Today we look at the second of seven mountains, based on the Seven Mountains of Prayer focus of a 31-day prayer guide for Oregon. These seven mountains or focuses are family, religion, education, media, entertainment, business and government.
This mountain called Religion I find to be a mountain of travail. Travail means filled with painful difficulty and burdensome work. Going up the mountain of religion is hard and brings with it metal and physical hardships.
I don’t know of any Christians who have not been hurt by other Christians. We must choose to love each other. Especially as we travel this mountain of religion, we must keep this fact in the forefront.
Looking to the pinnacle of this mountain, we must recognize from God’s perspective, a world with many gods, vying for Lordship over this mountain. We must check our own hearts to see if we have allowed God to live on this mountain in peace without having to fight off other gods in us. Do you need to confess and repent? If so, do it now, for this will prepare us for the journey to the top of this formidable mountain.
Now we are ready to seek God and the truth of Scripture to find direction for our prayers.
The first and most important prayer for the mountain of religion comes from Exodus 20:3. “You shall have no other gods before me.” Praying for God to rule and reign over this mountain is key because only then can there be peace, literally the peace that passes all understanding which guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, Philippians 4:7.
Second, we must pray 1 Corinthians 13:13. “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” We need to pray for the Love of God to permeate those who are called to travel this mountain, especially as we pray regarding interactions between and among people, specifically between pastors, between churches and between denominations. With this I also use 1 John 4:18 to pray against fear rising up on this mountain “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” Fear often is at or near the root of the pain inflicted upon this mountain.
Finally I look to James 1:26-27. “If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” As I pray for this mountain, I focus on the three other areas I have underlined.
Keeping a tight rein on our tongues would keep so much spiritual and religious damage from happening, while looking after other allows our focus to be outside ourselves and on the things of God, which helps us keep from being polluted by the world as we keep our focus on God who is at the pinnacle of the mountain of religion.
Blessings and Complete Joy,
Mildred
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