Jun 19, 2021 – Prayer Focus
Saturday, June 19, 2021 – The 24/7 National Strategic Prayer Call
“A CALL TO THE WALL…ONE NATION UNDER GOD”
1-712-770-4340 Code: 543555 # (Ongoing call…24 hours a day!)
We begin our hour by praising and giving thanks to God!
“He who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it,
and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.”
James 1:25
We sing: America (My Country ‘Tis of Thee)
My country! ‘Tis of thee, sweet land of liberty…of thee I sing!
Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrims’ pride, from every mountainside let freedom ring!
My native country, thee, land of the noble free, thy name I love!
I love thy rocks and rills, thy woods and templed hills, my heart with rapture thrills, like that above.
Our Father’s God, to Thee, Author of liberty, to Thee we sing!
Long may our land be bright, with freedom’s holy light, protect us by thy might, Great God, our King.
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The key assignment for the 24/7 National Strategic Prayer Call is to intercede hourly
for the safety and security of our duly elected President, Donald John Trump,
and to pray for that which pertains to our nation!
We pray for his protection, for our First Lady, Melania, and their marriage
and for all the members of their family.
We cover them all with the Blood of Jesus.
We ask that in every situation and decision, President Trump will be led by the Holy Spirit!
Pray.
Strategic Focus for Saturday
WELCOME THE KING OF GLORY INTO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
ONE NATION UNDER GOD, INDIVISIBLE, WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL!
The Battle for the Survival of the Nation! – Part 40
The President’s Advisory 1776 Commission Report – Part 19
“Be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity.”
1 Timothy 4:12
TEACHING AMERICANS ABOUT THEIR COUNTRY
America’s Founders understood the importance of education to the long-term success or failure of the American experiment in self-government. Liberty and learning are intimately intertwined and rely on each other for protection and nurturing. As James Madison noted, “What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual and surest support?” Pray.
Education in civics, history, and literature holds the central place in the well-being of both students and communities. For republican government, citizens with such an education are essential. The knowledge of human nature and unalienable rights, understanding what it means to be human, brings a deeper perspective to public affairs, for the simple reason that educated citizens will take encouragement or warning from our past in order to navigate the present. Pray.
A wholesome education also passes on the stories of great Americans from the past who have contributed their genius, sacrifices, and lives to build and preserve this nation. They strengthen the bond that a vast and diverse people can point to as that which makes us one community, fostered by civil political conversation and a shared and grateful memory.
The crucial contribution that a quality civics education makes to the well-being of America and its citizens is love for our country, properly understood. A healthy attachment to this country, true patriotism, is neither blind to its flaws nor fanatical in believing that America is the source of all good. Rather, the right sort of love of country holds it up to an objective standard of right and wrong, with the desire and intent that the country do what is right.
- Where the country has done what is good, citizens justly praise those who came before them.
- Where it has done wrong, they should criticize the country and work to make sure that we, the people who govern it, do what is right.
Pray.
Rather than cast aside the serious study of America’s founding principles or breed contempt for America’s heritage, our educational system should aim to teach students about the true principles and history of their country, a history that is “accurate, honest, unifying, inspiring, and ennobling.” Pray.
THE MISUSE OF HISTORY
To begin such an education, we must first avoid an all-too-common mistake. It is wrong to think of history by itself as the standard for judgment. The standard is set by unchanging principles that transcend history. Our Founders called these “self-evident truths” and published these truths for all the world to see in the Declaration of Independence:
- there are “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” that inform human interactions,
- all human beings are created equal,
- and all human beings have fundamental rights that are theirs as human beings, not the gift of government.
Pray.
Consider the subject of slavery. At the time the Declaration was written, between 15% and 20% of the American people were held as slaves. This brutal, humiliating fact so contradicted the principles of equality and liberty announced in 1776 that many people now make the mistake of denouncing equality and liberty. Yet as we condemn slavery now, we learn from the Founders’ public statements and private letters that they condemned it then.
One great reason they published the Declaration’s bold words was to show that slavery is a wrong according to nature and according to God. With this Declaration, they started the new nation on a path that would lead to the end of slavery. As Abraham Lincoln explained, the founding generation was in no position to end this monstrous crime in one stroke, but they did mean “to declare the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit.” Pray.
The point is this: The key to freedom for all is discovered in the moral standard proclaimed in the Declaration. It would, the Founders hoped, prove to be the key that would unlock the door to equality and liberty for all.
History tells the story of how our country has succeeded, and at times failed, in living up to the standard of right and wrong. Our task as citizens in a national community is to live, and it is the task of teachers to teach, so as to keep our community in line with our principles. Pray.
The purpose of genuine, liberal education is to come to know what it means to be free. Education seeks knowledge of the nature of things, especially of human nature and of the universe as a whole. Man is that special part of the universe that seeks to know where we stand within it. We wonder about its origins. The human person is driven by a yearning for self-knowledge, seeking to understand the essential nature and purpose of his or her life and what it means to carry that life out in relationship with others.
The surest guides for this quest to understand freedom and human nature are the timeless works of philosophy, political thought, literature, history, oratory, and art that civilization has produced. Contrary to what is sometimes claimed, these works are not terribly difficult to identify: they are marked by their foundational and permanent character and their ability to transcend the time and landscape of their creation. No honest, intelligent surveyor of human civilization could deny the unique brilliance of Dante or Shakespeare, Washington or Lincoln, Melville or Hawthorne. Pray.
But far too little of this guidance is given in American classrooms today. In most K-12 social studies and civics classes, serious study of the principles of equality and liberty has vanished. The result has been a rising generation of young citizens who know little about the origins and stories of their country, and less about the true standards of equality and liberty. This trend is neither new nor unreported, but it is leaving a terrible and growing void as students suffer from both the ignorance of not realizing what they lack, and a certain arrogance that they have no need to find out. Pray.
THE DECLINE OF AMERICAN EDUCATION
This pronounced decline of American education began in the late nineteenth century when progressive reformers began discarding the traditional understanding of education.
- The old understanding involved conveying a body of transcendent knowledge and practical wisdom that had been passed down for generations and which aimed to develop the character and intellect of the student.
- The new education, by contrast, pursued contradictory goals that are at the same time mundane and unrealistically utopian. Pray.
In the view of these progressive educators, human nature is ever-changing, so the task of the new education was to remake people in order to improve the human condition. They sought to reshape students in the image they thought best, and education became an effort to “engineer the way students think.*
This new education deemed itself “pragmatic,” subordinating America’s students to the demands of the new industrial economy for skills-based, jobs-oriented training. Rather than examine the past for those unchanging truths and insights into our shared humanity, students today are taught to assume that the Founders’ views were narrow and deficient: that’s just how people used to think, but we know better now. Pray.
Under this new approach, the only reason to study the works of Aristotle, Shakespeare, or America’s founders is not to learn how to be virtuous, self-governing citizens, not to learn anything true, good, or beautiful, but to realize how such figures of yesteryear are unfit for the present day. Such a vision of education teaches that ideas evolve as human progress marches on, as supposedly old and worn ideas are cast aside on the so-called “wrong side of history.”
This new education replaced humane and liberal education in many places, and alienated Americans from their own nature, their own identities, and their own place and time. It cuts students off from understanding that which came before them. Like square pegs and round holes, students are made to fit the latest expert theory about where history is headed next. Pray.
We pray:
- That bold and courageous educators will take their places and teach the fundamentals that will enable their students to take their places as leaders of our country. Pray.
- That students will be taught history that is “accurate, honest, unifying, inspiring, and ennobling.” Pray.
- That parents will insist on accurate teaching for their children and holding their legislators and school board members accountable, to assure that they implement ONLY those materials that align with true American history! Pray.
- That President Trump will continue to uphold his AMERICA FIRST agenda, and that Americans will support and align with him in that! Pray.
- That he will set an “appointed place” and an “appointed time” for our meeting with him! Pray.
(Resource: 1776 Commission Report, Appendix 4)
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Listen to the song ahead of time, then either sing or pray it!
~~~
HINENI, ADONAI! HERE I AM, LORD!
ENGAGING IN A WARFARE OF LOVE! THE BATTLE OF THE BRIDE!
KADIMA! ONWARD…FORWARD!
“LAYNA!” LIGHT AND TRUTH!
BE STRONG…COURAGEOUS…BRAVE!
UNASHAMED OF THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST!
GOD’S CHAMPIONS FOR LIFE!
MARANATHA! COME, LORD JESUS!
BE READY! REVIVAL IS COMING!
ONE NATION UNDER GOD, INDIVISIBLE, WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL!
ONE NEW MAN!
VICTORY!
STANDING IN THE GAP!
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