We must never stop praying for our country.
It's easy to get discouraged from praying for our country when we look around us. Society in the West seems to be going from bad to worse.
Yet that's probably the best time to pray. God has moved with power when the outlook is dark.
The Bible makes clear that God wants us to pray for our people. And he will answer.
His answers don't always come in our timeframe. But they do come.
The children of Israel suffered 400 years in slavery in Egypt before God intervened to free them (Acts 7). I'm sure many despaired of freedom and stopped praying with faith in that long period. Yet many others did pray.
Even Moses was surprised when God spoke from a burning bush in the wilderness of Midian and announced: "I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their cries of distress because of their harsh slave drivers." (Exodus 3)
Then, the Lord nominated Moses to lead the people to freedom. It was a task Moses felt was impossible, but he reluctantly took a faith step to obey God. And he began a time of prayerful reliance on God that achieved the impossible.
On the other hand, God intervened immediately and miraculously in 2 Chronicles 20 when the vast armies of Moab threatened to overrun the people of Judah. After King Jehoshaphat and the people of Judah prayed for help, the Lord threw the enemy into confusion and defeat when the army of Judah marched out praising God. God's people won without striking a blow.
The story of the Israelites in the Old Testament is sprinkled with times when God's people were overcome by enemies and later rebounded when they turned back to the Lord.
So bad times can lead to good - if God's people pray.
God pointed out to Solomon in a vision in 2 Chronicles 7 that he would heal the land of Israel if his people turned back to the Lord after rejecting him for a period of time. In verse 14, he says the Israelites must humble themselves, repent and pray as steps to restoration.
Repentance means turning back to the Lord and away from the sin of rejecting God.
The history of the Israelites after Solomon's reign underscores the truth of that promise.
Indeed, modern Christian history also demonstrates this truth. The Wesleyan revival in Britain broke out when conditions in that country were as seriously wrong as they were in France in the mid-1700s. Prayer and turning back to God changed the course of British history while France descended into revolution.
In Luke 18, Luke records Jesus' parable of the persistent widow who plagued the unjust judge until she obtained the justice she sought. Luke says the reason he told this story to his disciples is that "they should always pray and never give up".
Good advice for us, too.
It's easy to get discouraged from praying for our country when we look around us. Society in the West seems to be going from bad to worse.
Yet that's probably the best time to pray. God has moved with power when the outlook is dark.
The Bible makes clear that God wants us to pray for our people. And he will answer.
His answers don't always come in our timeframe. But they do come.
The children of Israel suffered 400 years in slavery in Egypt before God intervened to free them (Acts 7). I'm sure many despaired of freedom and stopped praying with faith in that long period. Yet many others did pray.
Even Moses was surprised when God spoke from a burning bush in the wilderness of Midian and announced: "I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their cries of distress because of their harsh slave drivers." (Exodus 3)
Then, the Lord nominated Moses to lead the people to freedom. It was a task Moses felt was impossible, but he reluctantly took a faith step to obey God. And he began a time of prayerful reliance on God that achieved the impossible.
On the other hand, God intervened immediately and miraculously in 2 Chronicles 20 when the vast armies of Moab threatened to overrun the people of Judah. After King Jehoshaphat and the people of Judah prayed for help, the Lord threw the enemy into confusion and defeat when the army of Judah marched out praising God. God's people won without striking a blow.
The story of the Israelites in the Old Testament is sprinkled with times when God's people were overcome by enemies and later rebounded when they turned back to the Lord.
So bad times can lead to good - if God's people pray.
God pointed out to Solomon in a vision in 2 Chronicles 7 that he would heal the land of Israel if his people turned back to the Lord after rejecting him for a period of time. In verse 14, he says the Israelites must humble themselves, repent and pray as steps to restoration.
Repentance means turning back to the Lord and away from the sin of rejecting God.
The history of the Israelites after Solomon's reign underscores the truth of that promise.
Indeed, modern Christian history also demonstrates this truth. The Wesleyan revival in Britain broke out when conditions in that country were as seriously wrong as they were in France in the mid-1700s. Prayer and turning back to God changed the course of British history while France descended into revolution.
In Luke 18, Luke records Jesus' parable of the persistent widow who plagued the unjust judge until she obtained the justice she sought. Luke says the reason he told this story to his disciples is that "they should always pray and never give up".
Good advice for us, too.
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