May 7, 2020
National Day of Prayer 2020
Prayer is… | Anne Graham Lotz from Anne Graham Lotz on Vimeo.
I am delighted to join you on this National Day of Prayer. I have been asked to answer the question, what does prayer mean to me?
And as I thought about it, that is a hard answer to put into words. So, I am going to try to illustrate it by pointing out the fact that I’ve been told that breathing is the strongest instinct we have. That we would let go of anything and everything else, but we will still fight to catch the next breath. I think that is one reason the Coronavirus is so frightening. It attacks the lungs and our ability to breathe…because without breath we die.
What breathing is to me physically — prayer is to me spiritually. Without prayer I don’t have spiritual life and not just prayer – that is like a “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep” kind of prayer – but a conversation with God.
Prayer is… confiding in God — my hopes and my dreams and my aspirations, my fears, and my longings. Prayer is… discussing things with God — anything that is on my heart and mind; my family, my ministry. And prayer is also asking God for things; my wants, my needs; asking Him for help, for strength, for wisdom, for counsel, interceding on behalf of other people. So, prayer is not just presenting to God sort of a reading in King James English, and it’s not just giving him a shopping list of our needs; it’s not just quoting a Psalm or a poem or something. But prayer is a conversation that we have with God who is our Father…
On this National Day of Prayer I want to thank you for your commitment to pray for our Nation. Our nation desperately needs prayer. But I want to ask you this – are you praying effectively? Because your prayers are based on a personal relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ.
If you’re not sure you’ve ever established a personal relationship with God through faith in Jesus, or if you’re pretty sure you’ve never done that, then I’m going to ask you to do that right now. And I am going to lead you in a simple prayer as you establish a personal relationship with God.
Dear God,
I come to you now, and I want a personal relationship with You. I want to be able to call You my Father. I want to know that I have access into Your presence, that I have Your full attention when I pray, that I get answers to my prayers. And so… I confess to You that I am a sinner and I am so sorry. I am not perfect. I have done wrong things, and I am willing to turn away from my sin and my self-centeredness if You’ll help me.
And I believe Jesus died on the Cross for me. I am asking that You would forgive me in His name, wash me clean with His blood. And I believe Jesus rose up from the dead to give me eternal life. So right now I’m asking You, dear God, give me eternal life, which I understand is a personal relationship with You now and heaven when I die.
And I open up my heart, and I invite Jesus in the person of the Holy Spirit to come into me. I understand He will never leave nor forsake me. And I choose from this moment forward to submit my life to His authority, to follow Him in a life of obedience one day at a time, to follow Him all the way to HEAVEN. I thank You for hearing my prayer that I have prayed in Jesus’ name and for His glory. Amen.
So, I want to thank you for the prayer that you’ve just prayed and for your commitment to pray effectively for our nation.
God bless you.
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