A Pure Heart and Prayer for the Nation
Scripture: 1 Peter 1:22
A word of encouragement before the National Day of Prayer in the United States, May 7, 2020
Greetings to you, brothers and sisters! Today is a special day for the United States of America, where the Lord has resettled us: the National Day of Prayer. From east to west, at seven o’clock in the evening, believers across America will be praying for the well-being of the country, for the problems we are facing now, that they may be resolved with the Lord’s help and through our prayer.
I would like to encourage you through the Word of God. We have no other source that can truly inspire us and help us in faith and in prayer except the Word of God. And before we pray, I would like to read one important passage, written in the First Epistle of Peter, chapter one, verse twenty-two. Just one verse, but there is an amazing depth of God in it: look how the Holy Spirit, through the apostle Peter, showed great blessings for you and me.
“Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart” (1 Peter 1:22).
You see how the Lord calls us: we need to have a pure heart. It is written in the Bible, Christ said: the pure in heart shall see God, shall behold Him (Matthew 5:8). That is why the Old Testament also says: keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life (Proverbs 4:23). And in the English translation this verse reads like this: first purify your hearts, and then obey the truth, obey the Word of God. And we need to purify our hearts. Today, when we pray, first of all pray for your own hearts, that God would give us purity of heart, cleanse us, sanctify us. And then we can pray for America too, where the Lord has brought us, and for the cities in which we live.
You know that when the people were carried away to Babylon, the Holy Spirit spoke to God’s people through Jeremiah; I want to remind you of this passage, chapter 29, verse 7: “And seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to the LORD for it; for in its peace you will have peace” (Jeremiah 29:7). It is interesting how the last part of this verse is put in the English Bible: “And pray unto the Lord for it,” for the city, “for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.” You see how important this is: it is a command; we need to pray.
So, first: let us purify our hearts. Second: we must obey God’s command; we need to pray for the cities in which we live. We live in Tampa Bay, and we need to pray for this area. This is a duty laid upon us: we must obey the Holy Spirit, obey the Lord. And further it says that our hearts are purified. But in ourselves we are very weak people, and without the Holy Spirit we cannot obey the way the Lord wants. That is why it says here: in obeying the truth through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is ready to help us today, you and me. He constantly stretches out His hands and says: “I am with you, I am with all of you.” He wants to inspire us; more than that, He even wants to pray through us, to make intercession Himself with groanings which cannot be uttered (Romans 8:26).
And on this day let us too pray together with our brothers and sisters who live in this country and in this city. God wants us to obey Him, and the Holy Spirit will help us in this: we are not to do it by ourselves, but through the Holy Spirit, by His grace.
And the third thing I want to say: our hearts have been purified by the blood of Jesus Christ and by the Word of God so that, as it says here, we might love one another.