The Complex Situation

In a world where so many of the challenges in our state, our nation, and our world seem insurmountable, where should we start?

In a world where many of our neighbors and even some self-professing Christians believe prayers are useless and the only thing that counts is “good deeds,” how should we as Christians respond?

The Simple Truth

We respond by humbly calling upon the Lord with even more faithful and bold prayers. We do so, knowing the Lord is the only completely worthy, all powerful, truly alive, and triune God of heaven and earth. God alone is the source of all life, and it is God who upholds all things by the Word of His power (Col. 1:17; Heb. 1:3).

The often-pithy-and-punchy reformed Baptist Pastor Charles Spurgeon once said that a Christian prayer meeting is “the secret source of power with God and with men.”

As Christians, we must go back again and again to whose world this is and who is in charge—The Lord.

We can and must remember who can actually accomplish what needs to happen to bring true righteousness, justice, and peace. We need to recognize God is sovereign, and his kingdom has come. But at the same time, we must realize his kingdom is an already-and-not-yet reality. We are not in charge of it. (See Kevin DeYoung’s very helpful article on “Your Kingdom Come” for more on this).

Pray more and more of our fellow American citizens (including our elected officials and those citizens running for office) humbly submit to Christ and His Kingdom.

What About You?

 Dear Christian brother and dear Christian sister, do you agree? Do you live your life consistently believing that prayer is absolutely essential? As we head into another season of very important elections, what does your prayer life look like?

Consider:

• The God you were once at war with, you now worship.

• The God you once despised—as evidenced by your sins—you now declare to be your Lord and Master and King and Savior.

• The God you were once far from has drawn you near and adopted you and is now your Heavenly Father.

By God’s grace alone through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, we have access to this Father in the Spirit (Eph. 2:18).

Incredibly in God’s economy, prayer is not a gift given to a single group of particularly gifted individual Christians. A person can be the most mature, godly, studied Christian, who knows the Bible inside and out and has been walking with the Lord for decades. Or he may be a recent convert who does not know how to spell the word Bible. God has granted equal access to God through prayer.

By God’s grace in His Son and by His Spirit, every Christian can and must boldly approach God as our heavenly Father (Eph. 3:12). We know God expects us to pray and that true prayer brings Him glory (Matt. 6:6), but prayer is often also hard work (Matthew 26:40-41). In fact, Martin Luther once said,

“Prayer is the hardest work of all … a labor above all labors, since he who prays must wage a mighty warfare against the doubt and murmuring excited by the faintheartedness and unworthiness we feel within us.”

We need the Lord, and communion with Him through prayer is essential to cultivating healthy reliance on God and faithfulness in our efforts. The true church has always been a praying people. Do you pray Christian? In secret? After you read the newspaper or view social media? Do you pray? Do you pray with your spouse and with your family? Do you pray with your local church and other Christians from other local churches?

We can and we must pray even in what often seems to be a culture of tragic and seriously wicked prayerlessness. Pastor Paul Tautges noted prayerlessness may be the most serious sin problem in the church today. Tautges went on to say:

Though prayerlessness may be very apparent in Christianity today, prayer was not an afterthought to the New Testament church. Far from being a leftover offered to God once their primary energies had been dispensed on the ‘more urgent’ activities of church life, prayer was considered by the early believers to be a staple they could not live without. They were truly God-dependent people.

This is obvious from the foundation-forming days of the church. Immediately following Jesus’ ascension to the right hand of God, the disciples obeyed his last command to wait for the Holy Spirit at least in part by devoting themselves to prayer as witnessed by Acts 1:12-14.

Resolved to be a praying people, let us glorify God afresh, and as the blood-bought church of God under His grace, bound for future glory, call upon Him who can do far more abundantly than all that we ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20-21).