Prayer for World Leaders

Today, I want to do something completely different. I want to share something that Jill, a friend of ours posted on Facebook, and help her take it to a wider audience.

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Praying these scriptures, and sounding a warning for all leaders of all God’s nations to follow, praying that they will speak with Godly wisdom, discernment, respect, may they humble themselves, live a life of compassion and love for all the people they rule over and for each other’s countries.

Psalms 2:10-11 – Therefore, you kings, be wise; be warned, you rulers of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear and celebrate his rule with trembling.

Proverbs 11:14 – For lack of guidance a nation falls, but victory is won through many advisers.

Proverbs 21:1 – The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will.

Job 12:23-25 – He makes nations great, and destroys them; he enlarges nations, and disperses them.

Proverbs 2:1-8 – My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, 2) turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding— 3) indeed, if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, 4) and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, 5) then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God. 6) For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. 7) He holds success in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless, 8) for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones.

2 Chronicles 7:14 If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

• Dear LORD God,
This day and always may we be reminded of:

1 Timothy 2:1-6:

“I exhort therefore, that, first of all , supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; 2 For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. 3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; 4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; 6 Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified 
in due time.

Dear faithful Holy LORD God Almighty we give you thanks that you are in control and that: Jesus Christ is the Ruler of all the Kings and leaders on earth.

May you alone, LORD God receive all the glory and honor, may we humble ourselves, and come before you in prayer, in continued praise and adoration. may we walk in your paths of righteousness and may we live a life mirroring Jesus and do what he continues to tell us to do:

” You have heard people say, “Love your neighbors and hate your enemies.” But I tell you to love your enemies and pray for anyone who mistreats you. Then you will be acting like your Father in heaven. He makes the sun rise on both good and bad people. And he sends rain for the ones who do right and for the ones who do wrong. If you love only those people who love you, will God reward you for that? Even tax collectors love their friends.” (Matthew 5:43-46)

Father God, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, may we seek to always be in the center of your perfect will.

In Jesus’ name, Amen

The Death of the Saints: Responding to Present Day Persecution

CNN called the last 7 days “Religion’s Week from Hell.” Click the image to read the story.

Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his faithful servants. Psalm 116:15 NIV

Most of you realize that I don’t do topical articles here. Rather, I try to keep each post somewhat timeless so that people can go back and reuse the resources here at any time.

Sometimes however, events just overwhelm us. I can’t imagine that I would have simply kept writing and posting Bible studies after September 11th, 2001; and with videos circulating of Middle East Christians being beheaded it’s very difficult not to be overwhelmed.

Our purpose here at Christianity 201 is to help people build their doctrinal foundation and link to similar online sites to find more of the same. But as a “201 Christian” who is moving beyond the basics, we have to realize that there are times we need to simply stop the Bible study, forget the Sunday order-of-service, and cry out to God. Rather, we need to use these occasions to express our anguish and pain at seeing brothers and sisters so brutally cut down.

On an Instagram posting of the picture at right — a graphic image of a type unusual for this site — Ann Voskamp quoted two important scriptures.

…whatever the world news may say about the Brave, Martyred 21 Christians who were beheaded by ISIS, Lord, we know Your Word speaks the Truth: “The world was not worthy of them.” (Heb.11:38)

However any evil thinks it’s winning & overcoming,

Your Truth declares that they are the Overcomers, that they overcame “because of the blood of the Lamb & because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death.” (Rev.12:11)

And wherever Your people are tonight, God,

We will remember every one of their names because they did not forget You or forsake claiming Your name,

We will pray for their families because they are our literal family,

And we will pray that our faith in You
is worth laying down our life for You,

We will pray that we don’t live lives of cheap grace but costly Christianity,

We will pray that their sacrificed lives will stir us to live sacrificial lives

And we will weep prayers for the persecuted Church because we are bound to them through Your Heart & in Your heart they are UNBOUND, UNDEFEATABLE, UNDAUNTED, & UNFORGETTABLE.

James 1:22 says Do not deceive yourselves by just listening to his word; instead, put it into practice. (GNT)

The Message Bible records this as:

^22-24 Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear! Those who hear and don’t act are like those who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like.

Part of our doing is communicating with God, expressing our sadness, crying out to him for help, interceding on behalf of the persecuted church. Yes, it is possible that God sees their sacrifice differently than we do, but we have only these eyes and ears, and what we see breaks us.

We need to tell God that.

^{AMP Rom 8:26}   So too the [Holy] Spirit comes to our aid and bears us up in our weakness; for we do not know what prayer to offer nor how to offer it worthily as we ought, but the Spirit Himself goes to meet our supplication and pleads in our behalf with unspeakable yearnings and groanings too deep for utterance.

^{Message Rom 8:26} Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans.

If the news about such modern day martyrdom has touched you — and I do not know how it cannot — I leave some space here that, rather than absorbing teaching and learning today, we would just express our pain to our Father in heaven.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interceding Specifically

This week I returned for a few more chapters of Penetrating the Darkness a book on intercession by Dr. Jack Hayford, who for years was lead pastor at Church on The Way in Van Nuys, California.

In chapter four, Jack indicates that intercession involves three elements:

• praying for somebody else; praying on behalf of
• reliance on the Holy Spirit for guidance and help to pray beyond the intercessor’s knowledge or understanding
• a challenge to our helplessness to deal with the larger issues of life

Later in the chapter, he teaches three easy-to-remember terms:

• intersection
• intervention
• interception

I might come back to those at another time, and I do want to challenge you to get a copy of this book for your own, especially those of you who have a prayer and intercession ministry.   One couple in Jack’s church was Michael and Stormie Omartian and if you’ve read Stormie’s The Power of a Praying… series of books, this makes an excellent companion. 

…This morning at 5:00 AM, I woke up and felt led to pray for a man we know who has been estranged from his wife for nearly a decade.  As I thought about their situation, I felt led to pray very specifically for a number of things that need to happen.  I prayed that:

• God would soften her heart
• she would feel led to reopen communication
• there would not be a barrier created by pride; that she would be humble
• that she would be truthful with people to whom she may have painted a one-sided picture of their situation
• that she would repent of wrongdoing on her part
• that she would seek reconciliation and restoration of the relationship
• that the decision she makes would stick over the long-term

I also prayed for him, that:

• he would be open to receive her forgiveness and accept it at face value, in expectancy of reconciliation over the long-term
• he would do his best to be the kind of person she needs
• God would heal the wounds and scars that the last few years have created

Usually, I have great creative and spiritual clarity at that hour, but when I go to the keyboard many hours later, I have forgotten everything.  (I even considered finding a pen at 5:00 AM and making notes; I say that with apologies for those of you who are up at that hour anyway; I’m not!)  However, this time, I have recorded here point-for-point what came to me earlier in the day.

I think it’s important — it’s necessary — to pray specifically like this, and there are probably other aspects of this I could add to the example, but I want to preserve the anonymity of the people involved.

My point today is simply that to pray only, “God, bless__________;” is inadequate and even to pray, “God, bless ____________ and __________ and bring them back together;” is to miss the many barriers that often need to come down before something like that can happen.

Well then, what shall I do? I will pray in the spirit,  and I will also pray in words I understand.  ~ I Cor. 14:15 NLT

The first thing I want you to do is pray. Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know. Pray especially for rulers and their governments to rule well so we can be quietly about our business of living simply, in humble contemplation. This is the way our Savior God wants us to live.  ~I Tim 2: 1-3 The Message

 

Postscript: Feel free to join us in praying for our friend and his wife.

Holding Up Hands in Prayer

For the last few days I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the story of Israel’s battle with the Amalekites; the one in Exodus 17 where, as long as Moses hands are raised, Israel is winning.   But when he lowers his hands, the battle starts to go badly.   So they seated Moses on a rock and held his hands up in the air.

¹⁰ So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, and Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill. ¹¹ As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. ¹² When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset. ¹³ So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword.  (Ex 17  NIV)

I’ve been thinking about this passage because, as paranoid as it may sound, I feel there is correlation between the times I have not been as focused in my devotion to God and certain circumstances that have taken place involving friends or relatives.   Perhaps it is only that God has used already transpiring circumstances to bring back my spiritual focus, but we have no idea as to what “cause and effect” sequences God may be permitting.

It’s easy to get distracted by video games, movies, television dramas, romance novels, the acquisition of new material possessions, shopping trips, new hair styles, celebrity gossip, e-mail forwards,  Facebook, Twitter, internet pornography, summer vacation spots, buying lottery tickets, preoccupation with food and dining, lusts and infatuations, drinking, worries about health or family, financial pressure, job stress, etc., etc.

In all those things which can consume us, I think we’re letting down our hands, and whoever the “Amalekites” are in our home, workplace, school, extended family, or neighborhood; they start “winning” the inevitable ongoing spiritual battle that’s taking place.

So what do you think?  Do our lack of prayers make a difference?  Are there situations that are hanging in the balance right now in which outcomes will be determined by our willingness to sacrifice personal comfort or personal concern to [figuratively] hold up our hands?

Interceding for the Lost

As the saying goes, ‘And now for something completely different.’

A lot of Christian music goes over the same lyrical ground.   This one is a little different.  Refreshingly different.   Debby Boone (“You Light Up My Life”) recorded this back in the age of vinyl records.

It’s not a worship song.   It’s not a song of testimony. It’s the desperate plea for the Holy Spirit to dramatically intercede in the life of an unsaved friend.   A music expression of praying for the lost.

I’m not a huge fan of the video itself, so I’ve just posted it in such a way that you just get the audio. (HT: Abraham Piper)(Full video link.)

Do you have someone who you are desperately praying for to come into the Kingdom? We need to do all we can humanly do, and then ask God to do all that he can divinely do.

VERSE 1
I got a call from an old friend
We laughed about how things had changed
But I could tell things weren’t going as well
As he claimed

He tried to hide his feelings
But they only gave him away
The longer I listened,
The more I kept wishing that
I knew the right words to say

CHORUS
Can You reach my friend ?
Bring his searching to an end
Lord, I know you love him
Help him understand
Can You reach my friend?
You’re the only One who can
Help him give his heart to You

VERSE 2
We talked for more than an hour
I smiled when he mentioned Your name
I said that I knew You

I told him the difference You made
But he never thought he would need You
But maybe he’s changing his mind
As we said goodbye Lord
He told me that I had found
Something that he’d like to find

CHORUS:
Can You reach my friend?
You’re the only One who can
Lord, I know You love him
Help him understand
Can you reach my friend?
Bring his searching to an end
Help him give his heart to You

BRIDGE:
Maybe he’s ready tonight
Lord, he said that he might
Need to call You

Help him give his heart to You