Prayer

Jesus once told a story about a widow who repeatedly asked a judge for justice against an adversary:

“For some time (the judge) refused.  But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually wear me out with her coming!’”  And the Lord (Jesus) said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says.  And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to Him day and night?”(Luke 18:4-7)

Scripture says that Jesus told the disciples this parable to show “that men ought always to pray and not to faint” (Luke 18:1, KJV).  Let us never faint from the privilege of bowing before God in prayer!

Praise God for His patient teaching on prayer; repent of any “fainting” you’ve done when you’ve failed to persevere; ask for His help to be faithful in prayer in the midst of life’s stresses; yield to him by joyfully persevering even when you’re tempted to give up.

- Shirley Dobson

Jesus said, “I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father” (John 14:13). How should those words affect our prayer? Tony Marshall Anderson addressed that question in Prayer Availeth Much:

Jesus revealed His purpose in answering prayer when He said,”…that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” In order to achieve His exalted purpose to glorify the Father, the Son has bestowed on His redeemed people the inalienable right to ask anything in His Name. In the clear light of this remarkable truth…the possibilities in prayer are as great as the purpose of the Son of God.

Pray daily that the Father might be further glorified in the Son through your life, too.

Praise and thank God for allowing you to be His partner in ministry in this world; repent of any failure to step out boldly in ministry, empowered by Him; ask that the Father may be glorified in the Son through your ministry; yield to Him by expanding your outreach at this time, in dependence upon Him.

- Shirley Dobson

The National Day of Prayer is just around the corner and America needs your prayers, now more than ever. We continue to face unabated moral decline, economic turmoil, military conflict in the Middle East, and the ever-increasing assaults against our religious liberty.  Given these urgent concerns, it’s imperative that we remain on our knees in contrite supplication for the United States.

Throughout the six decades since Congress established an annual National Day of Prayer, untold millions of Americans have come together every year to express humble reliance upon the Almighty.  On May 3, 2012, citizens will once again gather stateside and at points around the globe to lift our nation and leaders before the Lord.  In doing so, we pay tribute to the example set by our Founding Fathers and by presidents down through the years who have exhorted the American people to seek God’s help and deliverance during trying times.  As Abraham Lincoln presided over a war-torn land, he called on his fellow citizens to take part in a day of fasting and prayer, making this statement:   “…it is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history: that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord…” What a powerful reminder of the true source of our well-being.

Because our nation continues to navigate through extremely challenging and pivotal days, the National Day of Prayer Task Force has chosen One Nation Under God as the 2012 theme.  The inspiration is found in Psalm 33:12, which offers this important reminder: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord…” In addition, Dr. David Jeremiah, Founder of Turning Point and Senior Pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church, has agreed to serve as this year’s Honorary Chairman.  Dr. Jeremiah’s understanding of Scripture and his ability to articulate those insights will undoubtedly make him an outstanding advocate for the upcoming events.

To learn more and to find an event near you, visit www.NationalDayofPrayer.org

On behalf of the entire National Day of Prayer (NDP) Task Force, let me wish you a happy New Year! It is hard to believe that it is already 2012. Isn’t it amazing that another year is in the history books and you contributed to the greatest story of all? That’s right – every action we make has an outcome that impacts future generations. Of course, I’m not referring to my story or your story, but rather HIS story, and we are blessed that God has invited us to be a part of it! “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11). I am especially blessed to know that God directs our path and every day is purposeful and strategic. He takes our failures and our successes, our aspirations and our challenges, and each become building materials in the Architect’s hands: “A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps” (Proverbs 16:9).

It has certainly been a year of trials and tribulations in America, and around the world. The economic and spiritual decay of our nation has impacted every home and can make it tempting to think that we’ve reached a point of no return. Yet, with this New Year, let us remember that our hope is in Almighty God, and through Him we stand boldly on the front lines expecting victory and not defeat. The NDP theme for this year is One Nation Under God and it’s based on Psalm 33:12 which reminds us that “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.” This is a powerful statement – a beacon to this lost and wavering society that we must not forget the God of our fathers. President Abraham Lincoln said it best, “I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord’s side.”

As we begin 2012, please take a moment and join me in the following prayer asking our Heavenly Father to prepare us for the work that lies ahead…

Almighty God,

We are grateful beyond expression for Your love. Accept our thanks for your blessings that have been poured out upon us this day and our Christian faith that binds us. Make us strong to do Your work, willing to heed and hear Your will, and write on our hearts these words: “One Nation, Under God.”

For we are given power not to advance our own purposes, nor to make a great show in the world, nor a name. There is but one just use of that which you have given us, and it is to advance your will. Help us to remember that it is not our will, but thy will be done.

The Lord our God be with us, as He was with our fathers; may He not leave us or forsake us; so that He may incline our hearts to Him, to walk in all His ways… that all peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God; there is no other.

Heavenly Father, as your servants we will go where You lead for we dare not build the house without your blessing. You are the solid rock upon which we stand, our foundation. Direct our paths, oh Lord, and make clear the way in which we should journey. Help us, Father, to unite your people and lead them in life-changing prayer. Give us courage and passion and may they be contagious. By Your grace, please give us the words to speak and the tools to equip. Prepare us for what You are about to do and refine our hearts that we may be Your instruments. We depend on You for all things and thank You for all You have provided.

In the name of Jesus, I pray,

Amen

May God bless you in this New Year… and may America remain One Nation Under God.

John Bornschein

Vice Chairman

On October 27, 1949, a Wheaton College student named Jim Elliot wrote in his journal:

I have just now prayed for God’s New Revelation – this generation’s real laying hold of the Old Revelation. The old is become so undefined, so “accepted”, so followed in blindness, that when the truth of it is brought to light, it shall be as a new revelation. I have prayed for new men, fiery, reckless men, possessed of uncontrollably youthful passion – these lit by the Spirit of God. I have prayed for new words, explosive, direct, simple words. I have prayed for new miracles.

On the next day he added a sentence that would become famous after his martyrdom in Ecuador in 1956: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”

May the inspired, eternal truth of that statement resonate within your heart.

Praise God for His compassionate mercies; repent of any ways in which you’ve been stuck in old ruts; ask for new miracles from God; to gain what you cannot lose, yield to Him by giving up something you can’t keep anyway.

Read this Puritan model of repentant, yielding prayer:

Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly,

Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision,

where I live in the depths but see thee in the heights;

hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold thy glory.

Let me learn by paradox

that the way down is the way up

that to be low is to be high,

that the broken heart is the healed heart,

that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,

that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,

that to have nothing is to possess all.

that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,

that to give is to receive,

that the valley is the place of vision.

These simple truths form the heart of godly wisdom. Pray that they will take root in your heart today.

Praise God for being “high and holy, meek and lowly”; repent of any sins of discouragement or dispair; ask for the riches of His joy; yield to Him by throwing off gloom and taking on a rejoicing spirit.

Does God answer the prayers of a Christian who deliberately sins? When asked that question, theologian R.C. Sproul responded this way:

When we refer to Christians who deliberately sin, we’re talking about every Christian who ever lived, and we’re talking about something that Christians do every day of their lives. We can talk about sins that are committed in ignorance and so on, but I hope we recognize that the vast majority of the sins we commit are done deliberately. We sin because we want to, because we choose to.

If God refused to hear the prayers of Christians who deliberately sinned against him and then repented, God would not be listening to very many prayers. But we have the promise of God: If we truly repent, He will forgive us.

Praise God for knowing everything about you; repent by acknowledging how often you want to sin and choose to sin; ask Him to help you better understand the ways you deceive yourself about your sin; yield to Him by claiming and enjoying His forgiveness.

- Shirley Dobson

In John 15:5, Jesus said, “Apart from me you can do nothing.” When he was a young man, John Wesley wrote to his mother:

My desire is to know and feel that I am nothing, that I have nothing, and that I can do nothing. For whenever I am empty of myself, then know I of a surety that neither friends nor foes, nor any creature, can hinder me from being “filled with all the fullness of God.”

The nothingness Wesley talks about may be the most elusive of all attributes. It defies the very essence of self on which so many of us base our identities. Yet when we give ourselves wholly to God, He takes from our meager reserves and gives back from infinity. What a marvelous exchange!

Praise God for His fullness; repent of your own fullness of self; ask Him to fill you with His fullness; yield to Him by emptying your mind and spirit of every aspect of self.

- Shirley Dobson

In The Divine Conquest: God’s Pursuit of Man, A.W. Tozer writes:

We might well pray for God to invade and conquer us, for until He does, we remain in peril from a thousand foes…The strength of our flesh is an ever present danger to our souls. Deliverance can come to us only by the defeat of our old life. Safety and peace come only after we have been forced to our knees. God rescues us by breaking us, by shattering our strength and wiping out our resistance. Then He invades our natures with that ancient and eternal life which is from the beginning. So He conquers us and by that benign conquest saves us for Himself.

God conquers only what we yield to Him – yet when He does, and when our surrender is complete, He fills us with a new strength that we could never have known by ourselves. His conquest is our victory!

Praise God for conquering your soul; repent of any reliance on the strength of your own flesh; ask Him to shatter your self-reliance; yield to Him by casting it off.

- Shirley Dobson

Hear the words of Jesus to all who would follow Him: “I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44).

For the German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the enemy was obvious – he was imprisoned and finally murdered by the Nazis. Facing this persecution, he had these comments on Christ’s directive to love our enemies:

This is the supreme demand. Through the medium of prayer we go to our enemy, stand by his side, and plead for him to God. Jesus does not promise that when we bless our enemies and do good to them they will not despitefully use and persecute us. They certainly will. But not even that can hurt or overcome us, so long as we pray for them.

God does amazing works through prayers that seek to extend His grace to others. Truly, God’s grace knows no bounds!

Praise God for loving us even when we were His enemies; repent of any bitterness you’ve held toward others; ask for God’s blessings on your enemies; yield to Him by seeking to do good to these people.