I pray this finds you well and seeking the Lord in this first month of 2012.  Last week we discussed some things you can do to refocus and reorder your life to attain the fullness He died to give you.  To purpose to pray, to read the Bible, to forgive, and to work on your relationship with Him are crucial to having a victorious walk with Him on your life journey.  We each have desires of our hearts for this season.  Keep ever in your heart (and it
is always a heart issue) the words Jesus speaks to us, “But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”  (Matthew 6:33)   In this first month, seek first His Kingdom in your life.  I can assure you that when you put Him first, all else will fall into place in His timing.

I read a Gallup poll this week that addressed how often people read the Bible. What would you expect the numbers to be for daily, weekly, monthly, less than monthly, rarely or never reading?  What would you expect the numbers to be in a Nation founded on biblical principles?  How might those numbers reflect the eroding of our Nation’s Christian foundation?  According to the Gallup poll:  16% read the Bible daily, 21% read weekly, 12% read monthly, 10% read less than monthly, and 41% rarely or never read the Bible.  Pretty sad for a country which was established through our Declaration of Independence in 1776 which reads in part:  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”  Read that over a few times.  Our founding fathers pledged their lives to this Nation based on “a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence.”  In 1607 Rev. Robert Hunt dedicated America to our Lord Jesus Christ stating, “…the Gospel shall go forth to not only this New World, but the entire world.”  With such a rich Christ-centered foundation, today 41% rarely or never even read the Bible, and only 16% read daily.

Where do you fall into the statistics?  Jesus says, “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”  (John 8:32)   In John 14:6, He says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life….”  Clearly we can only know Him, know His truth and be made free if we spend time in the Word of God.  As individuals and as a Nation we are at a very pivotal place in this election year. We must first purpose as individuals to order our lives, to reorder any part of our life that does not line up with His way for us.  There are no do-overs…the time is decidedly now…we are here ‘for such a time as this.’ How we establish our personal life this year will exponentially affect how spiritually empowered we will be corporately in this Nation in this season.  Make no mistake; this is a most critical time.  In this first month, put Him first; seek first His Kingdom in your life. Dust off your Bible and study it as it is life to your spirit and guidance to your very life.

When Esther’s Warriors was first established, we each had a map of the United States and purposed to pray daily over different states for the leaders, churches, and people in that state.  In this first month of 2012 with fifty weeks until the 2012 Presidential election, I would like to re-establish the commitment to pray the states.  Each week I will list the state for us to saturate in prayer.  If you have a United States map feel free to use it as a strong visual to enhance your prayer.  We are the United States of America and each and every state is a critical part of the whole.  We are a body of Americans and each part of that body is important to the destiny of our great Nation.  This week please cover Delaware, admitted to the Union on December 7, 1787.

“It may well be that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition is not the glaring noisiness of the so-called bad people, but the appalling silence of the so-called good people.”  Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.