The future of our culture is in the hands of Christians because the cause of our cultural demise is innately spiritual. And if a problem is spiritual, its cure must be spiritual as well. If we Christians are going to help turn our nation to God, we must fall on our knees and our faces before God and pray. We must not only talk about prayer, but pray. Not only agree on the importance of prayer, but pray. Not only preach on the power of prayer, but pray. As Billy Graham once said, “To get our nation on its feet, we must get on our knees.”

Second Chronicles 7:14 contains an awesome promise: “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 will forgive their sin and heal their land.” In this hallmark passage, God calls a nation to pray.

Prayer is an earthly request for heavenly intervention. But we can’t enjoy this kind of divine intervention of healing in our land with just a little prayer tossed toward Heaven occasionally. The kind of prayer that will reclaim lives, families and a nation for God must take high priority in our schedules. In fact, if you look back at Nehemiah 1:4, you see that Nehemiah prayed and fasted for days when he heard about the conditions in Jerusalem.

In the face of his nation’s ongoing cultural demise, Nehemiah’s first reaction was to pray! He fasted and prayed and sought God. As he did so, God revealed His strategy—and reversed years of deterioration in just 52 days. This is because prayer saves time.

We could save a lot of time and worry if we spent time praying first. That’s because God’s divine influence makes light work of the issues we face. When we might spend weeks and months trying to resolve an issue in our own power, God can make all the difference in a much shorter amount of time.  Let’s make prayer our priority in this new year, and let’s pray TOGETHER!