by Shaila (USA)
Through Prayer, God has appointed for our receiving mercy, and obtaining grace to help in time of need.
“Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:16
I plead the Blood of Jesus on our President and our Government and Military leaders and for them to make wise and Godly decisions. I pray that our society may become one in goodness and truth and acknowledge you and walk in your ways. Lord, I cover myself and everyone in my country with the blood of Jesus Christ. I cover my country with the Blood of Jesus Christ and may the economy of our country be restored. Help us to repent for our sins with Godly sorrow and may all the people of this country turn back to our saviour Lord Jesus Christ so that our sins are forgiven. Comfort and Bless all the people who have no jobs and who are undergoing trials . I now Plead the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ as a Bloodline around my entire country and protect our people from all sickness, diseases, any natural accidents, disasters, calamities, terrors, wicked ways, every power of darkness, the spirits of rebellion, from all moral corruptions and from all unrighteousness, from all kind of evils and immorality. Lord Jesus please keep peace, Joy, harmony ,happiness and Godliness in my country and May the people who are dwelling in this land may be safe by following your commandments, by Seeking first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.
I believe that the Lord will cover my country and its people with his feathers and that under his wings my country will find refuge in the name of Jesus and I believe that the Precious Blood of Jesus will always protect my country and all its people I believe Lord will do greater things in my country according to his will through his blessings. Amen
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What would a prayer look like from a biblical perspective for a nation such as the United States? Are there parallels that we can find from Scripture? What is a model prayer that we can find in the Bible to use for praying for America?
Nehemiah’s prayer found in chapter one of his book is an ideal prayer for any nation or individual. It is especially relevant to the state that the United States of America presently finds itself in today. Like Jerusalem, the walls are crumbling down around this great nation; economically and morally. What was once the most prosperous nation that the world has ever seen has been steadily shrinking and is in a state of decline today. Today the world’s highest standard of living is not in the United States as it once was. Nations with the highest per capita income are now Norway and Switzerland. The U.S. is presently third but is closely followed by Japan, Denmark, and Sweden and they are closing in fast. Based upon the gross national product, the U.S. isn’t even in the top 12 list of the fastest growing nations of the world. China’s looming shadow threatens to cover every nation.
A Nation in Peril
Israel was in serious trouble. The walls of Jerusalem were crumbling. The gates had been burned by fire. The gates of ancient cities were where most of the commerce of took place. The gates were also where the seat of government and leadership resided. With the gates burned with fire and the walls broken down, it was only a matter of time before the nation followed suit. Nehemiah knowing that Jerusalem was near total depravity, fell down on his face and prayed a prayer that is worth repeating here for the United States and for other nations as well. It is a model prayer and one that resembles a national prayer for restoration and repentance. It is also a model prayer for individuals.
Troubling News Comes to Nehemiah
Nehemiah heard a report about the Jewish remnant that had survived the exile, and also about Jerusalem which said that, “Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire” (Nehemiah 1:3).
What was Nehemiah’s response? “When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven” Nehemiah 1:4). This is the first thing that Americans or those of other nations can do for their nation: Pray – in fact, pray and fast.
Nehemiah‘s Prayer – A National Model for Prayer
After hearing the alarming report about Jerusalem, Nehemiah prayers a most powerful prayer and not only is it a model for praying for a nation, it is a supreme example of a model prayer for each one of us individually. God loves it when we pray back prayers from His words in the Bible. He also honors it when we claim those promises that He makes in Scripture. Nehemiah starts his four part prayer based upon the model prayer that Jesus gave in what many call The Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:9-13. Just like this model prayer in Matthew, Nehemiah starts off with adoration, then moves to confession, claiming God’s promises, and lastly makes requests or supplications.
Adoration
“LORD, the God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments“(Nehemiah 1:5).
Nehemiah first exalts the name of God. He lifts up His glory and praises Him for His greatness.
Confession
“Let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel. I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s family, have committed against you” (Nehemiah 1:6).
Nehemiah, even though he is not personally responsible still confesses with his mouth his sins and the sins of his nation.
“We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses” (Nehemiah 1:7).
He says “we” have acted very wickedly toward God and acknowledged that “we” (the nation) has not obeyed God’s commands.
Claiming God’s Promises
“Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations, but if you return to me and obey my commands, then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name‘(Nehemiah 1:8-9).
God is faithful to the promises that He makes and will not relent on them but we must first fulfill our obligation to obey His commands before He will fulfill them.
Requests/Supplications
“They are your servants and your people, whom you redeemed by your great strength and your mighty hand. Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revering your name. Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man” (Nehemiah 1:10-11).
Only after Nehemiah exalts God, confesses his and the nations sin, and claims God’s promises, does he make his requests known to God. Unless a person or nation exalts God He will not exalt them. Until a person or nation as a whole confesses sin, He will not forgive them and fulfill His promises to be with them. And if they exalt God, confess their sin and repent, and claim His promises, only then can they expect to receive an answer to their prayer.
When tragedy strikes in public schools, when injustice is found in the courtrooms, or when national disasters occur people say “Where was God?” I believe that they have kicked Him out! How can a nation that is slowing ridding herself of God from the public and private sector expect God to come to their aid when disaster strikes? Unless the Lord is their God or a person’s Lord and God, He will not fulfill His promise to be with them. Unless a person or nation confesses their sins, He will not forgive them. Until a nation or person exalts God and humbles themselves, He will not exalt them but abase them.
God resists the proud but only gives grace to the humble and those of a contrite spirit as He says in Isaiah 66:2, “This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word.” We do not as a nation tremble at His Word. If this nation or a person is proud He will resist them. Until we humble ourselves and fall at His feet and ask for forgiveness – in repentance – He will withdraw from this nation or any person.
ACTS – A Model for Prayer
I beseech you to pray in this manner as an individual and as a nation wherever you live to seek the face of God, exalt His name, ask for forgiveness, and repent – praying for national revival. Draw a circle of chalk around you. Inside this circle is where revival starts. It starts with me and you. The Great Awakening of the 1700’s was perhaps the greatest revival in the history of Christianity. It started with one man: George Whitefield. Here is a model prayer for each one of us and as a nation for personal and national revival to begin. It goes by the acronym A.C.T.S.
A – Adoration of God
C – Confession of sin in repentance
T – Thanksgiving to God for His goodness
S – Supplications or prayer requests
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democracy, as a celebration of our country. With love for our country. With hope for our country. With a belief that the light of freedom cannot be extinguished as long as it is inside of us. With a belief that freedom rings resoundingly in a democracy each time we speak freely. With the understanding that freedom stirs the human heart and fear stills it. With the belief that a free people cannot walk in fear and faith at the same time. With the understanding that there is a deeper truth expressed in the unity of the United States. That implicit in the union of our country is the union of all people. That all people are essentially one. That the world is interconnected not only on the material level of economics, trade, communication, and transportation, but innerconnected through human consciousness, through the human heart, through the heart of the world, through the simply expressed impulse and yearning to be and to breathe free.
I offer this prayer for America.
Let us pray that our nation will remember that the unfolding of the promise of democracy in our nation paralleled the striving for civil rights. That is why we must challenge the rationale of the Patriot Act. We must ask why should America put aside guarantees of constitutional justice?
How can we justify in effect canceling the First Amendment and the right of free speech, the right to peaceably assemble?
How can we justify in effect canceling the Fourth Amendment, probable cause, the prohibitions against unreasonable search and seizure?
How can we justify in effect canceling the Fifth Amendment, nullifying due process, and allowing for indefinite incarceration without a trial?
How can we justify in effect canceling the Sixth Amendment, the right to prompt and public trial?
How can we justify in effect canceling the Eighth Amendment which protects against cruel and unusual punishment?
We cannot justify widespread wiretaps and internet surveillance without judicial supervision, let alone with it.
We cannot justify secret searches without a warrant.
We cannot justify giving the Attorney General the ability to designate domestic terror groups.
We cannot justify giving the FBI total access to any type of data which may exist in any system anywhere such as medical records and financial records. We cannot justify giving the CIA the ability to target people in this country for intelligence surveillance.
We cannot justify a government which takes from the people our right to privacy and then assumes for its own operations a right to total secrecy. The Attorney General recently covered up a statue of Lady Justice showing her bosom as if to underscore there is no danger of justice exposing herself at this time, before this administration.
Let us pray that our nation’s leaders will not be overcome with fear. Because today there is great fear in our great Capitol. And this must be understood before we can ask about the shortcomings of Congress in the current environment.
The great fear began when we had to evacuate the Capitol on September 11. It continued when we had to leave the Capitol again when a bomb scare occurred as members were pressing the CIA during a secret briefing. It continued when we abandoned Washington when anthrax, possibly from a government lab, arrived in the mail.
It continued when the Attorney General declared a nationwide terror alert and then the Administration brought the destructive Patriot Bill to the floor of the House.
It continued in the release of the bin Laden tapes at the same time the President was announcing the withdrawal from the ABM treaty. It remains present in the cordoning off of the Capitol.
It is present in the camouflaged armed national guardsmen who greet members of Congress each day we enter the Capitol campus. It is present in the labyrinth of concrete barriers through which we must pass each time we go to vote.
The trappings of a state of siege trap us in a state of fear, ill-equipped to deal with the Patriot Games, the Mind Games, the War Games of an unelected President and his unelected Vice President.
Let us pray that our country will stop this war. “To promote the common defense” is one of the formational principles of America.
Our Congress gave the President the ability to respond to the tragedy of September 11. We licensed a response to those who helped bring the terror of September 11th. But we the people and our elected representatives must reserve the right to measure the response, to proportion the response, to challenge the response, and to correct the response.
Because we did not authorize the invasion of Iraq.
We did not authorize the invasion of Iran.
We did not authorize the invasion of North Korea.
We did not authorize the bombing of civilians in Afghanistan.
We did not authorize permanent detainees in Guantanamo Bay.
We did not authorize the withdrawal from the Geneva Convention.
We did not authorize military tribunals suspending due process and habeas corpus.
We did not authorize assassination squads.
We did not authorize the resurrection of COINTELPRO.
We did not authorize the repeal of the Bill of Rights.
We did not authorize the revocation of the Constitution.
We did not authorize national identity cards.
We did not authorize the eye of Big Brother to peer from cameras throughout our cities.
We did not authorize an eye for an eye.
Nor did we ask that the blood of innocent people, who perished on September 11, be avenged with the blood of innocent villagers in Afghanistan.
We did not authorize the administration to wage war anytime, anywhere,anyhow it pleases.
We did not authorize war without end.
We did not authorize a permanent war economy.
Yet we are upon the threshold of a permanent war economy. The President has requested a $45.6 billion increase in military spending. All defense-related programs will cost close to $400 billion.
Consider that the Department of Defense has never passed an independent audit.
Consider that the Inspector General has notified Congress that the Pentagon cannot properly account for $1.2 trillion in transactions.
Consider that in recent years the Dept. of Defense could not match $22 billion worth of expenditures to the items it purchased, wrote off, as lost, billions of dollars worth of in-transit inventory and stored nearly $30 billion worth of spare parts it did not need.
Yet the defense budget grows with more money for weapons systems to fight a cold war which ended, weapon systems in search of new enemies to create new wars. This has nothing to do with fighting terror.
This has everything to do with fueling a military industrial machine with the treasure of our nation, risking the future of our nation, risking democracy itself with the militarization of thought which follows the militarization of the budget.
Let us pray for our children. Our children deserve a world without end. Not a war without end. Our children deserve a world free of the terror of hunger, free of the terror of poor health care, free of the terror of homelessness, free of the terror of ignorance, free of the terror of hopelessness, free of the terror of policies which are committed to a world view which is not appropriate for the survival of a free people, not appropriate for the survival of democratic values, not appropriate for the survival of our nation, and not appropriate for the survival of the world.
Let us pray that we have the courage and the will as a people and as a nation to shore ourselves up, to reclaim from the ruins of September 11th our democratic traditions.
Let us declare our love for democracy. Let us declare our intent for peace.
Let us work to make nonviolence an organizing principle in our own society.
Let us recommit ourselves to the slow and painstaking work of statecraft, which sees peace, not war as being inevitable.
Let us work for a world where someday war becomes archaic.
That is the vision which the proposal to create a Department of Peace envisions. Forty-three members of Congress are now cosponsoring the legislation.
Let us work for a world where nuclear disarmament is an imperative. That is why we must begin by insisting on the commitments of the ABM treaty. That is why we must be steadfast for nonproliferation.
Let us work for a world where America can lead the day in banning weapons of mass destruction not only from our land and sea and sky but from outer space itself. That is the vision of HR 3616: A universe free of fear. Where we can look up at God’s creation in the stars and imagine infinite wisdom, infinite peace, infinite possibilities, not infinite war, because we are taught that the kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven.
Let us pray that we have the courage to replace the images of death which haunt us, the layers of images of September 11th, faded into images of patriotism, spliced into images of military mobilization, jump-cut into images of our secular celebrations of the World Series, New Year’s Eve, the Superbowl, the Olympics, the strobic flashes which touch our deepest fears, let us replace those images with the work of human relations, reaching out to people, helping our own citizens here at home, lifting the plight of the poor everywhere. That is the America which has the ability to rally the support of the world. That is the America which stands not in pursuit of an axis of evil, but which is itself at the axis of hope and faith and peace and freedom. America, America. God shed grace on thee. Crown thy good, America.
Not with weapons of mass destruction. Not with invocations of an axis of evil. Not through breaking international treaties. Not through establishing America as king of a unipolar world. Crown thy good America. America, America. Let us pray for our country. Let us love our country. Let us defend our country not only from the threats without but from the threats within.
Crown thy good, America. Crown thy good with brotherhood, and sisterhood. And crown thy good with compassion and restraint and forbearance and a commitment to peace, to democracy, to economic justice here at home and throughout the world.
Crown thy good, America. Crown thy good America. Crown thy good.
Thank you.
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