Seriously, what do you want?

It has probably not escaped your attention that there is an election coming up soon here in America.

So are you praying about it? At all?

My guess is that if you are, you’re praying that God will put in power the person who you believe will do the least damage to the moral fiber of this nation. Right?

So you hope that the status quo will continue or even that things might improve a little.

Why?

Be honest now.

Why?

Why do you want things to stay the same or get a little better?

Does your honest answer to that have anything to do with the reason that God has called us and the work that He has given us?

What is the single most important thing in the world for us to do?

I want to put it to you that the single most important thing in the world for us to do is work to bring people into the Kingdom and family of God.

Sure we have plenty of other responsibilities but I believe that the very most important responsibility we have is to do whatever it takes to reach out to the lost and bring them into the light.

So the next question I have to ask is this: Is it working?

Is the prosperity and freedom in America helping to bring people to Christ? Do people enjoy all of the trappings of wealth and turn to God to worship Him for it?

No?

So why would you pray that God would keep the wealth and prosperity going?

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything against prosperity, provided it is coupled with an increase in worship of God and a growth of His Kingdom here on earth. That, however, has not happened over the last few decades. As prosperity has increased, the Church has decreased.

My challenge to you then is this:

Don’t pray for your favorite candidate, don’t pray that God will fix all the problems you see that need fixing. Don’t pray that the economy will return to health. Don’t pray that your pet proposition or constitutional amendment will pass or fail depending on your feelings, instead pray this:

Pray that God will do whatever needs to be done for people to turn back to Him. Pray that whatever outcome in the election will bring the most people to God will be the outcome that He brings about. Pray that God will do whatever it takes to bring people back to Him no matter what the consequences are for us and for this nation as we know it. No matter how bad things might get for you, no matter how much persecution, strife and hardship may come, no matter how dark things need to get, whatever will bring people to their knees before their Saviour. Pray that God will do it.

If you can pray that prayer and mean it then I believe that God will hear and answer.

God doesn’t want us praying for our own agendas, Jesus demonstrated in the garden of Gethsemane that we should be praying:

“…not my will but yours be done.” Luke 22:42

Can you pray that?