How to Pray for America

Today is Avoid Temptation Tuesday. Normally I write about sins that we as individuals are to confess, but today we will learn how to confess the sins of America according to the prayer of Daniel. To most of us who are praying for America, we know that we have problems with immorality, homosexuality, murder and many others, but what about the sins of coveting, pride, arrogance and lack of prayer? Let’s see what types of sins the prophets confessed when interceding for the nation of Israel.

Let’s look at Daniel’s prayer in Daniel 9:3-19. He begins his prayer by praising the Lord and then he immediately confesses the sins of the nation. In verse 5 he says, we have sinned, committed iniquity, acted wickedly and rebelled, even turning aside from Your commandments and ordinances. Let’s examine the definitions of a few of these words so we are sure of what Daniel was saying. In verse 5, the word, sinned, means bare the blame. We have to quit making excuses for our sin by blaming others. We need to accept the blame for our own sin. Americans need to quit blaming poverty, racism and others for their sin. The Bible says,  “ The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself. But if a wicked man turns from all his sins which he has committed, keeps all My statutes, and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die”  Ezekiel 18:20-21 (NKJV). In America, we like to point fingers and blame the parents, the politicians and the patrons for our sins, but according to God it is each individual’s fault. Each person will be punished for their own sin and ignorance will not be an excuse. Each individual praying for America needs to acknowledge their own sin and then confess the sins of the nation. We will now examine the next word in verse 5, committed iniquity. This word means to make crooked and pervert. This nation has many sins of perversion which need to be confessed such as adultery, bestiality, incest, homosexuality and fornication. Adultery is sex outside of marriage, including before marriage and during marriage. Fornication is sex before marriage. The next word is acted wickedly, which means to do wrong. We have turned aside from God’s commandments in America and rebelled against the Lord.

In verses 6 and 7, Daniels says that Israel would not listen to the prophets and we should be ashamed of our sin. In verse 13 Daniels says that all this calamity has come upon them and yet they have still not sought the favor of the Lord. What types of calamities are we seeing in America? We have had bombings, weather disasters, drought, floods, extreme cold, hurricanes and tornadoes. Would God send these types of calamities to get our attention? Let’s look at some scriptures to see if he would. In Ezekiel 28 God said, “Because you have made your heart like the heart of God, therefore, behold, I will bring strangers upon you, the most ruthless of the nations. and they will draw their swords against the beauty of your wisdom and defile your splendor” Ezek. 28:7. We have seen our enemies bomb the World Trade Center and the Boston Marathon. We will not take the time to look at Amos 4, but I encourage you to read the entire chapter  to see which of these apply to America. I like to call this chapter the stages of God’s Judgment. According to Job 38 and 39, God controls the weather and not global warming. How arrogant we have become in America to believe that we as men control the weather with our greenhouse gases. God causes the thunder, the snow, the rain, the lightening, ice, the wind and much more. He even tells Job, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?…Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding, who set its measurements?” Job 38:2-4. We need to ask the Lord to forgive us for our arrogance. Now we will say a prayer for America in the light of what we have just learned.

Prayer for America

Lord, you are a great and mighty God who is compassionate and loving. You are sovereign over all events which take place on earth. You control the weather and every calamity which happens on this earth (Amos 3;6). Please forgive America for our many sins. We have blamed everyone for our sins rather than point the finger to ourselves. We sin and blame it on racism and poverty. We steal and say we did it because we are hungry. We have profaned Your holy name among the nations. We have called evil good and good evil. Church members as well as the lost have failed to listen to Your preachers. We have removed your Word and prayer from our schools and wonder why only 4-6% of our youth are Christians. We are not even ashamed of our sin. We allow our children to watch abominations on television and call it art. We allow them to listen to music sung by people who commit abominable acts on television.

Christians silently sit by and allow homosexual marriages to exist. We have allowed marijuana to be legalized in many states. Please forgive Christians for our lack of boldness and our silence. Silence is the same as acceptance. We as a nation have committed unfaithful deeds against You. Open shame belongs to us, O Lord, to our presidents, congressmen, senators, governors, local governments as well as liberal judges. Our court system is a disgrace where the victims cry out for mercy and little is done. Our criminals have more rights than their victims. Many of our leaders in this nation have but turned aside after dishonest gain and taken bribes and perverted justice (1 Samuel 8:3).

You have brought great calamity against us in the forms of tornadoes, hurricanes, severe winter weather, droughts, floods and yet we do not recognize these as judgments from You. Please have mercy on our nation for our sins. We do not deserve Your grace and Your mercy. So now, our God, listen to the prayer of Your servant and to his supplications, and for Your sake, O Lord, let Your face shine on our nation. O my God, incline Your ear and hear! Open Your eyes and see our desolations for we are not presenting our supplications before You on account of any merits of our own, but on account of Your great compassion. O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and take action! For Your own sake, O my God, do not delay, because our youth are on their way to hell. It is the fault of the older generations who have failed our youth with watering down the Word of God. Please forgive our nation and have mercy. Even though we do not deserve it, please send Revival and Spiritual Awakening one last time to America. In Christ’s Name, Amen.