Amid the fireworks, parades, apple pies, and barbecues of this Fourth of July weekend, we should take time to pray for our nation, the United States of America.
Christians ought to pray for the lands they live in, to seek what is good for their earthly cities. We should praise God for his blessings, confess our faults and sins, pray for peace, pray for our leaders, and pray for the advance of the gospel in our land. We care deeply about our nation, while also remembering that we are exiles, citizens of heaven, who seek first the kingdom of God.
Below are several ways we can give thanks and pray for our nation:
Give thanks for the blessings God has bestowed upon our land. Every nation experiences blessings from God. Every good gift comes from above, from our Sovereign Creator. As Christians in America, we give thanks for the religious liberty we experience. We give thanks for the ways our country has promoted justice and peace in the world. We give thanks for the relative prosperity and peace we enjoy. We should thank God for the ways he has blessed us as a nation.
Confess that we are an imperfect, sinful people. We look out at our nation, and we also see many things we are not proud of. We confess the evil we see in our land. We look back at our history and confess the failures of our past.
America is not the promised land or the Kingdom of God. Sometimes, we are more like Babylon. There is injustice here, selfish ambition, sinful excess and luxury, murder of the unborn, disastrous confusion regarding marriage and gender, abuses of power, and countless other vices. As we pray for our nation, we acknowledge that our nation is full of evils we should repent of.
Pray for the peace of our nation. When Jeremiah wrote a letter to the Jewish exiles in Babylon, he wrote, “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare,” (Jeremiah 29:7). The word translated welfare in this verse is the Hebrew word shalom, the word for peace and wholeness. Though we are not literal exiles in Babylon, we too pray for the peace and the success of our nation in all that is good. We live in this land as citizens of a heavenly city, but we also seek what is good for our earthly city.
We pray for the healing of divisions. We pray for the protection of all that is good, just, and true in our land. We ask God to oppose all who would pursue the ruin and downfall of our nation. We ask God to tear down all wickedness and evil that would lead to the utter corruption of our land.
As you pray for America today, pray for true peace that seeks what is truly good and just under God.
Pray for the leaders of our nation. Paul instructs us, “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way,” (1 Timothy 2:1–2). If first-century believers prayed for Caesar, we surely can pray for our president, governor, and other elected leaders, regardless of how we feel about them and their policies.
According to Paul, the goal of praying for our leaders is the opportunity to live peaceful, quiet, godly, and holy lives. In other words, we pray for our leaders so that our nation might enjoy stability and security. This provides a context for us to live peaceful, Christ-exalting lives free from the constant fear of national crisis and chaos. We pray that our leaders would promote justice and peace in our land, which gives us ample opportunities to reach our neighbors with the gospel.
All leaders exercise authority as those under the sovereignty of God (Prov 21:1; Dan 4:17). They will give an account to God for how they use their authority. We ask that God would grant them wisdom to pursue peace and justice. We pray that they would see and confess the Lordship of Christ and that they would lead in the fear of the Lord.
Pray for the advance of the gospel within our nation. Our mission as God’s people is to make disciples of all nations (Matt 28:18–20). We look forward to the day when people from all nations will stand before God’s throne and praise the Lamb (Rev 7:9–10). But that should not lead us to ignore the cause of the gospel here at home.
We live in a land with many churches and many who profess the name of Christ. Yet there are more and more around us who have never heard the true gospel. We pray that God’s people here in the United States would be faithful to proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God. We pray that God would be pleased to send an awakening in our land that would lead many to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Pray as an exile and seek first the kingdom of God. We give thanks for our nation, and we pray for our nation. But we must never lose sight that no earthly nation is the Kingdom of God. We are citizens of that Kingdom first. Christ is our King, and he owns our highest allegiance. We care about things like the latest Supreme Court decisions and executive orders, but we also remember that they are neither our hope nor our downfall.
Even as we celebrate all that is good here in America, we remember that we await something better. We pray for God’s Kingdom to come. We live as strangers and exiles who are seeking a homeland.
“For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come,” (Hebrews 13:14).
