The Time to Pray Is Now

Most Americans know the score. The significance of the Nov. 6 general election cannot be understated. 

And because this particular first Tuesday in November is so critical, it also cannot be taken lightly just how crucial it has become for Americans to get down on their knees in repentance and prayer, asking God for grace and mercy to help guide us back to a path of righteousness.

Second Chronicles 7:14 says: “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.”

Though this verse speaks of Israel’s prayers from the ancient temple, it holds the key that reveals principles of revival that God still responds to today. These include the church’s humility, prayer, focus and repentance—all God’s prerequisites for national healing.

Many Christians feel an urgency to ask God to turn our country in the right direction. I believe that unless we come to God in the right way, the way He requires, then we will have little success.

Psalm 24:3-4 says: “Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart.” Our attitude, heart and motives must all be right to call on God for a day of grace for our nation. If we can’t come before the Lord the right way, then we shouldn’t come at all. As thousands gather in front of Independence Hall during this historic moment, and as Christians pray around the nation for America, we must keep these three things in mind:  

1. We must humble ourselves. Pride has brought great division and disunity in the church. We’ve separated ourselves from one another, seeking superiority and self-promotion rather than unity and brotherhood. We must learn to have tolerance for differences in the little things and unify around the main truths of Jesus Christ that we all believe.

2. We must turn from our wicked ways. We can’t throw stones at immorality in the world when it exists in the church. In Philadelphia, we’ll confront the seven deadly sins of America that the church has widely ignored or compromised with. Through Christ we have victory over pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed and sloth.

3. We must cry out to God to heal our land and to manifest His presence in every area of our culture so we can witness revival in the church and an awakening in society. As we pray and seek His face, God is faithful to keep His promise.

In this kairos moment in time, we will make a renewed “salt covenant” in which we will commit to be holy as He is holy and to live set apart by His grace. We can no longer afford to be salt with no flavor, as Matthew 5:13 indicates. The church can’t be so much like the world that onlookers cannot tell the difference. God’s people must become “salty” again and become a preservative in the culture that is a conscience to the nation.

We are His people, and we are coming to Him in humility, asking for mercy on America and a new outpouring for a new generation. Abraham Lincoln declared, “It is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.” 

When we have the right approach, He surely will hear us.

Bishop Anne Gimenez is the national chairman of America for Jesus and pastor of Rock Church International.