Praying with Power and Urgency for Our Nation

We believers, through prayer, have more power than the president, the Congress, the Courts and the media combined to see our nation transformed by God.

But most of us don’t really believe that; if we did, we would act accordingly and really, really pray for a nation that is in deep trouble. Instead, we complain about the sky falling in upon us (and it surely is practically falling upon us, in a manner of speaking).

But I recall Dr. Charles Stanley once saying that the more we talk with man about a problem the less we talk to God about it.

Let us challenge ourselves – and accept the challenge from God – to spend more time praying with power and urgency for our nation (see my prayer below) and less time in things we know we need to spend less time with.

And may the reason we do this be because we want our nation to be able to say along with the psalmist, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD” (Ps. 33:12).

I believe God will turn the curses that abound around us into blessings once again if His people will humble themselves and pray and turn from their sins (2 Chr. 7:14).

Prophetically, we’re obviously at the most critical hour in our nation’s history; heaven is waiting to see what Christians are going to do: curse the darkness or lay hold of God on behalf of the nation, beseeching Him for mercy, forgiveness of our sins and massive awakening?

Let us hear with our hearts and apply Is. 62:1, 6-7:

1 For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent,
for Jerusalem’s sake I will not remain quiet,
till her righteousness shines out like the dawn,
her salvation like a blazing torch.
6 I have posted watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem;
they will never be silent day or night.
You who call on the LORD,
give yourselves no rest,
7 and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem
and makes her the praise of the earth.

Father, we repent of our own sins and we repent on behalf of the Church; forgive us for all of our disobedience in Your sight and cleanse us from our unrighteousness. Turn our hearts to love obedience and to hate disobedience and not tolerate it any longer.

We ask You to forgive our nation for its sins of pride, ingratitude, murder, greed, violence, selfishness, perversion and all manner of corruption and for outright rebellion and rejection of You.

Incline our hearts to do what is right in Your sight. We ask You to arrest in the spiritual realm all corruption at the highest levels of power; we bind every demonic spirit of deception over our leaders, in the name of Jesus.

We pray for our leaders in government, in education, in business, for those who have influence over us through the media and in every realm that affects and influences us that You would bring humility to them; that You would deliver them from selfishness, pride, greed, bribery, perversion, and outright rebellion against You.

We ask You to send Your angels throughout our nation to root out evil and evil plans; we ask You to send a massive awakening throughout our land: break people of their sin; reveal to them the eternal consequences of rejecting You.

Make us, Your Church, bold in our witness and unrelenting. Give us divine appointments to win the lost and give us Your genuine love and compassion for them — just as You had for us in saving us from ourselves.

Have mercy, O Lord, upon our economy and deliver us from being a service-oriented economy to a manufacturing-based economy once again, for we know that in our current state, we cannot last much longer.

Open up heaven to bring forth new inventions that the devil and the world cannot co-opt for evil purposes. Cause righteous, selfless men and women to make these inventions, discoveries, innovations.

Deliver our nation from stupid and destructive economic and public policies and give us wise and godly leaders that will honor You, seek to bless the people they serve and cause You to therefore bless our land.

We thank You for protecting us from further terrorist attack; please continue to do everything necessary to continue our protection. And remember, Lord, the demonic attacks against our nation and destroy every demon that is assigned from hell to ruin us.

Rend the heavens and come down and deliver us from evil; do the same throughout the earth, in Jesus’ name we ask, amen!

What It Means To Be a Friend of God

One of the most remarkable thoughts in Scripture is that God would call His own His “friends.”

In the Old Testament, we find that Abraham was the “friend of God” (2 Chr. 20:7; Is. 41:8), and so James repeats this as well in his epistle (2:23).

In the New Testament, Jesus called His disciples His friends (significantly, shortly before His crucifixion, resurrection and ascension, in John 15:15):

“I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”

Moreover, we find in the NT that He loves us both with His agape (unconditional love; this word describing His love toward us appears far more often) and His phileo (defined below):

Here is an instructive and fascinating window into phileo: It is the Greek word for friendship love, based on common interests and having warm feelings and affection, but which can also be alienated due to an ungrateful response from one to another.

John tells us that Jesus loved His friend Lazarus this way (John 11:36) and that He also loved John – the disciple that was probably the closest of all to Jesus – with a phileo love (20:2).

In addition, John tells us the disciples loved Jesus with a phileo love (16:27; cf. 21:21:15-17).

This means that our Triune God likes us; that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit enjoy us, delight in us and genuinely engage us in relationship through conversation.

Therefore, our response can and should be one of eagerness and delight to be with God in the wide variety of ways that He calls us to be with Him and know Him.

But it is both encouraging and sobering that Jesus uses this same word of the sadly backslidden church of Laodicea (Rev. 3:19): “Those whom I phileo, I discipline.”

That means that while we’re friends with God, we also reverence Him as God and do the things that please Him — for that is the true test of our love for Him (John 14:21).

Do you know that Jesus loves you with a phileo love, in addition to His agape love (unconditional love)?

Isn’t that a moving and powerful thought? Do you love Him in the same way? And is not also a sobering thought that with this friendship love between us and our Friend that we can alienate Him?

Lord, please help us never to alienate You!

How To Trust God

For many, trusting God consistently is a challenge: it can be perplexing, frustrating and confusing.

But when done on a consistent basis, it is by far one of the most rewarding things in life, because it carries with it great reward and blessing from Him:

“And without faith, it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him” (Heb. 11:6).

I cannot say that I have arrived at trusting God (though I wish I could), but I can say that year-by-year, I’m growing in my consistency in trusting Him.

How have I done that? By meditating upon His Word. There is such a thing as biblical meditation — seen frequently in the Psalms.

For example, the Hebrew word translated “meditate” in Ps. 1:3 means to speak, talk, utter, study, ponder, imagine or murmur (in pleasure or in anger).

Let’s take one of the most important and well-known verses in Scripture concerning trust in God: Prov. 3:5-6:

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge (literally, “know”) Him and He will make your paths straight.”

The way I learn to apply those two verses more consistently and deeply is to declare them out loud — to the LORD, to myself and to the demonic realm — to counter the doubt that arises from my own fallen nature and from the demonic realm, which works constantly to get me to doubt God’s goodness and His faithfulness.

So, I boldly declare those verses again and again and again until they get down deeply into my spirit and I can say with sincerity, “ok, Lord, I do trust You!”

Here is how I personalize those verses to Him and to myself: “Father, I choose to trust You with all of my heart; I’m not going to lean on my own understanding; I don’t have to have it all figured out.

“But in all my ways — in everything I do — I choose to lean on and know You and Your ways.

“And as I do this, You promise to go before me and make my paths straight. Thank You, Father!”

I’m certainly not saying this is easy: it takes perseverance!  But perseverance always pays off and it builds great character in us — and ultimately, greater trust in God.

And afterall, believers have a relationship with Him — and the best relationships in life are always built on trust. 

I pray that you will be undeterred in your quest to trust God through meditating upon His Word, day and night!

Would You Like To Get More Out of God’s Word?

Friend, do you have many times that you try and read God’s Word but don’t seem to get a lot out of it?

Are there many days that you don’t read it because of the above experiences?

I can share three ways with you that will enable you to get much, much more out of His Word.

First, I’ve had this simple little “rule” for the past three decades now: before I open the Bible, I pray this brief, but heart-felt prayer: “Father, please open Your Word up to me now; speak to me and make me more like You, Lord Jesus, amen.”

Now, is that a prayer that God wants to answer? Is that a prayer that He can honor?

What I’m saying to Him through such a prayer is that I’m dependent upon Him; that if He doesn’t indeed open His Word to me (Luke 24:45), I won’t get anything out of it.

Secondly, when I go to read His Word, I have my prayer journal out and I’m ready to write down what I learn or what I believe He’s speaking to me from His Word.

That is an act of faith and expectation that I also believe honors Him.

Third, I read His Word devotionally, as well as in its context to the original readers.

So, for example, let’s say I’m going through 1 Peter and this morning I come to 2:1-5.

I read the passage first (again, after having prayed the prayer I wrote, above) and then I go back and read it out loud and to the Lord.

The result of devotional reading is that I’m interacting with Him through His Word — and I believe that honors Him as well!

Here’s the passage: please read it and then note how I interact with God as I go back through it a second time:

“1Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. 2Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, 3now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.

“4 As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him— 5you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

“Father, I choose to put aside now all malice and all deceit, along with hypocrisy, envy and all slander.

“Search me now and reveal to me if any of those things — or any sin — resides in me so that I can quickly repent of it (then I wait for a moment; if the Lord doesn’t convict me of anything, I’m encouraged and I continue on. What I’m now doing is praying through His Word, in addition to reading it).

“Father, help me to daily be like a newborn baby who longs for the pure milk of Your Word, so that by it I might grow in respect to salvation — and bring You glory and honor.

“Thank You that I have experienced to the full (the meaning of “tasted”) Your kindness. How else could I live? Thank You for revealing Yourself to me as kind; it gives me greater confidence in approaching You, especially through You, Lord Jesus.

“And coming to You, Lord Jesus — the Living Stone — I may have been rejected by some for following You but You never reject me.

“Thank You for teaching me here in this passage that I have been chosen by You (before the foundation of the world!) and I am precious (also unique, valuable and rare) to and before You!

“I’m also Your living stone and You’re building me up as part of Your spiritual house. You declare me to be Your holy priest and everything I do and say — when done through You, Holy Spirit — will be a spiritual sacrifice to You, Father, acceptable through You, Lord Jesus.”

Wow; can you see and feel how “Bible study” can take on an entirely new dynamic — simply through interacting with God like this?  And I’ve just addressed the entire Godhead through His Word, in prayer!

When we practice this on a daily basis, we only become more skilled at this discipline that leads to delight!

When Man Rejects God’s Revelation: Emptiness

I’ve been revising my teaching notes for Systematic Theology and in my research on the Authority of Scripture I came across a very telling quote from the famous psychiatrist Carl Jung, lamenting the loss of the authority of God’s Word in Western Civilization (and this was in 1935):

“Side by side with the decline of religious life, the neuroses grow noticeably more frequent.

“Everywhere the mental state of European men shows an alarming lack of balance. We are living undoubtedly in a period of the greatest restlessness, nervous tension, confusion, and disorientation of outlook…Everyone of them has the feeling that our modern religious truths have somehow or other grown empty” (“Modern Man in Search of a Soul,” New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1935), 264ff.

What Jung was referring to in his last statement was the eroding confidence in the authority of Scripture among the so-called Mainline denomintations of Europe.

Instead of adhering to the inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible, these denominations embraced theological liberalism. Within a few generations, most of those churches were virtually empty.

If a secular psychiatrist like Jung could see the oncoming decadence of Europe (74 years ago) without a firm belief that God has spoken and spoken accurately to humanity, is it any wonder our society is in the trouble it’s in?

I’ve written elsewhere in this blog about the Inspiration, Inerrancy and Infallibility of Scripture, so I won’t repeat its sure proof here, but with everything in our society failing, the one sure foundation to build one’s life upon and thus find the true destiny God has designed for all people can be found in the Bible.

Ironically, most people have Bibles, but sadly, they don’t read them. If they would simply ask God to speak to them before they read the gospels or the Psalms, they would immediately begin the most satisfying journey known to humanity.