God uses His Church to build His Kingdom and restore what sin has broken. The rebuilding and restoration starts with prayer. So, as we begin 2015, won’t you join me in this prayer for America. Oh Lord, thank you for this nation and its people. Thank you that, by your grace, after the Fall and with the coming of Christ, you restored the dignity of human nature. Thank you for the good gifts that you, our creator, have given: life, liberty, and the right to pursue the means of subsistence. We have failed in many ways to be good stewards of these gifts. Forgive us. Lead and guide us. Oh God, show us ways to rightly use these gifts to restore and repair the core institutions that have experienced decay. Lord, give us wisdom and the ability to rebuild and protect marriage as you designed it. Grant us courage to restore it to its rightful place in our culture even though we are sometimes accused of being hateful in doing so. Help us to oppose attempts to secure the imprimatur of the state on efforts to force businesses to affirm counterfeit marriage as good. Let us exemplify your plan for marriage as the protective and nurturing place in which children are raised and as the display of your permanent love for your Church. Thank you, Lord, for the technology that allows us see into the womb, to see babies there that live and move. Let that technology move all Americans to protect those little lives. We are grateful that the nation’s highest court affirmed conscience rights of business owners not to offer health insurance coverage that provides contraceptives that work by causing abortion. Lord, in cases still to be decided, strengthen the rights of believers to live according to our faith. Father, we ask that you bring the way the US Senate operates back to a normal order with a budget and with amendments to bills allowed. Lead and guide your people who serve in government and help them to influence others. Give our lawmakers wisdom in the ways they spend our money. Thank you for the blessing of new sources of energy and other ways in which our economy is being revived. May we be good stewards and wise managers. May we remain a generous nation in ways that help and do not hurt. In ways that foster freedom and independence, not dependence. As candidates for the 2016 presidential elections begin to rise from the pack, give us discernment. Elevate someone wise, someone who knows and lives by your precepts. And Lord, let American Christians not be weak in our faith. Grant us the strength and wisdom to live out our faith in the culture in winsome ways so that people will know we have faith. And in our homes and churches empower us to hand down the faith to the next generation. That’s my prayer for America. http://ncfr.net/ncfr.net/subdomains/commentary/Downloads/Penna_Dexter/Penna-01-09-2015.mp3