working toward being a righteous nation through faithfulness, personal accountability and mutual respect.
It has been 250 years since those days. Yet the Lord has raised up generation after generation to renew the fires of revival and awakening across this land. In dark days, the Lord raises His beacons of light to serve as signs for the nation of its need to repent and return to Him, to be restored. In these days, He has raised up a new movement of people within the tradition of Francis Asbury, with the fire of Whitefield and the intentionality and accountability of Wesley. And here in the birthplace of freedom, the Commonwealth of Virginia, He has given us the sacred call to spread the good news, that true freedom is found in Jesus Christ, and all are invited to repent and come to Him, to be filled with His Spirit, to be made holy as He is holy, and to join together to call a nation to righteousness so that we can listen to the voice of the potter and once again be reshaped into a vessel that honors Him.
Lord God, who calls us out of darkness into Your glorious light, who shapes and molds hearts, and peoples, and even nations, hear our cry! In Your kindness, draw us to repentance. In Your mercy, open our ears to hear Your voice calling us. In Your goodness, fill us with a holy fire to pursue the mission of spreading scriptural holiness across this land with unwavering devotion and supernatural effect. Lord, make us Your people, bound together by the Spirit, one with Christ, in service to the world, and the nation where You’ve planted us, so that Your will is done on earth as it is in heaven. In Jesus name, amen.