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How to Pray for the Nations

While Jesus’ call to pray for the nations of the world is indisputable, the practical how-tos of such a seemingly momentous task are not as clear. Praying effectively for the nations requires digging into both Old and New Testament Scriptures to discern God’s ultimate purposes for the nations.

Because we know that the key to getting our prayers heard and answered is to pray according to His will we must ask the question – what is God’s will with regard to the nations of the world? “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us–whatever we ask–we know that we have what we asked of him.” (1 John 5:14-15)

From a study of the Bible, the following are five approaches I have found helpful in which to pray for any given nation based on God’s will and His ways in dealing with the nations.

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The call to pray for the nations

Prayer / Tom Stuart

“Ask me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession” (Psalm 2:8 NIV)

It is hard to comprehend what a magnanimous heart God has when one considers the verse “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) Think about it. The world, the entire world includes 196 nations and the 7 billion people who inhabit them. That takes a whole lot of love. Something only Jesus could accomplish through His death on the cross, burial and resurrection. And it is His ultimate intention that “all the nations, whom [He] has made shall come and worship before [Him].” (Psalm 86:9)

Even a cursory reading of the Bible immediately conveys this loving concern God carries for the nations of the world. We are explicitly told in Psalm 66 that “His eyes keep watch on the nations.” (vs. 7) In nearly every book of the Bible we find the evidence of this heart expressed through prophetic utterances and/or divine initiatives to both reveal Himself and draw nations through repentance and faith toward Himself. From His Old Testament promise to Abraham to bless all the nations of the world through him, to the New Testament command of Jesus that the gospel of the kingdom be proclaimed throughout the entire world, we see His unshakeable purpose to make the nations His inheritance. Again, that is a whole lot of love! How can He possibly do that?

His choice is to do it through the instrumentation of prayer and intercession. From the book of Genesis forward we find God looking for individuals to answer His call to become intercessors on behalf of His purposes for the nations. Just consider the intercessory ministries of the likes of Noah, Moses, Daniel, Nehemiah, the prophets, Paul and the apostles. “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance” He pleads. (Psalm 2:8) “I looked for someone among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found no one,” He declares through Ezekiel. (22:30 NIV) “He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no one to intercede; then His own arm brought Him salvation, and His righteousness upheld Him.” (Isaiah 59:16 ESV) And with that He calls forth His son Jesus who alone is able to save and who “ever lives to make intercession.” (Hebrews 7:25)

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Praying a Hedge of Protection

5 Comments / Prayer / Tom Stuart

One of the critical aspects of intercessory prayer is praying for a hedge of protection. The hedge as a metaphor for spiritual protection is used at least five time in the Bible to describe God’s means of protecting both individuals and nations, Israel in particular. In each context it affords us a view beyond the veil that separates the natural from the spiritual world and gives us a glimpse into the spiritual warfare that is often required for the fulfillment of God’s purposes.

Our first introduction to the hedge of protections is in the book of Job. Here we see Satan asking God for access to afflict Job. “Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side?” (Job 1:10) This hedge was obviously placed there by God to protect Job and was so effective that even Satan could not get at him. As the story unfolds we see what can happen when God removes a hedge and how even in doing so He uses it to work good in Job’s life by giving him a deeper revelation of Himself.

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A Heavenly Perspective on Prayer

Prayer / Tom Stuart

“And seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be . . .and pray to the Lord for it; for in its peace you will have peace.” Jeremiah 29:7

Recently I was on a late evening flight from Chicago to Minneapolis. I happened to have a window seat, which I usually eschew because of my gangly frame and long legs. It was a clear night and I found great delight in looking out the window at all the lights demarcating the expressways, streets, businesses and homes of Chicago as we climbed into the night sky and headed west. It wasn’t long before the earth below grew dark there were far with less concentration of lights and as we made our way over Northern Illinois and into Wisconsin as the intriguing clusters of lights extending to the black horizon stirred my imagination.

Across the moonless landscape I was able to see towns of varying sizes and shapes with their distinctive lighting patterns illuminated primarily by their street lights. But I also noticed scattered here and there solitary lights coming from rural family farms and what I imagined to be isolated business located along the roads connecting people and the greater clusters of lights to one another

As I sat and marveled at the clarity with which I was seeing the earth below from my perspective at 40,000 feet, I began to imagine what it must be like for God to look down from heaven in search of those whose hearts are turned toward Him in prayer and intercession. I could just envision that each one of those lights represented some devout person who was at that very moment praying earnestly to God. That as it were, they were night watchmen literally illuminating the darkness around them by their intercession. As they stood in the gap before God on behalf of their families and communities and they were building up a hedge of protection against every demonic enemy, the darkness was being driven back. (Ezekiel 22:30)

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What it means to pray with Jesus.

2 Comments / Overcoming, Prayer / Tom Stuart

“Could you not watch with Me one hour?” Mark 14:38

This Holy Week we are once again invited to take the journey with Jesus to the Last Supper, into the Garden of Gethsemane and then to ascend the hill of Golgotha to the cross. In my last blog post I shared how when Jesus initially called His disciples, and us, His first and primary intention was, and always will remain, that we simply be with Him. And I made the point that being with Him is expressed most naturally through relating to Him in prayer, just as He related to the Father.

The very last time Jesus was with His disciples, pre-crucifixion, that night in the Garden of Gethsemane, He renewed that “be with” calling in a way that has been indelibly etched in the heart of every follower of Christ. Knowing He would no longer be with them in the natural, He was preparing them for a post resurrection relationship with Him in the Spirit. One of the last things He said to Peter, James and John in the Garden that night was “remain here and keep watch with Me.” (Matthew 26:38) He then moved further beyond them “about a stone’s throw away,” knelt falling with His face to the ground and began praying with such fervency that “His sweat became like drops of blood.”

When He arose from prayer He came back to the three and found them sleeping. It was then that He said these oft-quoted and hauntingly powerful words “Could you not watch with Me one hour?” (Matthew 26: 40)

The two words that I want to give special consideration to in this meditation are “with Me.” In the Gethsemane account in the book of Matthew we see in the space of three verses Jesus urging His disciples to watch and prayer using the “with Me” reference two successive times. (vs. 38 & 40)

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