ENEMY CHASERS
The Power of Families Praying Together
The family is the first institution that God ordained. The family is the foundation of society. God wants our families to be strong. When families are strong, they strengthen society around them and ultimately the nation.
We can be a close-knit, loving family and yet live to ourselves. I believe we should lift up our eyes to see what an influence we can be as a family to the world. One of the greatest ways we can influence the world is by prayer. The power of praying families is enormous.
Prayer should be part of every home. Jesus said, “My house shall be called a house of prayer.” If our home belongs to the Lord, it will be a home of prayer. That means prayers will be conducted daily. That means prayer will happen spontaneously throughout the day. That means prayer will be very natural in our home. It will be as familiar as breathing to our children. As my husband often states, “If we haven’t taught our children to pray, we haven’t taught them.”
One of the most powerful times in our home is our Family Devotions each evening where everyone prays around the table—father, mother and all the children and whoever else happens to be at the table. We pray for current needs. We pray for our nation. I think the greatest thing that every family could do at this time is to pray together for our nation. It is when we humble ourselves and pray that God will to save our nation.
We also pray for the nations of the world. It is amazing that we can sit around our dinner table in the Tennessee woods and yet see mighty things happen for God in countries of the world to which we haven’t even visited.
Sometimes we will encourage each one to pray for a country that is on their heart or comes to their mind. Currently we are using the book 100 Gateway Cities of the 10/40 Window. After our Bible reading, we read the information about the city in the book. This last week we have been praying for the cities of Casablanca in Morocco, El Aaiun in Western Sahara, Nouakchott in Mauritania, Dakar in Senegal, Banjul in Gambia and Bissau in Guinea Bissau. We are certainly learning our geography! The children learn about the world at the same time they learn to forget about themselves and instead pray for needy, persecuted and often enslaved people in other cities and countries of the world. You can also use Operation World: Day to Day Guide to Praying for the World.
I love this Scripture in Leviticus 26:8 where God says, “Five of you shall chase an hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.” The greatest way to pursue your enemies is by prayer and intercession.
How many children in your family? Do you have three! With you and your husband and your children (five of you) you can put 100 enemies to flight! This is amazing! This is powerful! No wonder Satan seeks to get us interested in doing everything else but pray together as a family. Dear mother, I know. There are a thousand things that turn up to lure us away from this powerful ministry. There are even “good things” that will keep us from this “best” task of moving the hand of God in prayer. Watch out for extra-curricular activities which rob us of much togetherness as a family, as especially prayer times.
This powerful ministry doesn’t just happen. You have to make it happen. You have to make it a commitment. But you can do it. I have proved it over years and years and we are still doing it today.
As it comes to this culminating moment of the day when we have the Family Altar and pray together, I am aware of the power of what is happening. We are reaching out beyond our four walls. We are going into nations of the world that are closed to the Gospel. We are going into countries where we could be killed for preaching the Gospel—but we are going in by prayer. God is hearing our cries. He hears the cries of the children. He loves children’s prayers.
The more people we have around our table, the more prayer goes up to the throne of grace. The more children you have praying around your table, the more impact you have upon the world. Praying together is the most important thing you can do together as a family.
The enemies of God will bite the dust as you and your family pray.
NANCY CAMPBELL
Above Rubies, www.aboverubies.org
The above books mentioned can be purchased by calling 818 577 5599.
You are welcome to copy this article and forward it to your friends or through your Blogs and Face books. This message must go out to woo families back to praying together for our nation and the nations of the world. Nancy