Praying For Leaders

I know many Christians pray for our leaders. Scripture is clear that we should obey them, honor them, pray for them.

Here in the US, we have lots of leaders: the President, our Federal legislators, our Governor, our state legislators. But I wonder, in all this, do our judges get lost in the shuffle?

As it happens, what takes place in our courts matters a great deal to the direction of our country.

I don’t know how many people were aware that this past Saturday there was a Prayer March in Washington DC, sponsored by Franklin Graham.

Here’s the thank you video that came out yesterday:

These are people praying for our nation in a way that I would have liked to do as well.

In truth, praying for our nation starts with repentance. We cannot continue in our sins and expect God to ignore them and shower His blessings on us, regardless.

My blogger friend, InsanityBytes, wrote a really good post today about sin and how the recognition of our sin actually makes all the pieces of the puzzle fit together. I highly recommend “What Are Conservatives Conserving?”

I’ve written about sin on this blog before, and I’ve had discussions with people who think it’s “abusive” to tell children that they are sinners.

Well, it would be if all we said is, You’re a sinner and you’ll do horrible things all during your life and then you’ll die. That would be cruel.

Our culture takes the “everyone gets a trophy” approach: we are all wonderful, good people who just have the misfortune to have bad things happen which causes us to do bad things in return. But we’re actually, really good.

That way of thinking has so many problems. First, if people are good, how did the bad things enter into the world and make our systems bad and our actions bad? In other words, the people who actually have a problem of evil is not Christians. It’s the irreligious who think humans are good.

The Bible clearly teaches where evil comes from, how it is something passed down from Adam, and something that actually has a solution. It’s not mysterious or unclear. Because of our sin, we need a Savior.

That’s the message that America needs to hear. The whole package, including, and actually starting with, the sin part. Because if people do not recognize the sin problem, they likely won’t recognize the Savior part. I mean, who needs a Savior if you’re not lost or drowning or buffeted beyond your ability to endure?

But lost people know they need to be found, drowning people know they need to be pulled to shore, buffeted people need someone who will rescue them.

As it happens, this Prayer March was an important part of our nation turning back to God. Some 50,000 people gathered to recognize our need for God, starting with repentance, and including prayer for our leaders.

I just hope we all include our judges and the debates tonight and the voting for both national and federal offices. If we Christians don’t care, if we don’t come before God and ask Him to act on our behalf, why would we think our nation will change in a positive way?

There’s a verse in Proverbs that says, “The king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the LORD. / He turns it wherever He wishes (21:1).

May we unite to pray that God will turn the reigns of our US government into the path of righteousness through our elected officials and appointed judges.

BTW, Vice President Pence spoke at the Prayer March. You can see the whole of the march here, and his remarks are right at the beginning (about the 1 minute mark until the 5 minute mark or so):