Our Lord’s gracious love for us is expressed in many ways. During the Christmas season we are reminded that the birth of our Redeemer, Jesus, offers the potential for redemption and the release of bondage for all.

This message of hope and its supernatural effect have the potential to transform the three institutions created by God to care for us. God has created three institutions to provide for our personal needs, our need to be in community, and our need to function in society. God, in his gracious love, supernaturally created the family, the Church, and government as divine entities to meet our needs, but all must be redeemed.

View Comments (14)

At the most basic level, God created us male and female (Gen 1:27). Regardless of the LGBTQ+ talking points, each of us has a chromosomal code dictating either XY (male) or XX (female). The Genesis 2 account of the creation of the woman immediately connects the creation of the second sex to the creation of the family. Family brokenness is wreaking havoc in our nation. We must continue to fight for what is best for us and our children, praying for redemption of our culture’s concept of marriage and family.

God has also created us to be in community—to be in relationships with others that foster our development, allow opportunities for encouragement, and challenge us to be all God has designed us to be. Community originated in the Old Testament with the Israelites and continues on today through the Church. And yet we live in a day where this too requires redemption. There are many groups of people who call themselves “church,” yet their lives and theology clash with the true God of the Bible. We pray for redemption in the Church today.

Finally, the last of the three divine institutions created by God to care for us is government. Attaching the word divine to government is difficult for people to accept these days, but Romans 13:1 clearly states that there is “no authority except that which God established.” And yet, most people, even Christian people, consider government only a secular institution created by power-hungry politicians. Our Founding Fathers did not believe this. They used the wisdom of God, expressed through the Scriptures, to build the foundation of our nation through the Constitution.

Throughout 2019, I have seen the wisdom of God brought to bear in the lives of our elected officials and in the work that they are doing. I have listened to lawmakers and candidates telling me about the challenge of balancing family life with the demands of public service. I have been asked to pray in confidence about God’s call to run for office or to take action in Congress or in the highest levels of the Executive branch. I have been asked to pray about behind the scenes events on Capitol Hill that you will never see on the news. And every time I tell them that I am praying, and that you, IFA intercessors, are praying, every time the response has been how very much it means, personally and professionally.

Praying for our government leaders is crucial, and letting them know they are being prayed for is almost as important. It only makes sense that a godly institution can only truly thrive with the infusion of god-fearing people, following god-outlined principles, upheld in prayer by god-directed intercessors. Since God is the author of this institution, we cannot remove Him from the institution and expect it to function well—or at all.

I am convinced that your role—intercessor—is not only a critical assignment, but a redemptive act of hope as we invite God anew into our nation. I want to bring you, our trusted intercessors, a message of the hope of redemption during this Christmas season, a hope that our Redeemer has the power to redeem the three divine institutions. We must hold on to our hope and take a “stand” upon our knees as we battle for God’s best in our nation.