In light of the threat of war, we pray this morning

Dear Lord God and Jesus Christ, Your Son,

We see the Russia / Crimea situation threatens to escalate into war… into nuclear… in to WWIII. We pray for the Grace and Power of God, through the Holy Spirit, to restrain war, with all its vanity, death, and destruction.

We humbly rebuke the pride of nations in Jesus' Name. We confess and rebuke the lust and greed of nations in Jesus' Name. We rebuke our own pride in Jesus' Name. We acknowledge You, God and your Son, Jesus Christ as the true and worthy source and seat of all power, authority and righteous rule - both in heaven and on this Earth.

We confess the pride and arrogance of American, Lord. We like to believe we are self-sufficient. But that's really a lie. We confess we have also all lied to ourselves in wanting to believe that sudden destruction cannot come on this Nation. We Americans like to believe we are bigger and better than any other nation. We're proud in thinking that our status comes from our own virtue, when in fact, we don't strive to be virtuous.

Perhaps worst of all is our boastful selfishness. We have been blessed as a Nation, and although we have been a blessing in many ways to other nations, at the same time, we have mostly sought to serve and glorify OURSELVES without acknowledging You as the Source.

We hereby acknowledge that many other nations throughout history were the top dog - for a time - but have fallen into ruin and third-nation status. We see American on this same course of inner self-destruction. We ask to be saved. Saved from ourselves. Saved from our pride and our tolerance of lies and corruption. Tolerance of greed, ego and oppression. We have sinned by tolerance of all kinds of evil against You and Your Word. We have sinned by glorifying our own nation, ourselves, and our own works.

So we know and acknowledge that a fall of America is only just, given our pride and rebellious ways. We have been arrogant and arrogant as a nation! There is much good in American, but we must acknowledge and confess the Truth - all this goodness, ALL of it, really came only from You, God. It came as we honored You so that You could get Your blessing and prosperity into us. But we have sinned: we act like we don't need You, God. We have sinned in that don't seek You - to hear and obey You. In so doing we are pushing away Your blessings and hurting ourselves. Trying to operate in our own worldy wisdom and own strength, we have only positioned ourselves for the removal of Your blessings - the removal of our freedom and prosperity.

But we pray; we pray for Grace to even humble ourselves. We pray for judgement of nations to be minimized - enough to humble us, but not to savagely and ruthlessly destroy us. We pray for Your Amazing Hand of Goodness to return to us. Help us, our citizens, our leaders, our officials to PUT AWAY and to PUT OFF all that displeases You -- all that is the opposite of what would bless Us as well.

Our own strength and schemes cannot bless ourselves. We confess our foolishness in this regard. This is true of the individual as well as the Nation, Lord. We need You. We've always needed You, God, But we cry out to You and confess that we need You desperately. The turmoil of nations only helps us see how much we have always needed You. We humble ourselves. Please forgive our corruption, greed, selfishness, pride and rebellion as a Nation, Lord Jesus. Help us to be Your people so that You can be our God for real.

Help us to stand up and cleanse our hearts as a Nation, to stand up and be on the side of Good, that is to say, on Your side. We admit we need to be saved, redeemed, restored as a Nation. We know You can allow both inner enemies and other nations to be used to rightly judge us, and we'd be idiots not to be afraid of that. We don't want to experience that horror. Lying pride will tell us we can get away with compromise, when really we cannot. Please forgive us for this persistent sin.

We seek YOU and Your freedom, blessing and goodness. And we acknowledge that this only comes from You ruling us in truly right ways of living, not boastful indulgence. We have abused our freedom and tried to turn it into a way to indulge ourselves at every level. We've let ourselves become rotten in this way. We've taken all Your goodness for granted and, worst even, tried to imagine it somehow came from ourselves as a Nation. We've become rotten through prideful indulgence.

So we know You would be Just in removing all your Hand of blessing and profession from us, but please save us that Your Hand of goodness might not be removed. Please rule over us from the inside out as well as from our leaders. Please restore our heart for You as a Nation.

In your Love, Sovereign God, help us, save us, and save us from war with nations and save us from inner compromise. Save us from all who would betray us as a Nation.

Save us from the egos of world leaders on every side.
Save us from the ego of Obama.
Save us from selfish ambition at all levels.
Save us from the destructive foolishness of this world.
Save us from the raging, fiercely wounded inner child of Obama .
Save us from a prideful spirit and save us from spirit of petulance, contentiousness and hatred.
Save us from the lust of nations for power, for control and for self-glory.
Save us from the plans of evil men in all control, loss of freedom and destructive ways.
Return us to You, God, from Top to Bottom -- from the greatest to the least of us.
Please restrain our Pride and restrain the Destruction that follows Pride.

Do whatever it takes to change us into a Nation that better serves You, and Your Son, Jesus - The King of Kings. But in Your non-stop Graciousness, please save as many lives within this Nation as possible - that we might do Good with our lives, and not merely serve the ego, the self and selfish ambition that leads to destruction.

We pray you snuff out war and bloodshed. Even in this late hour, we dare to Hope - to Hope in Your power to restrain evil. Please forgive America for how she has been like a big bully to other nations, instead of a humble servant that uses all she has to bless everyone on all sides. Make the contentious Nations turn from beasts into harmless sheep before You. All power is Yours, and You are Sovereign over the schemes of men.

Now please tame and diffuse this present conflict so it does not spread globally as a catalyst to WWIII. Help us truly cleanse ourselves with a deep and meaningful repentance at all levels, so as to turn aside Your wrath at our admittedly self-destructive ways. Help us value life and freedom like You want us to. That only comes from humble Godliness that can align with You to receive Your blessings. You are the ONLY source of goodness, blessing and life.

Human leaders make big promises and big boasts, but all real authority flows from Your Throne. You are the King of Goodness, the King of Freedom, the King of Blessing, the King of everything we want and need. Please forgive the foolish pride of ourselves and our leaders. We pray that the turmoil and destruction might pass over America as much as possible, we pray in the Name of Jesus - the only true and worthy power over everything for all time. Amen.

3/22/2014 at 9:00am
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