Week 3: Day 16 - 2016 Fasting & Prayer

WEEK 3: DAY 16

A Call to Expectation - Expecting Unity and Reconciliation

If you have been paying even the smallest amount of attention to the news over the last couple of years you will have seen massive amounts of disunity, strife, hatred, racial tension, and brokenness all across our nation and the world. It seems that people everywhere have drawn lines, put up walls and divided themselves. Neighbors are accusing each other, brothers are killing their brothers and abortion forces us to face the reality that the father's hearts are turned against their children.

These issues bring soberness and pain to our hearts, but we, as the church, can stand and say that we have hope and the answer. Let us not be like the prophets of old saying, "Peace, Peace!" when there is no peace (Jer 23:17).

We need Jesus Christ to come and bring unity and reconciliation to our individual hearts, across racial lines, church denominations, and in families. "For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives but to save them." (Lk 9:56) We need the love of Jesus to bring forgiveness and healing to our nation. We need the true Gospel. Can you believe with me to see God do this? 

RESPOND

• Meditate on Isaiah 61:1-3. Think about what Jesus came to do and realize how far we have fallen from the truth.
• Proverbs 18:21 tells us that the tongue has the power of life and death. Commit before the Lord to only speak life over the nation and all the issues of the present day.
• Ask the Holy Spirit to remind you in what ways He wants to bring unity and reconciliation in your life, Chester, the state of South Carolina, and the nation.

REPENT

• Repent on behalf of the nation for all the hatred and disunity that we wear proudly.
• Repent on behalf of the church for not taking a stand for unity and reconciliation and even accepting it in our own congregations.
• Repent of any seeds of bitterness in your own heart against your brother (Matthew 7:1-5)

PRAY

• Pray for the God to do what He longs to do and bring reconciliation and forgiveness across racial lines, denominational lines and family lines.
• Pray for the Lord to use you to bring unity and reconciliation in all areas of your life. Pray for the grace to be salt and light in the world (Matthew 13-16).
• Pray for God's wisdom for the leaders in the nation to know how to best handle the disunity and hatred. Pray for wisdom for your pastors to know how to guide their sheep through the darkness of these issues.

WORSHIP

• God is love. Worship Him for the way that He loves us, how He calls us to be like Him and experience the love that He offers. "Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself; is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, dones not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; dos not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails." (1 Cor 13:4-8)
• Worship God for drawing us to Himself and healing the great divide between God and man. (Col 2:13-14)