Colossians 4:12 NCV
Epaphras, a servant of Jesus Christ, from your group, also greets you. He always prays for you that you will grow to be spiritually mature and have everything God wants for you.
Did you know that voluntary prayer in American schools was practiced for over 300 years? Did you know that voluntary prayer in American schools was actually constitutional for 171 years? Then in 1962, the following prayer being offered in public schools was questioned: "Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our country. Amen."
The Supreme Court ruled that this prayer was unconstitutional for a student, even voluntarily, to pray at school. 7 Did you also know that according to Gallup Polls in 2005, 76% of Americans desire voluntary prayer back in our public schools? 8
When the Supreme Court ruled that praying in school was unconstitutional, it was essentially shutting God out and telling Him we don't need His guidance and blessings. The school system took the very nature of what God designed school for and created a new identity in what it believed its institution should look like. The gifts, advancements, and discoveries that sprouted from the schools God created and nurtured were quickly taken advantage for. Education, success, knowledge and talents are birthed in educational atmospheres and God knows this. It’s why He designed them. So as we allow God to flood those atmospheres as we do a church service, there’s a greater sense of glory that can arise from it. That desire to pray in school only shows Americans’ desires to see His glory spread into the leaders and teachers and people of this nation. Our Founding Fathers prayed fervently for this nation. They prayed for the leaders and those in positions of authority. They stood solidly on our dependence on God.
Like Epaphras, we, too can pray for others that they grow to be spiritually mature and have everything God wants for them. We can even pray this for ourselves! The Supreme Court has not ruled home prayer as unconstitutional! We can pray for our leaders locally; the leaders of our schools, local communities, state and nation. By doing so, we are placing our trust in God to lead us. It may seem like we’ve fallen too far and the task of returning to our roots is too great a feat, but prayer changes things.
Action steps
- Read - Re-read Colossians 4:12.
- Think - Think about how often you pray for situations that affect our nation. Is prayer your first response?
- Write - Make a list of leaders you could include in your daily prayer time. Who are the leaders of your children’s schools? Your town? Your state?
- Pray - Personalize Colossians 4:12 into prayers for those leaders. For example: “Lord, I pray for the leader of my community that they will grow to be spiritually mature and have everything You want for them. I pray that the leaders in our government will look to You for wisdom and guidance in their decisions.”
- Take away - Prayer is the way we put our trust in God. Determine to respond in prayer for the leaders in your and your family’s lives.
“In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first thing in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed…No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.”