"A Prayer for Our Nation" by Judy Roberts

This prayer was written and prayed at my church Sunday by a dear friend of mine, Judy Roberts. I was so touched by it, I asked her permission to publish it on my blog. Thank you, Judy for being so led of the Holy Spirit to write this prayer for our nation as we have just celebrated Independence Day all across the USA.

We thank You, Heavenly Father, for the promises You have given in Your Word. You promise in 2 Chronicles 7:14 that if Your people, who are called by Your name, will humble themselves and pray and seek Your face and turn from their evil ways, then You will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

We give thanksgiving that all Your promises are, “Yes” in Christ Jesus and in Him, are “Amen!” through us to Your glory. May Your eyes be upon us today and Your ears attentive to our prayers, O Lord, God, and Creator of all that is: seen and unseen.

On this Independence Day weekend, we are thankful for freedom! We celebrate the freedom You have granted us from oppression. We celebrate and give thanksgiving for the freedom to worship You throughout this nation. We declare there is no freedom apart from You. We give thanksgiving for patriots who prayed, fought, and fell that we might be free. We give thanksgiving for founders and early leaders, who put their reliance and resolve on You. We give thanksgiving for the vast resources You have placed in our land. We give thanksgiving for the armed forces throughout the years, who have served and died for our freedom. We thank You, that in your great mercy, we have been protected from attempted terror attacks. We acknowledge it is only by Your hand this evil was prevented.

You have been immeasurably good and merciful to us ~ far beyond what we deserve ~ and so we humble ourselves before your throne this morning in repentance.

In Proverbs 1: 32 & 33, You have said, “For the waywardness of the simple will kill them and the complacency of the fools will destroy them, but whoever listens to me will live in safety and be at ease without fear of harm."

In Proverbs 1:22 & 23, You have said, “How long will you simple ones love your simple ways? How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge? If you had responded to my rebuke, I would have poured out my heart to you and made my thoughts known to you.”

We, as a nation, have misused our freedoms and celebrated independence from You and Your ways. We repent and ask Your forgiveness that You are not recognized as the source of all wisdom, provision, and freedom.
*We repent for our waywardness and complacency.
*We repent for our mockery and foolishness.
*We repent for being poor steward and for the misuse of your blessings and resources.
*We repent for worry and fear over bad news; for not trusting You to meet our needs.
*We repent that we celebrate that which is anathema to your Word and in your sight ~ that sin is celebrated; that holiness is despised.
*We repent for compromise!

Forgive us for allowing our culture to be ravished by the enemy and all that is unholy in Your sight. *We repent for our appetites; that we partake of entertainment and media that grieves your Holy Spirit.
*We repent that we have forgotten how to blush.
*We repent for not raising our children to fear You, to be discerning, for exposing them to unholy influences.
*We repent for disparaging marriage and for approving relationships that do not honor You.
*We repent for being a nation of liars; that the truth is not recognized or revered.
*We repent that we refrain from speaking truth about that which is sinful and about that which exalts false gods.
*We repent that we have not prayed before we vote.
*We repent that we have not humbled ourselves to pray for our nation and its leaders.
*We repent that we cannot be distinguished from the world by our words, actions, relationships, and appetites.
*We repent that we do not acknowledge You in all our ways, our decisions as a nation and as individuals.
*We repent that in our nation, we have devalued life. You are the author of life. Forgive us for killing Your children.

Forgive us for every thing, for every way, for every law, for every attitude, for every thought that does not honor You!

We are comforted by your promise in 1 John 1:9 that tells us if we confess our sins before You; You are faithful to forgive our sins and restore us to all righteousness. We require Your righteousness! We require Your mercy! And we seek Your mercy for the United States of America and for its citizens. We seek mercy for Your church. You alone are our substance, our hope, our forgiveness, and our freedom. You have promised to bless any nation that follows after You. We seek to be blessed!

Infuse our nation and it’s leaders with a holy fear of You, our Creator, our Source, our Savior. May our leaders, our president, congress, judiciary, state and local governments and citizens know the fear of their Maker. Cause our president, legislators, judiciary, to be stalwart defenders of our Constitution, which we believe was and is a gift from You for our nation. We pray You send a great awakening upon this nation, upon the leaders of government, religion, entertainment, education, commerce, and into every home. Give us God-fearing leaders in every realm of society, who seek Your counsel and forgiveness. Turn our hearts and minds to You. Cause us to know You and to follow Your ways; to speak truth and honor You.

Lord, You who gave us patriots who prayed, fought, who fell; founders and early leaders who put their reliance and resolve on You alone. Help us as a nation, as a people, to return to those roots You have blessed and will bless that we will be a blessed nation again. May You be celebrated and recognized as the source of all wisdom, all truth and of every freedom.

May we, as a nation, be a blessing to Israel, for your Word says that You will bless those who bless your chosen people. We pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

May morality be celebrated once again and that which celebrates immorality go out of business. May we have no need to pass laws to make abortion illegal, but may there be none seeking abortions. May there be no need to make pornography illegal, but may it die because of a lack of interest and awareness that it is shameful. May there be no need for lies, because our hearts are filled with Your truth that brings freedom, joy, and peace.

Cause us to be exceedingly thankful for the blessings You have poured out upon us that we become good stewards of them unto You. Awake us as a nation and as individuals! May Your Kingdom come in America! May Your will be done in America! And, above all, may Your people live first as citizens of your Kingdom ~ that You receive glory and honor. For there is nothing above You, our God and our King!

In the mighty name of Jesus ~ the only Way, the only Truth, the only Freedom,
Amen!

Forgiving God

In the last post I talked about separating the actions someone does from him as a person. That will lead the way to "let him off the hook" so you can forgive him of the things he has done against you or the things he did not do that you feel he should have done. Let's take this one step further. What if we did that for God?

Too many Christians are so consumed with focusing on what God DOES for them that they forget to worship Him for who He IS. Maybe it is a time for a "self check" on this. When is the last time you got alone with God WITHOUT a prayer request list and just enjoyed His presence? That is probably a foreign concept to most people, but it is a very important question to pose. Think about any person you love. The closer the relationship, the more the desire to just be with him/her. You really don't need to be entertained; you just want to be with the person. Couples who have been married for years and have a close relationship can simply be together holding hands and not even have to talk to enjoy one another. God is not interested as much in what you can DO for Him as much as He in in just being with you. You reach a deeper level of intimacy with Him when you are more interested in being with Him than you are in what He can DO for you.

Yes, God wants to bless us. In fact, the Bible says that "it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom." (Luke 12:32 KJV) However, what happens when we don't get our prayers answered the way we think they should be answered? What happens if we don't get the job we thought we should have? What if we don't get healed the way we thought it should happen? What if we don't see relationships restored when we think they should? If we don't separate what God does or does not do from Him, we will blame Him and get angry with Him. We get so focused on our situations and "needs" that we forget He sees the bigger picture and knows what is best. We forget that ultimately He has the last word and "He will cause all things to work together for those who love Him and who are called according to His purposes." (Romans 8:28)

We do praise God for what He does for us, but we worship Him for who He is. Don't get stuck in the outer courts just focusing on His deeds. Go on in to the Holy of Holies and worship God for who He is. You will then get all of who He is that includes what He does! Then when you receive His blessings, you will also know His heart. You will start to see the bigger picture and understand why God does or doesn't do things in our ways or timing. You will be like Moses instead of the Children of Israel. The Children of Israel knew God's deeds, but Moses knew His ways. (See Psalm 103:7)

I pray for God's wisdom on how to communicate this truth. I see many people who need to forgive God before they can go on the forgiveness journey and forgive others. WHAT? Forgive God? He hasn't sinned! That's right, but He has allowed things to wound us. It's when we can separate the things God does or does not do from Him that we can release God from the offenses we hold against Him and be free indeed from a root of bitterness that we may not even realize we had. We will then start seeing why He allows hard times and begin to actually thank Him for those trials that burn out all the "dross" of self-centeredness and draw us closer to Him.

Embrace the Summer!

The following is the July, 2010 artilcle I wrote for my column, "Sense"sational Musings for www.ithirstnw.net:

Oh yes, it’s summertime, and it’s HOT! It is so hot, sometimes I feel like I’m in a desert. Do you feel like that? How about spiritually speaking? Do you feel like you cannot sense the Lord’s presense? You know He’s there, but you cannot hear His voice, feel His embrace or see His hand.

May I suggest to you today to embrace the dry times? WHAT?! Yes, that is what I said, “Embrace the dry times!” Why? Because, when you do, that is what is going to help you to soak in more when God finally pours His rain on you and you sense His presence once again. That’s what David did when he was in the wilderness.

Psalm 63:1 - A Psalm of David when he was in the wilderness of Judah. O God, You [are] my God; Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You In a dry and thirsty land where there is no water.

On the flip side of that, I also suggest to embrace the times of soaking. When you do, you will be more apt to remember those revelations God blessed you with when you go through the next drought. That is what will carry you through.

We need to remember that God created dryness as much as he created water. He appoints the times and seasons in our lives.

Genesis 1:9 - And God said, Let the waters under heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
Psalm 95:5 - The sea is His and He made it; and His hands formed dry land.

God will decide when the dry spell stops and when rain begins. He also decides when rain stops and dryness begins.

Psalm 107:33, 35 - He turns rivers into a wilderness, and the watersprings into dry ground. (35) He turns the wilderness into a standing water, and dry ground into watersprings.

Embracing whatever season you are in will allow you to be ripe for discerning the plans and purposes He has in store for you. Many times when we experience God in incredible ways, times of spiritual drought seem to follow. However, what looks and feels like drought to us is something more. God is still working through that time whether we sense it or not. Remember, it was the Holy Spirit who led Jesus into the wilderness after His water baptism. The enemy came it at the end and tried to take advantage of Jesus’ time of hunger after 40 days of fasting. He tempted Jesus, but Jesus did not fall for it. Instead, He remained focused and reminded satan what the Word said. The devil then left Jesus and angels came to minister to Him. His ministry was then launched.

So, I guess that means that dry times in our lives are actually blessings! Let’s take a quick look at times in the Bible when dry times were answers to prayer.

1. Noah’s family and animals were finally able to depart the ark and walk on dry land.
2. The children of Israel escaped a life of slavery and passed through the Red Sea on dry land.
3. The children of Israel crossed over the Jordan River on dry land to enter the Promised Land.
4. Jonah was spit out of the belly of the fish onto dry land and given a second chance after disobeying God’s call to Ninevah.

As you go through your summer, embrace it! Know that this season will soon be over, and God will take you through the next season with even more revelation because of what you are going through now. Rest assured knowing that this, too, shall pass!

Isaiah 44:3 - I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground; I will pour my spirit upon your seed, and my blessing upon your offspring.

Summertime, and the Livin' is Easy!

Can you believe it is all ready July 24? Summer is practically over. For my daughter, Amy, who just entered High School marching band, it is over. As I look back over the last couple of months, I am especially grateful for my family.

Three weeks ago, we took a vacation to the beach with the girls and my parents in-law. Cape San Blas, FL just outside of Port St. Joe on the Gulf of Mexico...if you like a place where the water is clear, the sand is soft and white, the shells are plentious but the people are few, you would love it there! It is so secluded that the closest grocery store, Piggly Wiggly, is 15-20 miles away! Our townhome for the week was about 20 yards from the pool and 30 yards from the beach. It was everything a vacation should be! I enjoyed my husband, girls and in-laws. We read books, took naps, swam, walked the beach, had bon fires on the beach at night and made s'mores, enjoyed quiet times with God, and capped it off the last night watching multiple 4th of July firework shows on the sea shore.

Last week my husband, Bill, and I were privileged to go off to a cabin in the North Georgia mountains while our girls were at different camps...all by ourselves for 4 days! We celebrated 23 awesome years as husband and wife. God had a theme going of seclusion, rest and relaxation for the second time within 3 weeks! Besides enjoying some great romantic times (of which I'll keep private!), Bill and I enjoyed the hot tub, walks in the mountains picking wild blackberries, naps, tubing down the Toccoa River, reading, and quiet time with God. When we got back, someone said to me, "You mean you're not tired of being with each other?" The thought had never even entered my mind. I thank God for blessing our marriage and being in the center of our union. Bill and I are so compatible and love being with each other. When one of us has "issues," the other just backs off and lets the spouse have space. It works!

As I blog about these two summer vacations, I am so thankful for the incredible time of bonding I had with my family. God blessed me with great family ties...both with our immediate family and extended family. I do not take that lightly. With God's help, we will continue the legacy of passing the faith along until Jesus comes again!