Back on September 27, my colleague John Stonestreet told you on BreakPoint that I would be fasting and praying for 40 days prior to the elections.
And, I have been. Have you? I want to urge you to join me in praying for our nation.
Let me remind you how this came about. I was about to address a conference in Castle Rock, Colo., when a keen awareness came upon me that I should invite the audience to join me in fasting and prayer.
Folks, that kind of awareness does not come upon me often. I’m convinced it was the Lord.
So I invited the attendees to pray and fast with me. And I launched a Facebook page so folks could sign up to let me know that they’re in. If you come to BreakPoint.org, click on this commentary; I’ll link to you to the Facebook page. Or of course, you can always come to ericmetaxas.com where there’s more information, and that will also link you to the Facebook page.
I cannot emphasize enough how important I think this is. As I tour the country, I speak a lot about Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In his day, Bonhoeffer pleaded with the church to wake up — to understand the times. And he pleaded with the church to be the church. And being the church means more than going to a worship service on Sunday, and it means more than believing a certain way. It means living out our faith, putting our beliefs into action.
And the first action should always be turning to God in prayer. Or, as Chuck Colson used to say, “getting on our knees.”
Do you believe 2 Chronicles 7:14, that if God’s people will “humble themselves” and seek God’s face “and turn from their wicked ways,” that God “will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land”? If you do, please pray.
I hear from so many Christians who are discouraged about the direction our country is going in, and who are so fed up with politics, or who simply wring their hands and say, “What can we do?”
Well, do you believe with Paul in Philippians that we should not “be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving,” that we should “present our requests to God”?
Do you believe that? Do you believe what the Word of God says? If we’re to be the people of God then we must believe the Word of God. And believing the Word of God in this case means praying. So please pray.
Now of course, I’m not going to tell you how to pray or how often to pray, and I certainly don’t want to tell you how to fast. That of course is between you and the Lord. But please take a moment and think about this. Make a commitment that you can keep to pray and to fast in some way for the next 20 days as we approach these incredibly important elections. Folks, that’s the least we as the church can do. And then, if you would, let me know you’re praying and fasting or how. Go to BreakPoint.org again and follow the link to my Facebook page or go to EricMetaxas.com.
Ultimately, when we commit to this kind of prayer, we are telling God and showing God and affirming to each other where and in Whom we are placing our trust for the future of our land. We will not trust in “horses and chariots,” we will not place our hope and trust in the political process, or in our favorite candidate or political party. We will be involved in politics, but we will not make an idol of politics. We, the church, the body of Christ, must and will place our hope and our trust “in the name of the Lord Our God” (Psalm 20:7).
And we will pray that God will bless His church, and will bless this our country where He has placed us, for His purposes — so that we will be a blessing to the rest of the world.
Eric Metaxas is a co-host of BreakPoint Radio and a best-selling author whose biographies, children's books, and popular apologetics have been translated into more than a dozen languages.
BreakPoint commentary airs each weekday on more than one thousand outlets with an estimated listening audience of one million people. BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on today's news and trends via radio, interactive media, and print.
Publication date: October 17, 2012