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?
wow Peter that was a lot to think about and I agree and disagree with some things you said but my feelings are that basically you are right we need to pray “…not my will but yours be done.” Luke 22:42
ok thats all I have to say becuase I’m not going into personal opinion or even *gasp* politics this isn’t my blog just my comment back to your blog 😉 and I have been very careful to stay away from getting into anything having to do with politcial views and will be so happy when other people can stop trying to convince me as to why what they think is right really is. because mostly all it has done is made me very sad to see how strong the enemy has laid lies into the spirits of people who seem to be good people but are just so far from being in line with the REAL truth and laws we should be living by.
p.s sorry it took me two days to post a comment I just couldn’t keep my eyes open last night BUT see I finally got the chance too
Thanks for the comment Erin.
Politics is such a divisive thing. It’s amazing how many people have so many differing opinions on things.
Personally I try to avoid politics. My focus is on the lost and on bringing them into the Kingdom of God but I do realize that saying I avoid politics as much as possible is a political standpoint too!
One big thing that I left out of this post is the very strong emphasis that God put on rulers leading their people in a Godly manner. That meant making rules and laws which were in keeping with Godly principles. Read the old testament, particularly Kings and Chronicles and you will see time and time again that God punished both rulers and nations for going astray. God is interested in national morality in a BIG way!
My feeling though is that it comes down to this: Why do people want this country to return to a strong moral foundation? Is it so that people will be saved or is it so that this will be a ‘nice’ place to live? Living under Godly laws doesn’t save anyone. Salvation comes through repentance and being born-again. If more people would get saved through the country returning to morally upright laws then I would be happy for that to happen but what if more would get saved by the country falling into moral collapse? My point was this: are you prepared to accept whatever is best for the salvation of the lost? Are you prepared to pray that God will do whatever gets the most people saved, no matter what the consequences for this country in the short (or even long) term?
Your will be done Lord!
Amen!! I think that’s a GREAT point to bring up right now. I completely agree. It’s not about us and what we want, it’s about God! This life is about agreeing with Him, to do that we must interceed on behalf of His will, not our own. The cool thing is that it seems as though more and more people are getting that. Holy Spirit is all over that, so when people hear it they want to change the way they pray. Most people probably don’t even realize what they’re doing. (I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt) So when they do they want to change that around.
Very good point, thank you.