When did we stop believing that God literally uses our prayers to change the world? This partnership which God has established with us in Christ is something He takes very seriously. So seriously, that God can use our prayers to change the world. Our prayers make a very real, tangible difference in the process by which God goes about fulfilling His ultimate plan and purposes in the world.
When we look around us today there is so much happening which can cause us to lose hope and get trapped in a cycle of despair. On the world front we have wars and terrorism and global economic doom and gloom. In our own nation we are seeing a rapid departure from our Christian roots and the emergence of a pluralistic and increasingly anti-Christian culture. The foundational truths which have undergirded the Church for centuries are being discredited and, heaven forbid, even outlawed across our nation.
We glance across the Church and see more and more liberal teaching which appeals to many itching ears and yet robs the world of the life-changing power of the gospel which can only ever be found in Christ and Christ alone. But then onto that rather dark and depressing canvas comes the hand of God once again writing the age-old promise of God:
2 Chronicles 7:14 “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
God has not withdrawn that promise and those words have rung out across history and into our world today. God will heal our land. God will address all the problems we see across our world and drive out all the evil which appears to be expanding unhindered and unchallenged.
Furthermore, God has planned to do that in partnership with His praying, believing people. This is why prayer is as vital to the life of the Church as oxygen is vital to the life of a human being.
God will change the world through us, His people, as we draw near to Him in prayer and never stop crying out for His empowering presence to flow into us and through us so we may truly be salt in light in a needy world.