Thoughts On the National Day of Prayer

Tomorrow is the day we set aside as The National Day of Prayer. I hope each one of us who call Jesus Lord understand that tomorrow is not the only day we need to be praying. As Christians, we not only are commanded to pray every day, we are commanded to pray without ceasing, as we see commanded in 1 Thessalonians 5:18. Personally in my own life I have learned that my very existence depends upon following this commandment. What this verse is not saying is that we are constantly in a literal state of being on our knees in a formal posture of prayer. What it is saying is that we must walk through every moment of our lives in communication with God. If you are a Christian, then you ARE the temple of the God. This is accomplished through the indwelling Holy Spirit, who takes up residence in ALL believers (1 Corinthians 3:16). This is life changing. This means that the same power that raised Christ from the dead (Romans 8:11), lives inside us. There is nothing that God wills that we cannot accomplish. But if we tune out the Spirit, we will walk in the flesh. Since the Holy Spirit is not an “it” but a person, and the Holy Spirit is God, then we can understand that God truly is with us all the time, everywhere we go. So, praying without ceasing simply means we communicate with God at all times for He is right there with us.

So, tomorrow is our chance to possibly share with unbelievers the power of prayer and the joy of the eternal relationship we have with Jesus. It is an opportunity to demonstrate how our faith carries us through these dark and difficult days. It is a chance to show that we walk, not by sight, but by faith. And it is because of that faith and the promises we are sure of as written in our Bibles, we know we can trust God. We also know He hears our prayers and He wants us to come before Him with our daily needs.

And the National Day of Prayer reminds us of those needs. It is easy to remember our own personal desires. And praying for those is ok, God tells us through James that we don’t have because we don’t ask, so clearly it is right to come before God with all our requests. We just need to remember that James also tells us that we “…ask and do not receive, because [we] ask with wrong motives, so that [we] may spend it on [our] pleasures.” - James 4:3. It is important that we grow in our prayer life to a place where we pray more for God’s will than for our own.

But scripture also commands us to pray for others and for our leaders. So, tomorrow is a good opportunity to renew our commitment to praying and to reevaluate our priorities in it.

Our country is in trouble. It is in moral decline and moving away from God more each day. One of the most popular scriptures is we hear around the National Day of Prayer is 2 Chronicles 7:13-14
 

"If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people, and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

America has not yet been placed under a complete judgment by God. But the signs are there. God is watching. He has blessed us as a nation with many things that include freedom to worship, bountiful food and clean water, and except the Civil War, we have not had to face war on our own land in modern times. We can debate all day, whether America was ever a Christian nation, but it is indisputable that we were a people who sought the God of the Bible. The Ten Commandments were the basis for our justice system. Prayer was part of schools. Celebrations of holidays such as Christmas and Easter, though certainly filled with consumerism, had at their root, Jesus Christ. Though certainly sin always existed in the American culture, it was not celebrated and shame was associated with it. The legalization of abortion, the removal of the Ten Commandments from our buildings, lawsuits over having a manger scene in front of our buildings, prayer stripped from the schools, and the complete acceptance of same sex marriage is a clear message to God, as a people we don’t want you ruling over us. We no longer place the Holy Bible up as the standard for morals and law. God is watching.

So we need to pray just as 2 Chronicles 7:13-14 says. But we better be praying for a change in our nation as a people because if we want God to heal our nation we must humble ourselves, we must seek God’s face, and we must turn from our wicked ways. If those things don’t happen? The God will not heal our land and we will end up in the judgment of God. The full judgement and it won’t be pretty.

We need revival. Hear God’s Word from 1 Peter 4:17
“For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?”

Revival must begin with us. It must begin in the churches of America. It must start in our own hearts.

What should we pray for tomorrow?

Pray for yourself to put God first in all things and to be bold in sharing the Gospel. Pray that we would preach a Gospel of repentance, for that is the Gospel.

Pray for the church and its leaders. The church must stop seeking to please man, but must seek to please God and give all glory to HIM.

Pray for the government. We need Godly people running our country. Godly police officers and a justice system that is about justice. We need judges who follow God’s law. We need a system of rehabilitating people not simply caging them up then letting them back out unprepared.

Pray for the family. We need divorce to stop. We need fathers to be fathers and mothers to be mothers. God has a design for families and we must return to that design.

Pray for the educators and the system. We need our children to be taught and given opportunities to develop their God-given talents.

Pray for those who run our businesses. We need people to be able to have employment that is fair and balanced so that our economy isn’t self-defeating but instead provides a cycle of earning and buying that keeps itself viable and gives opportunity to all.

Pray for each other and for others. We need to replace violence, hate and mistrust with attitudes that are like the attitude of Christ, who gave Himself up for others. Pray that we might consider others as more important than self.

There is no end to the prayer needs of our people and our nation. Pray without ceasing.

Get involved tomorrow. But let it be the day that marks the rest of your life. Let us become a people that every day humbles ourselves before God with confession, repentance, thankfulness, and worship for our God.

Revival starts within our own heart. Imagine the possibilities if we all just start there.

Spring Cleaning

This is the time of the year that we hear people talk about doing their “spring cleaning.” Why spring cleaning? Because winter is for many a harsh season in which our homes get dirty from things like snow, rain, and the resultant mud which seeps into carpets and floors. Winter also is not usually conducive to getting windows clean and even the air in our houses can get stale because we have kept them closed for so long. Our houses need to be purged of dirt and we need new and fresh odors and clean air to keep us breathing and to promote good health. Often spring cleaning reveals things around our homes that need repair as well.

For Christians, this is a good time to “clean” up ourselves as well. Why? Here is why.

1 Corinthians 3:16-17
Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?
If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.

Is God’s temple, the place where God dwells in every believer, not more important than the very home we dwell in? The answer is obvious; of course it is, yet many of us have let ourselves be dirtied by the winters of life.

The past weeks I have been studying the various kings of the Bible. If any particular theme seems to run through the story of these kings, it is that most of them did not do what was right in God’s eyes. After King David, we see this progression of kings roll through, some bad; some good.

We read this of many of the kings.

2 Kings 8:17-18
He was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem.
And he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, as the house of Ahab had done, for the daughter of Ahab was his wife. And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD.

We read this of Jehu.

2 Kings 10:28-31
Thus Jehu wiped out Baal from Israel.
But Jehu did not turn aside from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin—that is, the golden calves that were in Bethel and in Dan. And the LORD said to Jehu, “Because you have done well in carrying out what is right in my eyes, and have done to the house of Ahab according to all that was in my heart, your sons of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel.” But Jehu was not careful to walk in the law of the LORD, the God of Israel, with all his heart. He did not turn from the sins of Jeroboam, which he made Israel to sin.

We see some kings who were simply put; evil. We see some who did good; yet were not careful to walk in the law of the Lord with all their heart.

Some were like Jehoash.

2 Kings 12:2-3
And Jehoash did what was right in the eyes of the LORD all his days, because Jehoiada the priest instructed him. Nevertheless, the high places were not taken away; the people continued to sacrifice and make offerings on the high places.

So, what is the lesson for us in all this? The lesson must lead us to ask a question of ourselves? What kind of “king” am I? No, we are not really the king, but we are responsible for the care of the Temple of God. Are we simply evil? Have we wiped out the major sins in our life, yet are content to allow “golden calves” to exist within our own life because we are not careful to walk fully by the law of God? Do we do what is right in the eyes of God, yet we have failed to take away the high places?

It is possible that we have convinced ourselves that our worship of God is right, but in truth we are worshipping on high places. It is possible, according to the lessons of scripture, to do this. You can sit in a church every Sunday and still not be worshipping God in a way that pleases Him. How? By simply not doing it the Biblical way. By letting the ways of world dictate how you worship and serve God in lieu of simply following scripture. By not giving Him all the glory for every single blessing of your life.

This topic is deep and it needs way more consideration than this short blog can give. But this morning as I studied in 2 Kings 18-20 I believe there is good counsel on where to begin our spiritual spring cleaning. Take a look at King Hezekiah.

2 Kings 18:1-6
 In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel, Hezekiah the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign. He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abi the daughter of Zechariah. And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, according to all that David his father had done. He removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it (it was called Nehushtan). He trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel, so that there was none like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him. For he held fast to the LORD. He did not depart from following him, but kept the commandments that the LORD commanded Moses.

Hezekiah put God first and desired to follow all His commandments. He did what many of us need to do. Destroy the sins in our lives. All of them; not just the ones we don’t care for. The New Testament is chocked full of instruction about doing this. Galatians 5:24 is a clear picture of what this looks like as it tells us that “those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”

Crucified the flesh. That’s a strong way to speak of what we should do with our sinful nature. But if we take a hard look at our lives and our faith by comparing our conduct with the commandments of scripture, most of us will find we have some cleaning to do. We need to tear down some high places. We need to get rid of some golden calves. And we need to do it as Hezekiah did; not just hide them in a closet, but we must break them into pieces. We must crucify our flesh.

I know I do. I’ve yet to become a Hezekiah. But its spring now. It’s time to start the work. Take time to read God’s Word and study with this objective. To become more like Jesus every day. May God bless you in this journey.