Australia’s Largest Christian News Site

Intention
With prayer and wisdom, we can act to change hearts, minds and laws.

Scripture

One who is wise can go up against the city of the mighty and pull down the stronghold in which they trust.—Proverbs 21:22

Reflection
I imagine that for Christians in every era and culture, the prevailing worldview must have seemed invincible; and the trajectory into sin and depravity, utterly inevitable.

And yet throughout history, God has been pleased to use Christians to pull down many a society’s most treasured strongholds—something that drastically changed and blessed entire cultures.

Just a few days after I became a Christian at university, I read about Christian anti-slavery campaigner, William Wilberforce. My fledgling faith (already under attack and being mocked by close friends and family) was deepened, strengthened and sharpened as I read of Wilberforce’s personal transformation, and his dogged 20-year campaign to outlaw slavery.

I was especially impressed by the wisdom of Wilberforce. He and his friends did not merely pray for change: they sought God’s blessing of wisdom and made themselves God’s willing agents of change. They spread out into public life; they searched for and created economic, political and cultural ‘levers’, and they used these to incrementally pull down the entire British slave trade.

Just like slavery in the 1800s, abortion is a powerful, profitable industry and a reflection of our culture’s contempt for the sanctity of life and depraved love of money. And although we carry such a weight of sympathy for terrified, traumatised, abandoned or mislead mothers who find themselves unwillingly pregnant, we know that no amount of tragedy and no amount of money can justify the deliberate taking of an unborn child’s life.

Therefore, we must bring all our best efforts of mind, body and soul to repeal the terrible abortion laws in this country. God does not deny the difficulty or the danger of the battle. He knows that he is sending us out “as sheep in the midst of wolves’, which is why he warns us to be “wise as serpents and innocent as doves”. (Matthew 10:16) And of course, God is willing to provide us with everything we need. The Bible tells us that wisdom comes from God (Proverbs 9:10) and that if any believer lacks it, we need only to ask God “who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to [us]” (James 1:5).

Our culture may seem beyond all hope, having embraced abortion as well as euthanasia. But if we are willing to take action, we can be God’s wise ones, praying not only from the sidelines—but also from the frontlines as we pull down one of the bloodiest and most evil strongholds in history.

Prayer
Dear Heavenly Father, blessed be Your name in heaven and on earth. Thank You for choosing us in Christ to belong to You, set apart in this world to worship and obey You as our Saviour and King. Left to our ourselves, we would still be Your enemies, strangers to Your love and hateful of Your holy precepts.

Please forgive us for our silence and inaction in the face of injustice; for fearing society more than we revere You; for desiring the validation of our peers more than to hear You say ‘well done, good and faithful servant’.

Please help us to love our neighbours and our enemies above ourselves; to love righteousness; to seek justice; and to be humble. Please help us to be a godly people, filled with righteous zeal and blessed with wisdom, so that we might help to pull down the stronghold of abortion in this nation. We ask these things in Your holy name, Amen.

Prayer Points for October 2020
1. Pray for a Breakthrough for LIFE, specifically an end to abortion and euthanasia in our nation. Exodus 20:13
2. Pray for a Breakthrough for INDIGENOUS LIFE, specifically an end to high youth suicide and premature death due to ill health. 3 John 1:2
3. Pray for new POLITICIANS for LIFE, especially pray for the upcoming elections in Queensland (31st October), ACT (17th October) + USA (3 November) & New Zealand (17 October). Proverbs 29:2
4. Pray for the Revitalisation of SPIRITUAL LIFE, namely repentance, renewal & transformation, that our nation might return to God. 2 Chronicles 7:14

Moira Deeming has a Bachelor of International Relations and a Graduate Diploma of Education. She taught at public and private schools for more than 10 years before leaving to homeschool her children. She saves the government approximately $140,000 per year by educating and caring for her four children at home.

We invite you to join the daily 1-hour Zoom video National Prayer Call every night:
DATES: 1st– 31st October 2020
TIME: 8pm-9pm AEST
ZOOM URL LINK: https://zoom.us/j/776881184
ZOOM MEETING ID: 776881184
See Zoom tutorial here.

Daily devotions brought to you by the Canberra Declaration.