Mar 24, 2019 – Prayer Focus

Sunday, March 24, 2019 – 24/7 National Strategic Prayer Call 

“A CALL TO THE WALL…ONE NATION UNDER GOD” 

1-712-770-4340 Code: 543555 # 

We will not tolerate any demonic interference on the 24/7 National Strategic Prayer Call. 

We are taking measures to protect and defend our 24/7 family and this call. At the top of every hour, 

the facilitator, in agreement with those on the line, will bind all forces of evil and cast them down into the abyss, then pray a shield of protection over the call and our 24/7 family!

*The key assignment for the 24/7 National Strategic Prayer Call is to intercede hourly 

for the safety and security of our President and to pray for that which pertains to our nation!

We pray for the protection of our President Donald Trump and cover him with the Blood of Jesus. 

We bless our First Lady, Melania, their young son Barron and each of their family members.

We cover our Vice President Mike Pence, his wife Karen and their family 

and all those in this Administration who are serving You and our nation!” 

The 24/7 NSPC is calling the Body of Christ nationwide to pray for the 2020 National Elections,

mobilizing intercessors and positioning ourselves in prayer before the Lord 

on behalf of our President and nation! 

COUNTDOWN: 590 days until the election! 

Let us pray into this verse: 

“Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.” 

Colossians 3:2

Strategic Focus for Sunday 

WELCOME THE KING OF GLORY INTO THE UNITED STATES 

The “nones” – Part 2 – “Mix and Match Mentality”

“We should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, 

by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, 

but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ.”

Ephesians 4:14-15

We are living in a world in which there is so much confusion and deceit! The darkness is vying for possession of the hearts and minds of our youth, and through them, control of the future of all of our nations! For an increasing number of young Americans, religion and religious “identity’ is nothing like it was here in the United States, even 30 years ago! 

Let’s take a deeper look at the youth of our nation…this group of millennials dubbed the “nones,” who “identify” as “religiously unaffiliated”. These young people are generally more liberal and more educated than the average person, and they don’t usually “profess” any faith or “religious preference”. Yet, that doesn’t mean that they’re not interested in “spirituality” or in participating in symbolic rituals. As the picture above depicts, numerous veins of this “spirituality” are under the magnifying glass, being checked out and experimented with by our youth…as they search to find truth and meaning in a world that is only too willing to define those things in terms we would never agree with and hope our children would never be involved with! 

We pray:

• Lord, we “once were lost, but now we’re found”. Cause us to remember what that time of our lives was like and “impassion” us anew for the children and youth of this nation, and all those who are lost and need to know YOU! Help us to model authentic Christianity and show is how to reach them for You.

Most “nones” profess some sort of understanding of or belief in a “higher power” – not necessarily the God of the Bible or even other “gods”, but they draw from a “mixture” of sources… like “New Age” teachings, consulting with psychics and delving into astrology, among others! They pride themselves on “pioneering” and initiating new and different “forms” of spirituality…ones of their own making.

These young people are joining non-secular organizations that purport to blend a sense of community, a sense of self-awareness, and even some semblances of “religion”. Harvard Divinity School researchers have identified several “cult” fitness programs that serve as a form of “church” for their regular participants. 

• “CrossFit” affiliates jump on top of wooden boxes until exhausted, many in garages that have been transformed into “home gyms”. It allows every single human – despite gender, sexual orientation, or general perspective – to be a “bro”.
• “Zumba” has an estimated 15 million souls shaking their stuff in 200,000 Zumba locations around the world in 180 countries! There’s even ‘Kosher Zumba’–which is a very censored version of the fitness program, tailored ONLY for women in Orthodox Jewish communities
• “Bikram Yoga’ (founded by Bikram Choudhury – worth $75 million – and accused of raping numerous female followers over the years) charges $13K to attend his elite “sweat it out” Bikram training camps. 
• “305” is a blend of sensations: being at a dance club, cardio-centric interval training, sports drills, and dancing…all while a live DJ plays.
• IntenSati – described as “AA with better abs”- is an intense mixture of aerobics, dance, yoga, and martial arts. It’s a program based in the power of spoken affirmation, of self-worth love, topped off by instructors’ yelling out emotionally charged phrases like “I am worthy of my own love!”
• “SoulCycle” – set in a candle-lit room, cyclists train in speed intervals, led by “rock star instructors,” who attempt to induce a soul-quenching, primal explosion of cardio and emotion.

The “offerings” taken at these various programs are a “pretty penny”, and the practices literally become altars at which the advocates “worship”…usually the idol of self!! 

We pray: 

• Lord, show us at which altars we have been guilty of “worshiping” in the past. Forgive us and help us to model different values to those around us who are watching what we say and do!

There are other young people who are drawn to join “fandom” communities – where people’s passion for a movie or book become their major commitment. For those who “exercise their fandom”, they find meaning and purpose in and through their “fan activity”. Examples: “groupies” for Star Wars, Harry Potter or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where people dress up, attend events and find “shared meaning” by participating. This can produce feelings that are very similar to some “religious practices.”

.

This doesn’t necessarily mean people are simply replacing religion with secular equivalents. Rather, they are looking for and finding similar elements to existing spiritual and religious traditions in much different contexts. They are “mixing and matching” to suit their tastes…causing their so-called “spiritual or religious life” to become increasingly diffuse, scattered, and certainly not concentrated or even including God!). 

Examples:

• Someone finding “community” in CrossFit while developing a spiritual practice in yoga or meditation. 
• A Jewish person who engages in divination through Tarot cards. 

We pray:

• That You would grant us the wisdom to discern truth from deception, Expose false religion and spiritual “mixture”, and in its place, reveal the TRUTH, which is found in Christ ALONE! 

When we, as Christians, talk about “religion” or “faith”, we are speaking of “our identity in Christ”. We have shared goals and values around which we form “community”. That includes various rituals, ceremonies, and events, conducted according to a prescribed order…(ie. Baptisms and marriage protocols, etc.) These express our faith and provide meaning to a “single moral community,” in which we affirm our own identities in union with one another. 

However, with these new forms of “religion”, there is a combined myriad of practices, beliefs, communities and rituals that are shaping our young people’s future…and giving them new “faith identities”. Thus, these millennials are not so much religious “nones” as they are religious “manys”. They are like shoppers at a mall, finding an “object” here (a T-shirt, some jewelry, a candle, incense or oil), a “practice” there… picking and choosing among elements of religious life that “resonate” with them. Hence, they exhibit a “Mix and Match Mentality.” These elements are not “traditional organized religion”, but when put together, they “function” for them in a similar way.

From rationalist solstices to SoulCycle classes, from atheist meditation apps to wellness spa getaways, we must learn and understand the ways that the “religiously unaffiliated’ are approaching and redefining religion, so that we might speak to them and share the love of God with them, which is what they (and we all) are really searching for. 

We pray:

• Father, we ask for Your help in reclaiming our children and our culture from the strongholds of the enemy, from all these distractions and enticements that captivate the impaginations of our youth especially. Strengthen, broaden and deepen the influence of Your church, in every aspect of our society! 

Many of these so-called “nones,” or religiously unaffiliated are young men and women who once attended church with their parents. Statistics tell us that most Americans who become “unaffiliated’ do so before their 18th birthday, abandoning their childhood religion and no longer identifying with it. Sadly, many of those who are so lost now grew up in families parented by adults who lacked unity in their religious commitments and didn’t provide a Godly foundation for their (children’s) moral formation. 

When our youth tell us that they give little or no regular thought to their beliefs about God, that religion does more harm than good, and that there is no necessary connection between a belief in God and their own moral decision-making, it is hard not to conclude that: 

• We, as the Church, have failed to take the spiritual formation of children and adolescents seriously.
• We have not stressed the importance of faith formation in our families, nor have we helped them to learn how that might be done.
• We have neglected our own formation and the task of examining the relationship between what we believe and the way in which we live our lives.
• We haven’t offered our children convincing reasons for participation in the life of the church, which would have been convincing if we had modeled it and they had shaped our own participation.

We acknowledge that what we, the older generation, are facing is the “fruit” of our own wrong choices.

Speak each of these acknowledgments aloud, then pause a moment to reflect on it.

We repent: 

• For our fear of being thought of as “holier than thou” or “fundamentalist” which has kept us from being serious about our faith and modeling and sharing it with our children.
• For our fear of man and our love of “public acceptance” and “respectability” that prompts us to downplay the responsibilities that the Gospel places on us as believers! 
• For opting for “good politics,” instead of standing up for Godly beliefs, so that people, especially our youth, see that our faith has much to say about our politics and everything else we do. 
• For being lazy about rearing our children in the faith…both at church and at home, and for neglecting our responsibilities as their parent, role models and spiritual teachers.
• For projecting adult prerogatives on our children, by allowing them to “make their own decisions” about their faith, long before they were capable of that.
• For our omissions, for in the absence of our Godly parental guidance, our children found their mentors in the culture around them. 

We pray:

• Lord, we thank You that You hear and receive our repentance, and forgive us for our neglect as the parents in this nation! We ask that You, our Good Shepherd, would seek and save the lost lambs and bring them back to the fold. Prepare our hearts to receive them when they come! Teach us how to reflect You to them, so they stay! 

(Adapted from articles by Tara Burton – RNS and Frederick Schmidt – Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary.)

~~~~~

Specific Prayer Topic for Today

Praying for our Supreme Court and the Judicial System

Today, we pray that our Supreme Court justices and our Judges of every Court level throughout the land would have a true and clear understanding of justice according to Your Word and Your perspective. May justice be established in America in accord with Your sense of justice, Lord, and not our own. We bless our Judiciary and agreeing with your Word, we declare over them all: 

“You shall not pervert justice; you shall not show partiality, nor take a bribe, 

for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous. 

You shall follow what is altogether just, 

that you may live and inherit the land which the Lord your God is giving you.”

Deuteronomy 16:19-20

 ~~~~~

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! 

To print, use the attached PDF file 

https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:VA6C2:da3b60c1-5bc0-43e2-9585-fd7b3f6e1b0f