NDOP – National Day of Prayer

NDOP – yesterday was the National Day of Prayer. I had the opportunity as all of us did to get up early and come and join about 100 others in our church start the day off praying. We took time to pray for individuals, family, communities and our nation. I got the chance to speak for two minutes and to lead a time of prayer for our nation. Below you will find what I shared. I want to encourage you as you read through this to use it as a time of prayer and focus on our nation.

Romans 13:1-3 “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you.”

Authority is something that we all answer too. Often though we answer begrudgingly as if we have a better plan or idea, we talk bad about it, we degrade those who are in authority roles as if they were stupid and we act as if we have all the information that is needed to make decisions.

And we are Christians…

Origen, writing about 250 AD, in that particular time frame, showed that Christians did more good for the empire by focusing on a kind of personal holiness that prayed for the well being of the emperor and the safety of the empire.

Maybe we can learn something from those who were Christian’s back 1800 years ago.

1 Tim. 2:1-4 “I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.”

During our time of prayer I had them pray for each of these for only a about 20 seconds a piece. If you can take a few minutes and pray through each of these that would be awesome.

1. The President
2. Future President
3. Current decisions being made
4. The church and it’s leaders (nation wide)
5. Christianity will regain it’s influence in our Nation
6. Our nation will find Christ and follow Him

Ashton and I closed in prayer, which was a lot of fun to have him pray in front of everyone.

relocating

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Francis Chan – Prayer

This morning while I was running at the gym I was listening to a podcast that featured Francis Chan. During the podcast the host asked a question that went something like this, “If you were to give any advice to a young leader what would it be?”

Francis then went on to say something that continues to stick with me. He said if I could give them any advice it would be “Pray.” To those of us in ministry that is not all that surprising. It was what he said shortly after that has stuck with me all morning. “I tell my staff if they are not praying for an hour a day about their ministries to let me know and I will hire someone who will.”

That is powerful to me. I often neglect taking the time to literally sit down and pray as God desires us to pray. The question that I am asking myself is how much is God really moving in my ministry since I am not giving him the time to pour into me nor am I listening to him long enough to hear him lead. I am sitting here thinking maybe there are other things in my life that could be going in a different direction if I would just give myself some time to pray.

I am not sure why, but prayer is not my spiritual gift. However, that is not reason to neglect time alone with God in prayer.