Please find below the notes from the Elder's Prayer this past Sunday.
241 years ago, on July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was approved and adopted by the Congress. We will be celebrating that coming Tuesday, July 4th, 2017. I would like to lead us in prayer for our country. It’s rather long. May God help you stay with me as I pray through various things. Let’s pray.
Heavenly Father, we praise you for your sovereign will & purpose in allowing the United States of America to become a country on the face of the earth.
We thank you for the Founding Fathers, especially for the believing Fathers who influenced the Constitution with Biblical truths and the mark of the gospel that they have left in all three branches of the government: legislative, judicial and executive.
As your word commands us, in 1 Timothy 2, we pray for our leaders starting with our President Trump, Vice President Pence and the cabinet. Please give them wisdom, discernment, good health, divine protection, strength, guidance, and favor from heaven.
We pray for the House of Representatives and Senators, please help them rise above politics and party lines and work together for the common good of the county. Please protect them and us from hate politics. Please bless each of them with wisdom and a servant’s heart.
We pray for those serving us in the Judicial branch. Please grant them clear mind, sharp discernment, knowledge in the law of the land and constitution and willingness to interpret and side with what is right the sight of God.
We also remember state, county and city officials as well as all divisions of the Armed Forces and various levels of police departments. Thank you for their service. Please protect and provide for them.
We pray for all of our leaders that they would be pure, peace-loving, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial, truthful and sincere.
Above all, our loving Lord who desires all people to be saved, we pray for those who have not surrendered their lives you. Please grant them salvation. Please help those above us to guarantee in word and in deed that we could lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.
LORD GOD Almighty, we pray for the Churches in America. Please may the gates of hell never prevail against us. Please protect Summit Woods Baptist Church and other like-minded Churches from becoming complacent, loving things of this world as opposed to loving things of God in heaven. Please help us to be a city on a hill, like a lamp that has not been covered up instead set on a lamp stand that it might give light to all, continually exposing the works of darkness and leading people unto the true Light, our Lord Jesus Christ. May we remain a flavor-rich salt till the end. Please prepare and train each generation from your Holy Word for what you have next for each of us. Please help us to endure and remain faithful until our Lord Christ comes back to receive us or you call us home whichever occurs first.
May our love for you remain superior and unmatched. May the Spirit of the Living God continue to inspire and renew our minds by the preaching and studying of your word. This we pray in the name of the Omniscient & the true Sovereign Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.