By: Dale Weckbacher
Nehemiah 1:4
When I heard these
words, I sat down and wept. I mourned for a number of days, fasting and
praying before the God of the heavens.
(CSB)
How we react to bad news says volumes about our personal
character. Some of us react in anger,
some cry or become depressed, and others try to determine what went wrong in
order to fix it. For Nehemiah, however,
the reaction was prayer (Nehemiah
1:4). With all the hatred, anger,
and depression in the world today, we as the people of God would benefit from
reacting in the way Nehemiah reacted to bad news.
Any mission to affect needed changes in society begins with
a foundation of prayer for just as Nehemiah would encounter obstacles in his
mission to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, we too will encounter
obstacles. Even the teaching of the
Apostle Paul encouraging us to put on the whole Armor of God concluded with a
call to pray at all times (Ephesians
6:18). However, many reading this
may be unsure how to pray for the great problems and issues facing our
world.
The good news for us is that there is a pattern for
intercessory prayer contained in the prayer of Nehemiah (Nehemiah
1:5-11). What is most interesting,
however, is how similar the pattern in Nehemiah’s prayer is with the pattern
offered in the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew
6:9-13). Let us take a moment and
explore this pattern.
1)
Worship (Nehemiah
1:5, Matthew 6:9-10) – Nehemiah considers prayer a humbling privilege to
converse with the creator of not only Him but the entire universe. This reality alone should be enough for us to
begin prayer with a time of worship. Beginning
with worship takes our mind off our problems, providing a loftier
perspective. It is like the difference
in viewing the Grand Canyon from the ground and believing it is impossible to
cross and viewing it from the air and finding a way around it. Beginning prayer with worship aligns our
perspective with God’s perspective.
2)
Repentance (Nehemiah
1:6-7, Matthew 6:12) – Romans
3:23 reminds each of us that we have sinned. Our choice is do we continue in our sin
resulting in death or eternal separation from God (Romans
6:23) or do we repent and change the direction of our lives by believing in
Jesus as our savior and enjoy eternity with God (John
3:16). Effectiveness in prayer is
prayer connecting with God, so we must repent to remove sin from our lives for
prayer to be effective.
3)
Praying the promises in God’s Word (Nehemiah
1:8-10) – Not that God needs to be reminded of what He said in His Word but
our praying the promises contained in God’s Word reminds us of why we are
praying. We pray to God not just as some
ritual or tradition but because we believe in an all-powerful God who can meet
our needs. Since God always keeps His
Word to us, we can trust Him and since God created everything, He has the power
to meet our needs. However, we must insure
the desires of our heart agree with God’s desires for us.
4)
Petition (Nehemiah
1:11, Matthew 6:11-13) – Now that we have entered God’s presence, have had
sin removed from our hearts, and are in alignment with God’s desires, we are
ready to bring our petitions to God.
I encourage everyone reading this to begin fervently praying
for revival to sweep across our world. As
we survey the evil in our world there is little doubt our world needs
Jesus. Since God also wants salvation
for all humanity, praying for revival is in alignment with His desire for
humanity. Therefore, let us be like
Nehemiah and begin effecting Godly change in our world with a foundation of
prayer to not only make America Great again, but to spread the Gospel around
the world.
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