Prayer for Revival and Reformation Pt 2

 


(From my letter to the congregation sent out on 14 January 2026)

Last week we began praying for the revival and reformation of God’s church in these United States of America (see Part 1). We also want to invite other believers to do the same with us. We continue this theme today from Zephaniah. 

Zephaniah recorded how the Day of the LORD was coming upon God’s people. This short work is quite sobering. And it becomes quickly recognizable that the Day of the LORD in Zephaniah was a season of national judgment brought about through natural, social, political, local and regional catastrophe and calamity. It is a day of distress, anguish, ruin, devastation, darkness, gloom, armed conflict (1:15), and economic collapse (1:18). 

And what is clear is that the arrival of the Day of the LORD is because God’s church had become so similar to the immoralities of Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, and Ekron, all of which were Philistines (1:2-6, 2:4). Many in God’s family were acting, relating, legislating, doing business and more, the way pagans did. They were turning away from following the LORD and were not seeking the LORD nor inquiring of him (Zephaniah 1:6). They refused to listen, receive correction, and did violence to the law (3:3-5). They were even eager to make all their deeds corrupt (3:7). 

But the life-giving, liberty-giving God invites his people in “the day of the anger of the LORD,” to do one thing: Seek (Zephaniah 2:3)!

“Seek the LORD, all you humble of the land,

who do his just commands;

seek righteousness;

seek humility;

perhaps you may be hidden

on the day of the anger of the LORD.”

 

Seek God first, then seek to live out God’s ways. But first in priority, to seek the life-giving, liberty-giving God! And then to submit to God’s “perhaps.” 

Might our prayer for revival and reformation of God’s church in this land over the next 7 days, then, go something like this: 

“Oh God, life-giving and liberty-giving, rouse the hearts of your church in this land to humbly seek you, instead of other sources of success and prominence, power or prestige. To seek righteousness, your righteous ways, in our relationships, in our public and private actions, from the White House to our house. To seek humility, because you oppose the proud but give grace to the humble. Perhaps, in your goodness, we will be hidden in the day of your anger. In submission to Jesus our Lord we pray. Amen.”

 Pastor Mike


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