“I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.’ I John 5:13
“But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.” I Thessalonians 5:8
We are going through some tough times right now. It’s easy to feel rather hopeless with all the uncertainty about what lies ahead, but God gives us hope. And that hope is eternal life through Jesus, His Son. That is no phony promise. When you and I understand that we have a certain future that is sealed by the resurrection of Jesus, that gives us a blessed assurance and it gives us strength to face each day.
Hope is like a helmet on our heads, the helmet of salvation. It protects our minds because the enemy just loves to go after our minds, and he loves to say lies to discourage us. The hope of salvation not only gives protection from the attacks of the enemy, but it encourages us to live for God. Because we know that our future is sure, and that this life, as short as it may be, is not all there is and that encourages and strengthens us. Hope gives us the desire to live for God and to share the magnitude of His love with others and bring the message of Hope to the hopeless.
Prayer: Pray for those feeling hopeless. Pray for opportunities to share the Message of Hope found in Jesus. Pray that in our nation, believers would rise up to bring hope and light into the hopelessness and darkness.
“The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” Psalm 103:8
God is love incarnate. He is powerful and mighty, but He is also gracious and merciful, slow to anger, quick to forgive, abounding in steadfast love. Throughout the ages God has shown Himself faithful even when we have been faithless. God’s story is one of remarkable patience, incredible love, and even when judgment comes it comes in a last ditch effort to call people back to Himself.
It is a joy to share good news and here is the best news of all. God loved us so much He did not hold back at all, but instead He broke into our world taking on human flesh in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. The living God came down to earth from heaven and in His life of steadfast obedience, faithful service, gracious mercy, and determination even to the point of the cross, our Savior paid in full the price for our sin and rebellion.
America has fallen short of God’s gracious expectation and wandered from His will. We desperately need what only He can provide. His provision is forgiveness and new life in Jesus Christ, and that’s revival! And that’s what I pray for. That’s what we pray for! Awake US now in Jesus’ name!
Prayer: Pour out your heart in confession for ourselves, the church, our leaders, and our country, admitting sin, wandering from His will and that we desperately need the forgiveness that only He can provide. Ask for God’s mercy, and gracious love to cover America and that people would hear His call to repentance and return to Him.
Romans 5:1-2 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.
Philippians 4:6-7 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Peace refers to everything being right and in harmony with God. It speaks about a comfort and an assurance that transforms life. The Reader’s Digest condensed version of what the apostle Paul is saying in Romans 5:1-2 is that until you have peace with God, you will never have the peace of God. Until you are at peace with the living God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ you will never experience the genuine peace of God that passes all human understanding. It’s just that simple. The peace that God gives, comes through the cross of the Lord Jesus. It comes from knowing Him as Savior.
In our house we’ve had this little framed picture hanging up in our dining room for more than three decades. It has these words from Philippians 4:6, “Don’t worry about anything, pray about everything.” If we translate Paul’s original writing from its original Greek, it reads like this, “Don’t keep on worrying.” You don’t have to live this way anymore. As an act of faith set aside worry, as an act of faith stop worrying, and replace worry and anxiety with something far far better. And that something is prayer.
Prayer is talking to God. He says to us, “Don’t keep on worrying, instead in every situation pray.” In other words, “Talk to Me. Just bring your concerns to Me.” You can be perfectly open and honest with Him, you don’t have to hold back. When we by faith know the peace that God gives, He brings peace into our very souls as we converse with Him.
Philippians 4:7 says, “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding.” Don’t you love that? The original text basically says the following, “He will stand guard over your emotions, your feelings, your concerns, your thoughts, your everything.” He gives peace that guards us and protects us so that no matter what may be going on in your life today, no matter what is going on in the world, He is saying it clearly, “Don’t continue worrying, replace it with prayer, and just watch what I will do.” Because through faith in Jesus we are at peace with God, and we can come to Him and know that He will hear our prayers. He will minister to us even in the most difficult of times. Come to Him and watch what He can do, better yet, come to Him watch what He WILL do!
Prayer: Share your heart with the Lord, today. Lay your concerns and worries at His feet and trust Him to bring you His deep abiding peace. Pray for peace for America, pray that He will bring America into harmony with His heart by touching the hearts of His people. Pray that He will help us share peace, by sharing our faith in Christ.
“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”
What have we done in the last 40 years? We have driven God out of our schools. We have removed His commandments from our courts. We have taken the mention of His name out of the public square. We have banned Him from our morals. We have engaged in the worship of Moloch, the idol of the old testament era, and the people of Israel. Moloch, before whom people sacrificed their children. In the last 40 years, I have watched as we have sacrificed over 50 million of our children. The Israelites killed thousands, we’ve killed millions. And we boast about it. We have seen in our time how a nation can turn its back on what is true and abandon that which our ancestors paid for with their lives. We have seen a land that has rewritten the law of God even as we’ve rewritten our constitution. We have changed what for millennia God has decreed as one man, one woman committed together for life. And, we say we have the right to rewrite that. Can anyone do those things without consequences? There will be a day of reckoning. It will come. And at that point it’s very easy for us to get up on our high horses and say, ‘Amen, brother you preach it, Chris. At least the church is moving in the way God would have us move!”
But, here’s what I’ve seen in the last 40 years in the church. I’ve watched mainline Christianity abandon the truths of the Bible and simply adopt self-help and entertainment as their gods. We have institutionalized the Holy Spirit, and I use that word, that verb, in the very real sense of the term. We have institutionalized Him, we have put Him away, and we have said, “Well, He comes to you when you get baptized, now sit back and enjoy your life and don’t think about this anymore.” And God says, “Unless you live by the Spirit you are living in the flesh. Unless you walk in the Spirit, you are walking in the flesh. Unless you walk in the Spirit, you do not know the Living God, and you do not know His Messiah.” Because you are worshiping a false God, two-thirds of the Trinity at best, one-third at worst, and none in many instances. Is God pleased? What is He saying? His heart is breaking, and He’s calling His people back to Him!
God says, “Humble yourselves before Me.” We desperately need what only He can give. What God desires for you and me is not comfortable religion, not a little bit of Jesus flavoring on our lives so we can go back to doing what we please. God desires that we know Him, that we experience a living relationship with Him, that we understand the depth of His love, a love so great that He did not spare His son. God cares for you and for me so desperately that the Lord Jesus Christ was willing to experience hell on a cross so that we might never have to fear the judgment. If God paid that price, what is our response to be? Certainly not half-hearted nodding of the heads, but rather wholehearted commitment of the life, of the heart, of the soul. God is a good, merciful, and gracious God, but He will not be trifled with. He’s calling His people to come back to Him, to take seriously what He has done and what He desires to do.
Prayer: Have mercy on us Father! You have stood by as America has abandoned the truths of the Bible, as the church as abandoned Your truth and I, too, have done this. Lord, I ask for forgiveness for my part in this. I have not always stood strong for you, forgive the church and forgive America. Give me strength to walk in Your will, give the church that same strength, that America would once again walk in Your way, and in Your will. Amen
Isaiah 28:23 (NLT) “Listen to Me; listen, and pay close attention.”
Hebrews 3:15 As it is said, “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden our hearts as in the rebellion.”
Matthew 7:24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
Jeremiah 29:11-14a (NLT) For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me. I will be found by you,” says the Lord.
God says that it is not enough to just hear Him. We need to listen to Him. I can remember when our kids were growing up, and there were times when you would say something to them and you could tell it just went in one ear and out the other. You could not only sense it, you could see it, the eyes glazed over. Now don’t get me wrong. I love my kids. They are good kids, but there were times that you had to get in their face and look them in the eye and say, “Listen to me. It’s not enough to hear, listen. Listen to my voice. Listen to what I’m saying.”
And that is what God says to us. He says, “Listen to Me. Don’t simply go through the motions and go through the actions, but do what I tell you. Because faith shows itself in obedience.” As we listen and seek Him with all our heart, He responds in incredible ways
Our God is a God who does not operate the way the world does. The world loves pomp and ceremony. It loves titles and it enjoys being honored, but God chooses the things that the world often laughs at to accomplish His plan and purpose. And do you realize what a powerful promise that is for you and me? God uses people like us to accomplish His purpose. And when we listen to His voice, it doesn’t mean it will be easy. Usually what He asks is not easy, but He calls us to follow Him no matter what.
The purpose and plan of the Living God is worth suffering for it. It is worth risking for it. It is worth losing for it. It is worth being ridiculed for it. It is worth being called crazy for it, because what He says is true. And throughout the ages the truth that God speaks has often been ignored, because people can hear without listening, and understand without obeying.
He says to His children, “If you hear My word, and you listen to My voice, I will do everything I’ve said. I will keep my promise. I will bless and I will be honored.” That is the word of the Living God for us, and it’s a word that we need to take to heart.
Prayer: Lord, move in power over America and her people and do a mighty thing. Bring her to her knees in humility before You. Bring forth a revival in this nation. Lord, let now be the time when people will listen to Your voice, hear You and return to You. This is the prayer of my heart. Amen
Then I said, “It’s all over! I am doomed, for I am a sinful man. I have filthy lips, and I live among a people with filthy lips. Yet I have seen the King, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.”
“I’m sure glad I’m not like THAT guy”… “he’s got real problems”… “I’ve got troubles, but that guy’s a MESS…!” How natural it is for us to compare ourselves to others and come out smelling sweet! We can always find someone “worse off” and think that by that standard, we are “good” with God. But the prophet Isaiah had no such illusions. He saw a vision God showed him. In it, angelic beings were worshipping the living God with the words, “Holy, holy holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” Isaiah instantly recognized he’s in the presence of a holy God, and he is undone!
What convicts Isaiah? His mouth. He says, ‘I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.’ He recognizes just how serious the problem is, both for himself and his people!
Are we any different in America? Are we even shocked anymore when someone uses Jesus Christ’s name, God’s most precious name, as a swear word? Or when we joke about sexual things, describing private, intimate things that belong in couples’ bedrooms? Has it become perfectly acceptable to tear apart a person’s reputation by gossip, by calling it ‘being honest?’ When we carelessly get sarcastic or insult a person, are those meaningless words, or have we done real damage? Do words actually have the power to kill, or give life?
We, too, need to confess our personal and national sin of “unclean lips” before our Father in heaven. As Isaiah came clean before God, look what God did. One of God’s angelic beings brought a live coal and touched Isaiah’s lips, and declared Isaiah forgiven! We are forgiven, too!
Prayer: Heavenly Father, I confess that I have used my lips, my mouth, my words to destroy, to lie, to mock, to …. And I am sorry. Forgive me, forgive us, through Jesus and the awful price he paid on the cross! Forgive America’s people, Lord, for the careless, even destructive words out of our mouths. Touch our lips with a coal and cleanse our words, that they speak only life and honor You. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Additional Bible passages: Ephesians 4:29; Proverbs 12:18, James 3:5b-8
“If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
Our land, our country, the U.S.A. needs healing, do you agree? There is a brokenness that goes beyond the political, the economic, the social; do you sense it, too? Will the right candidate, another law, more funding, etc., heal our brokenness? Throughout history when God’s people recognized their country going down a destructive path, they called on God, their Father for help. They recognized their profound need and cried out to God out of desperation.
God, out of his deep love for US(A), who has called us to be His own, spoke these words of promise. He said, “If we will humble ourselves before Him, and pray, and seek His face, and turn from our wicked ways…” (stop!). Can we do that right now? Wherever you are, would you pause, pull over, stop for a minute, and tell God you are sorry for the things we have done, for turning away from Him and for making decisions and pursuing paths that were and are not good….
Can we take time now to confess our waywardness on behalf of our country?….
We are a land that desperately needs healing and our God desires to pour that out in abundance. God says in 2 Chronicles 7:14 (NIV), “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
Prayer: Lord, we recognize we’ve made a mess of things. We need your help. We have turned from You and even pursued evil. We are sorry. I am sorry. Thank You for Your promise that You HEAR US, that You FORGIVE US, and that You desire to HEAL OUR LAND! We stand on that promise. Thank You for Your Son, Jesus, who took on Himself the punishment of humanity when He went to the cross. Thank You for the hope we have in His resurrection. Heal our marriages, heal our schools, heal our business, heal our government, heal our country, through Jesus! We believe You can and will, through Jesus! Amen
James 4:10 (NKJV) Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
The devil loves to keep people in a place where they are not listening to the Lord. When God’s people are OK with rebellion, joyous with perversion, when God’s people are comfortable with half-hearted religion, the enemy shouts for joy.
But when God’s people hear the true voice of the Living God, and understand how pure and holy and righteous He is, and yet also how good and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love He is, the only response can be one of daily humbling oneself before God.
We need to understand that true faith begins with a repentant heart, and an understanding of the truth begins with humility before God. In these days when the nations are shaking, and when the powers that be are wondering how do we stop the powers that are? What God is saying is, “Come back to Me, and let Me deal with the most important issues of the heart and soul, so that the heart and soul of the nation may be changed and transformed.” Because the path we go on as human beings, rebellious against our creator, is a path that leads to destruction, but the path of faith and repentance and trust in the Living God is a path that leads to renewal, and forgiveness, and hope, and life, and joy.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, lead us back to You that the heart and soul of America might be changed and transformed. We are in a rebellious time, Lord, and we need what only You can give. Bring renewal, forgiveness, hope, life and joy to the heart of each one of us in Jesus’ name. Amen
”The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” James 5:16 (NIV)
“You are the light of the world.” Matthew 5:14 (NIV)
Tomorrow we begin 40 days of intentional prayer for America. We hope you will join us over the next 40 days as together we humbly come before the Lord on behalf of America.
Jesus says, “You are the light of the world.” Matthew 5:14. Now think about that for just a second. Jesus says in the gospel of John, “I am the light of the world.” But as His followers, and every one of us who call on His name, Jesus, the Light of the world, says to us, “You are also the light of the world, because My light has shown into your life.” You and I have been brought out of darkness into His marvelous light. We’ve come to understand that we are not better than others, that we are all beggars who need what only the living God can give. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Everyone of us cannot stand in the presence of a Holy God on the basis of our own accomplishments. We understand that God is good, that God forgives, that God did not spare his only Son but gave Him up for us all. We understand that in Jesus, by faith in Him, receiving Him as Savior and Lord, God changes everything in our lives. And because of that Jesus says to us that we are the light of the world if we know Him as our Savior, if we understand His incredible love for us, if we understand that we’re sinners and that we need Him as our Savior.
Jesus gave His life for me. He gave His life for you. Because He did, because He is risen from the grave, we believe what He says. We believe His words are true because every part of the Scriptures are the true word of God. And that word of God says that you and I, by faith in the Lord Jesus, are the light of world!
Now let us go forth into the world with the Light of Jesus shining. Let us testify to His love with everyone we interact with today. Let His Light shine bright in the darkness.
Today, we prepare our hearts to come before the Father in faith and hope, secure in His love and knowing that ”The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” James 5:16 (NIV)
Prayer: With our whole hearts let us truly seek His face and on bended knees, come in humble repentance for ourselves, our families, our churches, our cities, our states, our leaders and our country. From the depths of our hearts let us cry out in sincere remorse for the sins of America and ask God, by the blood of Christ, His Son, to cleanse America and to turn us back to Him.
Our prayers over the next 40 days will be asking God to: Heal our land, turn hearts back to Himself, restore families, rebuild homes, remake marriages, restore communities, break down hostility between groups, and that He would bring revival to each of us, then the church and then to America. Our prayers will be for a wave of revival to break out across America and beyond. Lord, hear the prayers of our hearts!
By Pastor Chris Dodge
PS:
During these 40 days, we will offer an evening to gather together online. Our gathering is planned for Tuesday, November 1st at 6:30pm CT, Day 33 of our 40 days.
I am extending a personal invitation to each of you to join us as we gather for the Lord’s Supper, prayer and worship via an online Zoom gathering.
For 40 days, we at Awake Us Now are going to be focusing on prayer for our country leading up to Election Day. We invite you to join us as we bring America before the Lord beginning Friday, September 30 through Tuesday, November 8, 2022.
Each day we will provide a new topic, Bible text, devotional and prayer points as we focus on our personal relationship with God, the church’s relationship with God and our country’s relationship with God.
We serve a God who hears and answers prayer! He says, “You will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.” Jeremiah 29:12. It is with this verse and the truth it declares that we will seek God’s face, pray for our country and pray for revival.
During these 40 days, we will also offer an evening to gather together online. Our gathering is planned for Tuesday, November 1st at 6:30pm CT, Day 33 of our 40 days.
I am extending a personal invitation to join us as we gather for the Lord’s Supper, prayer and worship via an online Zoom gathering.
Pre-registration is required.
When: Nov 1, 2022 06:30 PM Central Time (US and Canada)
Awake Us Now 