A Prayer for America, April 19th 2013

Sovereign Lord, who lifts up nations and brings them down again, in whose hands the rulers of every nation are but streams of water, today I lift up our nation to You.

Holy God, we have violated Your decrees, and we have slandered Your name. We have sinned against You in every way, and glorified these sins in our culture as praiseworthy. We have pretended to uphold Your name, then turned and acted in a manner unworthy to be identified with it. We have said “in God we trust,” yet our trust has been in our wealth, in our power, in our political system and the freedoms we take for granted.

Lord of life, we have not respected human life, made in Your image, but have allowed a culture of death to prevail. Our entertainment grants legitimacy to men of violence, while the blood of millions of infants denied a chance at life cries out from the ground, demanding justice. We have given the care of both our children and our elderly over to the government, avoiding our responsibility for both. We have objectified and not loved our enemies, and corrupted our system of justice so that many guilty not only go free, but profit from their crimes. We have glorified greed and made commitment-free sex a cultural trademark. We have idolized the pursuit of a happy and comfortable life, and accepted the lie that life’s decisions can be made without consequences for ourselves or for future generations.

Lord God, we in the church have not stood firm, but have been complacent, content to decry society’s evils while risking little to combat them. We who have preached against self-centeredness and hate have not lived or loved sacrificially, and we who have preached holiness have put the world first. Reversing Your commands, we have been of the world yet not in it; we have avoided the world to confine ourselves in our own communities, yet copied its styles and ways for our own use. We have asked “who is my neighbor” and not loved them as ourselves, and we have not loved and exalted You above all else.

Merciful Lord, today I dare not say “God bless America,” for surely our sins as a nation merit only our own condemnation. Lord we recognize that we were never Your chosen people, that our nation was conceived in sin like every other, and that like every nation, the decisions of our people and leaders have at times caused much grief both in our own land and abroad. We recognize too that the glorification of sin which pervades our popular culture has been promoted in much of the world, leading them astray as well.

Yet I beg You, O Lord, according to your infinite grace and for the sake of Your people who dwell here, and for the sake of the great work which You have done in working through us to bring multitudes among the nations into Your kingdom- please let Your name be made greater in our nation.

Lord we pray not merely for revival, but for the advancement of the gospel into new territory in our nation. We pray that children would be raised to worship and glorify Your name, and that you would bring down leaders who promote ungodliness and raise up those who acknowledge Your truth. We pray that the Spirit would stir up our churches, that believers would wake from their slumber and go forth to be salt and light, and that even the darkest strongholds of the enemy in our culture would be shaken by the prayers of Your saints.

Lord of All, please make Your name great among us, for You are our only hope. I pray this in the name of Christ, by whose name we Your children are called; that name which is above all other names, to which every knee will bow, on heaven, and on earth, and under the earth.

Amen.