INAUGURAL PRAYER FOCUS

From My Perspective - - -

It seems as though an innate propensity for many leads one to negative opinion and bent rather than to a more positive approach and inclination. This is reflected in our national elections and the close percentages in terms of how the citizenry votes. Even with an exceptionally gifted orator and a national mood for change, the vote was nevertheless closer than one would have thought – 53% versus 47%.

A broader question is whether or not we want to see our nation and its leadership succeed or not. It should be the desire of every citizen to want our government to be wise in their decisions and prudent in their choices. The 47% who voted for someone other than the President-Elect should nevertheless want the choice of the 53% to succeed and to gain the support and respect of all.

Above all, we don’t want to be a nation that forgets God in terms of the body politic. Recently, Paul Harvey included in his “The Rest Of The Story” broadcast, the following: Billy Graham's Prayer For Our Nation - - -
Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says, 'Woe to those who call evil good,' but that is exactly what we have done.

· We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values.

· We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.

· We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.

· We have killed our unborn and called it choice.

· We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.

· We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self esteem.

· We have abused power and called it politics. We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it ambition.

· We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.

· We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.

Search us, Oh God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and Set us free. Amen!

And then, as we approach Inauguration Day, Max Lucado is encouraging people and churches to make it a special time of Prayer Focus and is appealing with the following: Ask Your Church to Pray for Obama - - - Thanks to your desire to pray for the next President of the United States, we have almost 100,000 individuals and groups who have committed to pray for President-Elect Obama on Inauguration Day. But we want to see more. In this last week before the inauguration, would you email or call the leadership from your church and ask them to visit PrayForPresidentElect.com and pledge to pray for the new leadership of the United States?

Consider these things with me - - - Effective Prayer for the nation always begins on a personal level. That’s a reason why in Psalm 139:23-24, the Psalmist prays: “Search ME, O God, and know MY heart; test ME, and know MY anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in ME, and lead ME in the way everlasting.” Similarly, in II Chronicles 7:14-15 the Lord states: “…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 will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place.” The bottom-line is whether or not you believe there is a personal God who cares greatly about a relationship with you. It also matters whether or not you believe an Eternal God will intervene in the affairs of temporal people. In Jeremiah 29:12-14, the Lord says: “…you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord…” And it is also recorded in I Peter 5:6-7, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” This sounds like a better idea for times such as these!