Check out last month’s Pray for the Nations where we focused on North Korea.
Pray for the Nations
The country selected for this month’s Pray for the Nations focus is the United States of America.
Now, you may be thinking America doesn’t fit the criteria of a nation that deals with humanitarian issues, human rights violations and oppression, or Christian persecution (at least not to the degree present in a nation you’d normally think of when dealing with such topics), and I’d say you’re probably right.
However, the state of America today and the pain and suffering of her citizens is increasing at a rate that can’t be ignored.
A Nation Suffering
Why Pray for America?
This post is not a political soapbox, nor do I intend to bring a debate of party politics into the blog. But the country known as the “Land of the Free” is quickly becoming the land of the deceived, full of conformity and complacency.
The United States is a nation that is morally abandoning the tenets with which it was established and forcefully forgetting the God of our forefathers. America is indeed a nation that is deserving of our attention and prayer for light in spiritual darkness.
Found Guilty With None Who Do Good
There is a passage in Romans that is adequately titled “The whole world guilty before God”, or something similar depending on your Bible version.
These verses unsurprisingly, but sadly, depict the state of America today:
“There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away; all alike have become worthless. There is no one who does what is good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave; they deceive with their tongues. Viper’s venom is under their lips. Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and wretchedness are in their paths, and the path of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.” Romans 3:10-18
Romans 3:10-18
There are also two passages in 2 Timothy that reflect the character of a large majority of the American people:
“But know this: Hard times will come in the last days. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, proud, demeaning, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, without love for what is good, traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to the form of godliness but denying its power. Avoid these people.”
2 Timothy 3:1-5
“For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, will multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear what they want to hear. They will turn away from hearing the truth and will turn aside to myths.”
2 Timothy 4:3-4
Hard Times Are Here
With the twisting of right and wrong, all the hate and division, abandonment of common sense and common decency, low morality and low work ethic, a “me first” society, and general apathy towards goodness, America certainly brings the feeling of “hard times will come” to the present.
Today, no one wants to hear that absolute truth exists and that there is a moral standard to be followed by everyone.
Sound doctrine is certainly not tolerated in governments, schools, and certainly not in entertainment.
New ideologies are created and propagated by mainstream culture to influence the mass population.
“Woke” doctrines that are suited and built to fit individual desires are spread amongst the general population in attempts to derail the Truth of God’s Word.
Goodness Will Overcome
However bleak the cultural situation may seem, we know that the working to undermine Christian truths will only result in bringing more glory to God. What Satan and spiritually blind individuals intend for harm, God can use for good (Genesis 50:20).
While the United States certainly isn’t facing Christian persecution in the same way as those in nations that imprison, torture, and kill believers, there is a push toward religious intolerance toward the body of Christ. Many are blind to the workings of Satan and the deception he has used to ensnare and deter us away from truth.
Now more than ever do God’s people need to start standing up and fighting for Christian morals and truth in our society.
Now Is The Time To Speak, Church
Even though we may want to take the easy and quiet way out, claiming passivity in the name of peace, we are soldiers fighting for Truth. We are lights in the world, a flame that will not be put out.
It’s time we heat up the world around us with God’s love and mercy, rather than feel the flames of enemy arrows at our feet.
Call to Prayer
Let’s take the month of September and pray for our country, that America will begin to return to her moral compass with which she began.
Prayers
The Bible promises in Psalm 33:12, “Happy is the nation whose God is the Lord.” America is full of unhappy people just trying to find something that will fill the longing and loneliness in their hearts. Pray that America will return again to the Lord as ruler of all.
Proverbs 11:10 says that when the righteous thrive, the city rejoices. Pray that Christ’s followers will stand up in their faith and boldly shine His righteous light. Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin will condemn and disgrace people (Proverbs 14:34). Pray that our nation will be exalted as righteousness abounds.
Ecclesiastes 10:17 says a nation will prosper when its leaders are mature.
Pray for just rulers and responsible leaders in America.
With much of the corruption in our country stemming from the top down, let’s pray that America’s leaders will be convicted of corrupt morals and the ways in which they’ve chosen to please people over the Lord. We need leaders who are guided by Biblical wisdom and who lead people in truth.
Pray that the people of America will understand true humility and love for one another, as it is the humble and generous who will inherit the land and its abundance (Psalm 37:11).
Pray that brotherly love and affection for one’s neighbor will outweigh selfish ambition and personal gain.
Pray also that America will have unity among its people, with examples of unity being shown through the church so that it might spread to others.
Pray for true justice and equality in America, not the twisted, politicized versions of social justice. Pray that tenets of Biblical justice will spread widely and deeply in our culture.
God promises that if His people humble themselves, repent, and seek Him, then He will hear, forgive, and restore those people (2 Chronicles 7:14).
Pray that there will be a revival and awakening to God’s love and forgiveness that awaits repentant hearts. Pray that people will come to know His gift of salvation.
Many are in need of love and purpose, and a majority of societal issues today could be resolved if people truly understood God’s love for them.
Will you join me this month and pray for America?
Comment below if there is a nation you’d like us to specifically pray for in a future Pray for the Nations post!
Pray for the Nations Series
Pray for the Nations is a series of posts dedicated to nations and people groups who are facing persecution, oppression, human rights violations, and/or are in need of humanitarian aid.
Each month looks at a specific nation that’s facing extreme Christian persecution, human rights violations, or humanitarian conflict and disasters, and provides opportunity for readers to take the month to pray for that country specifically.
Pray for the Nations’ posts also briefly looks at a broad overview of the human rights violations and persecution of Christians occurring in the chosen country for the month in order to pray for those issues specifically. I say briefly because the amount of injustice occurring in such nations would fill volumes of books to address in detail.
Theses posts are intended to highlight and bring attention to the oppression, injustice, and suffering occurring and to pray for these nations together.
At the end of the posts are lists of prayers for us to jointly pray for those experiencing trials and injustice, as well as specific prayer topics gathered from the Voice of the Martyrs interactive map of persecuted nations.
