If My People - A Prayer Guide for Our Nation

Back in November of 2016, as I was strolling through a bookstore, my eyes locked onto this prayer guide. It is a 40-day devotional dedicated to praying for America that I have enjoyed reading. May the following excerpts be a blessing and an encouragement to you.

Freedom is never free. Throughout the history of our country, men and women have been called to make great sacrifices and give their time and sometimes their very lives, that we might enjoy freedom, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

With every challenge we have faced, we have risen to defend the nation we love and cherish. Today, we find ourselves facing many of the same challenges of our forefathers. We have been at war with those who wish to destroy our land and jeopardize our religious freedom for many years.

We find ourselves at the crossroads of determining the direction of our country’s future and the role of Christianity in our nation. The devoted prayers of all Americans will impact the future direction of our beloved America.

Since our nation’s first days, God’s greatest movements in our midst have been fashioned and sustained by prayer, from the signing of our earliest documents to spiritual awakenings.

Throughout Scripture and throughout our history as a nation, persistent, prevailing, intentional, and never-ending prayer has always brought the presence of God. When we humbly seek His face in prayer, He is moved to act on our behalf and accomplish His desires for us. We are required to pray for our leaders according to First Timothy 2: 1 – 3, which says we are to pray, intercede and give thanks for kings and all in authority. This is a command to all believers.

Day 1

Father,

We seek Your sovereign blessings on our nation. Forgive our shortcomings and the times when we have failed You. Draw us back to Your love and strengthen us as a nation to serve and honor You in all that we do. May we forever be faithful to the calling that You have given us. We respectfully and humbly give thanks for Your continued blessing.

“If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn form their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14

God desires that this great nation will turn to Him, read His Word, and obey His commands for the good of our country.

The Bible encourages us to call upon the Lord in every situation in our lives and, by extension, in our land. Our God who never sleeps will hear our prayers 24/7. So, it only seems right that one duty of every Christ-following person blessed to live in this country is to pray for this nation. The One we call to has promised to listen.

“I have called upon You, for You will hear me, O God; incline Your ear to me and hear my speech.” Psalm 17:6

The following quotes are from several of our former presidents who knew the importance of the Bible. May their words inspire you to read the Scriptures daily.

“Hold fast to the Bible as the sheet anchor of your liberties. Write its precepts in your hearts and practice them in your lives. To the influence of this book are we indebted for all the progress made in true civilization, and to this we must look as our guide in the future. Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.” Ulysses S. Grant – 18th President

“The strength of our country is the strength of its religious convictions…The foundations of our society and our government rests so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country.” Calvin Coolidge – 30th President

“We cannot read the history of our rise and development as a Nation without reckoning with the place the Bible has occupied in shaping the advances of the Republic…Where we have been the truest and most consistent in obeying its precepts, we have attained the greatest measure of contentment and prosperity.” Franklin Roosevelt – 32nd President

The Founding Fathers came together, unified in their work, toward one goal and one purpose: to establish a government that allowed freedom and justice to reign. Two important freedoms were those of speech and of worship, and for more than two hundred years we have enjoyed these gifts our forefathers established as foundational to life in these United States. May we Americans continue to stand together, bear one another’s burdens, protecting our freedom, and prayer for this land.

Let us allow nothing to interfere with our commitment to live as a Christian nation that honors God in all that we say and do.

In closing, I want to share with you some words from a speech given by President Ronald Reagan on February 8, 1986.

“To preserve our blessed land, we must look to God…It is time to realize that we need God more than He needs us…

Let us, young and old, join together, as did the First Continental Congress in the first step, in humble heartfelt prayer. Let us do so for the love of God and His great goodness, in search of His guidance and the grace of repentance, in seeking His blessings, His peace, and the resting of His kind and holy hands on ourselves, our nation, our friends in the defense of freedom, ana all mankind, now and always.

The time has come to turn to God and reassert our trust in Him for the healing of America…Our country is in need of and ready for a spiritual renewal. Today, we utter no prayer more fervently than the ancient prayer for peace on Earth.

The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you; the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace…” And God bless you all.

“Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed ---else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die.” ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

“The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of His heart to all generations. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people He has chosen as His own inheritance.”

Psalm 33: 11 – 12