Prayer: It’s What We Christians Do!
The core purpose of the 714 Prayer Report is to stir Christians in the United States to pray about the crucial issues facing our nation. So, for the next few weeks we will begin each Report with a brief refresher on prayer. As we said last week, if there has ever been a time when God’s people in this country need to get right with Him and seek His mercy for our nation, this is it!
One of the defining marks of genuine believers and followers of Jesus Christ is that we pray. We don’t just think about it or just talk about it. We don’t just do it on those rare occasions when the pastor is over for Sunday dinner, or on some other special social occasion when people are gathered around and it would look bad if we didn’t pray. No. It is a big part of our lives. You could even say it is our life.
It’s how we entered the Christian life – praying. Romans 10:13 informed us, “For WHOEVER CALLS ON THE NAME OF THE LORD SHALL BE SAVED.” So, we did that. We took God at His Word that He would save us, (forgive our sins and make us right with Him), if we called on Him and asked Him to do that for us. We called on Him believing that His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, died to pay the penalty for our sins, thus making it possible for our perfectly holy and perfectly just Heavenly Father to forgive our sins and remain just and holy. We also called on God believing that His Son rose from the dead three days after His death, proving that He is Lord of the universe – Lord of all creation. In our calling on God, we confessed Jesus as our Lord. That confession didn’t mean we would live perfectly sinless lives from that point forward. It simply meant that we acknowledged Jesus Christ as the Lord of all, and thus as our rightful Lord. In Romans 10:9-10, the Scripture sums up salvation and connects it to prayer like this: “… if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” So, we entered the Christian life through the portal of prayer – calling on God to save us and confessing His Son to be our Lord!
Not only did we enter the Christian life praying, we also walk through the Christian life praying. Prayer is now part of our spiritual DNA. It’s who we are as Christians. A person who never prays has no claim that they belong to the Lord. But those of us who have been born into our Heavenly Father’s family, talk to Him as His children. We praise Him in prayer. We petition Him in prayer. We pursue Him in prayer. We persist in prayer. We take seriously our Lord’s admonition to keep on asking, seeking, and knocking (Luke 11:9-10). We believe Him when He tells us:
“Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.” ~ Jeremiah 33:3
The people of God are a people of prayer. It’s who we are. It’s what we do!
Next Week: Should we Christians concern ourselves with praying about political and social issues?
Are We Staring Into the Abyss of a Marxist Takeover?
There’s no question that the all-encompassing philosophy and ideology of Karl Marx is alive and well on planet earth. He first introduced his ideas in his 1848 “Communist Manifesto”, which he co-authored with Friedrich Engels[1]. The Manifesto has been continuously in print in multiple languages throughout the world since its first publication. Wherever it has been put into practice, the results have been devastating to the humans subjected to it. Never in history have the ideas of one man resulted in so much death and destruction. The 20th Century easily saw nearly 100 million people killed by communist regimes trying to impose some form of Marxism on those resisting its tyranny.
Many people, including many Christian people, have a vague notion of what Marxism is about. They may know that it is in some way associated with socialism and is, therefore, a rival to free market capitalism. They may also know that it is associated with communism, and that communism is always totalitarian in nature, and, therefore, not good. But beyond this broad, general conception, they don’t understand the real power and attraction that people find in Marxist philosophy and ideology.
Hillsdale College has produced a brilliant online documentary course called “Marxism, Socialism, and Communism”. It would be a wise and Godly use of time for every Christian in America to sign up for this free course and at least watch the 6 episodes, (each lasting about 35 minutes). Together, these episodes present a vivid picture of the resulting horror that has always followed when adherents to Marxism take over a nation and its culture. Just watching these documentary episodes would advance your understanding of where we are in our nation at this crucial moment in our history.
As you certainly know by now, one of the major political parties in our country has nominated a Presidential ticket that embraces the tenets of Marxism. This is a first in American history. The Democrats have nominated far-Left candidates in the past but none as far Left as Kamala Harris. Her plan to solve inflation with government-imposed price controls on food is exactly what they do in communist countries. Dennis Prager of Prager University dedicated the first ten minutes of his Fireside Chat this week to an explanation of why this never works. (If you are not familiar with Dennis Prager and Prager U, you need to be – www.PragerU.com. Prager University will be an often-referenced resource in future 714 Prayer Reports.) Harris also advocates single payer (government) healthcare for everyone and the abolition of private health insurance altogether – more far-Left ideology and policy.
There is also a phrase Harris has repeated often during her tenure as Vice President and so far as a candidate for President. You’ve probably heard her use the phrase at some point. She speaks of “what can be, unburdened by what has been.” Most people think this as just a catchy way of referencing a brighter future. However, it is a phrase fashioned right out of the Cultural Marxism of the 20th and 21st Centuries. In the Hillsdale documentary series referenced above, Thomas West, Professor of Politics at Hillsdale College, said Marx longed for “… genuine human liberation from all of the constraints of the past. What Marx really deep down wanted the most was the complete destruction of Western civilization.” This includes religion, marriage, property ownership, and all institutions that preserve the American way of life. Marx has some great disciples in the modern Democrat Party. It has failed everywhere it has ever been tried, but if Harris wins, it will be tested again. SIGN UP FOR THE HILLSDALE ONLINE COURSE so you’ll know what to expect if that comes to pass!