Pray For Our Nation

We just returned from a visit with my family in Minnesota. An entire blog will be devoted to the "flying experience". Quite an adventure. Before I finish that writing I need to alert you to this.

We must pray as never before for our nation. I have copied and pasted the Friday Prayer Alert from Intercessors for America.

A very disturbing event will be occurring on July 12th. A Hindu clergyman will be delivering the opening morning prayers in the U.S. Senate. He will be quoting writings from 3 Hindu "holy books".

This affront to the God who created America to serve Him by spreading the Gospel to the ends of the world frightens me greatly. When Israel served other gods great judgements fell. Do we think we will deserve less? Please pray for a fourth great awakening and for mercy for America.

Blessings to all~

SPECIAL EDITION
PRAYER AND SUMMER SUPPORT IS NEEDED

29 June 2007

"These are the times that try men's souls."
-Thomas Paine, 1776

CONCERTED PRAYER IS NEEDED THROUGHOUT JULY - July 4th marks the time we celebrate our nation's founding and deliverance from tyrannical rule. Many will also travel and enjoy times of family and personal vacation in July. From past experience, we have learned that, as intercessors, we must remain prayerfully "on watch." An easy way is to "pray the headline news" each day.

HINDU PRAYER WILL OPEN THE SENATE ON JULY 12 - For what is believed to be the first time in its history, the U.S. Senate will be opened with a Hindu prayer. The Senate Chaplain's Office confirmed Monday that Rajan Zed, a Hindu chaplain from Nevada will open the Senate with a Hindu prayer on July 12. For more than 200 years, the Senate has opened each workday with a prayer usually delivered by the Senate Chaplain, currently Rev. Barry Black, a Seventh Day Adventist. It is common, however, for senators to recommend religious leaders from their home states to serve as guest chaplains. When asked, the Chaplain's office said that "it cannot say no." Click here to read more.

IFA NEEDS YOUR SUMMER FINANCIAL SUPPORT - While we are called and are blessed to compile and issue these email alerts to help you "track in prayer" each week, it is your financial gifts, large or small, which makes this service to you possible. As with many local churches and faith ministries, the summer months are often financially "leaner" months. Please know that IFA needs your support at this time. You can send a check payable to "IFA," or a credit card donation can easily be made by clicking here or by calling toll-free 1-800-USA-PRAY (872-7729).

Common Sense
Thomas Paine
1776

Among the many writers who undertook to explain the new American concept of liberty, Thomas Paine (1737-1809) and Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) emerged as two of the most influential. Jefferson was born into a prominent Virginia family and received a college education. Paine, in contrast, was born into an obscure family in a small English village and dropped out of school at age thirteen. Considered a political radical by many, Paine wrote a sixteen-pamphlet series, "The American Crisis," during the War for Independence which he signed "Common Sense." The first spirited essay, issued on December 23, 1776, was read to George Washington's demoralized troops at Valley Forge by order of the general. May the following excerpts from the series encourage and envision you as the first essay did Washington's forces in their time of testing and struggle to overcome tyranny:

These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; 'tis dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed, if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.

Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.

Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise. Were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other law-giver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest. Wherefore, freedom and security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others. I draw my idea of the form of government from a principle in nature, viz. that the more simple anything is, the less liable it is to be disordered, and the easier repaired when disordered.

"Where, say some is the king of America?I'll tell you, friend, He reigns above! Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honors, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be placed on the divine law, the Word of God; let a crown be placed thereon."

The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Where, say some is the king of America? I'll tell you, friend, He reigns above. Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honors, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be placed on the divine law, the Word of God; let a crown be placed thereon. But lest any ill use should afterwards arise, let the crown at the conclusion of the ceremony be demolished, and scattered among the people whose right it is.

To talk of friendship with those in whom our reason forbids us to have faith, and our affections wounded through a thousand pores instruct us to detest, is madness and folly. Ye that tell us of harmony and reconciliation, can ye give to prostitution its former innocence? There are injuries which nature cannot forgive; she would cease to be nature if she did. The Almighty implanted in us these inextinguishable feelings for good and wise purposes. They are the guardians of His image in our hearts. They distinguish us from the herd of common animals. The social compact would dissolve were we callous to these affections. The robber and murderer would often escape unpunished, did not the injuries which our tempers sustain, provoke us into justice.

O! ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose not only the tyranny but the tyrant, stand forth!

"O! ye that love mankind. . . stand forth!"

"What I say to you, I say to all: 'Watch!'"
Jesus of Nazareth - Mark 13:37


PLEASE "FORWARD" THIS TO YOUR PRAYING FRIENDS - Invite them to become a "partner-in-prayer." Having observed first Friday prayer and fasting for almost 35 years, we are encouraged to see a new "amplification" of united prayer and fasting, especially among the youth, at this time. The Pilgrims, Puritans and other founding New England pastors and churches formed "prayer covenants" and regularly called the members of their congregations to unite in days of earnest prayer, repentance and fasting. The following prophetic exhortation made by Jonathan Edwards during the First Great Awakening shows the historic pattern of awakening we are again walking in:

Walking out the vision of America's Christian founders . . .

"I have often said it would be a thing very desirable, and very likely to be followed with a great blessing, if there could be some contrivance, that there should be an agreement of all God's people in America. . . to keep a Day of Fasting and Prayer to God; wherein, we should all unite on the same day. . . It seems to me, it would mightily encourage and animate God's saints, in humbly and earnestly seeking God, for such blessings which concerns them all; and that it would be much for the rejoicing of all, to think, that at the same time such multitudes of God's dear children, far and near, were sending up their cries to the same common Father for the same motives."
- Jonathan Edwards, 1742
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A CALL TO
UNITED EXTRAORDINARY PRAYER
Jonathan Edwards

"After two remarkable movements of God in revival, Jonathan Edwards sensed the spiritual momentum was waning. The saints needed to urgently re-engage prayer.

These writings caught on in the later part of the 1700s, when they became fuel for the Second and Third Great Awakenings." - Introduction, David Bryant

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THE MISSION OF INTERCESSORS FOR AMERICA:Uniting Believers in Effective Prayer and Fasting

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