Over the weekend, Israel attacked Hezbollah in a preemptive strike that appears to have thwarted an ‘extensive attack.’ How can we continue to pray for Israel after more than 300 days of the Hamas-Israel war? Threats of attack from Iran and its proxies, terrorist leaders being assassinated, children running to bomb shelters day and night, populations in the north and south displaced, Gazan peoples suffering from corrupt and wicked practices of Hamas leaders, nations of the world spewing antisemitic hatred, and hostages still to be found and freed. It is easy to become overwhelmed and feel that our prayers are not effective.

So we turn to God’s Word and His promises for Israel and the nations to intercede in perfect agreement with His will. When we declare His word, we are assured that He hears and will act in His way and at the perfect time.

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1. The war in Israel is ultimately about who will rule the nations of the world.
   

   The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying, “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.” He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, “As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill” (Psalm 2:2-6).

Jerusalem is God’s holy hill and on it He has set up a throne for His Son alone. Since before the foundation of the world, Satan, enemy of God and Israel, has been working to take God’s place. Notice how it says that the nations rage “against the Lord and His anointed,” not  Israel or the Jewish people! Those who attack Israel ultimately believe that they can rule in Messiah’s place on Mt. Zion. But God laughs, and so can we. We can pray with thanks that God HAS set His Son, Jesus the Jewish Messiah, on His throne in Zion and that no person, nation, nor plans of nations can change that (Ps.33:10). Yeshua will be given “dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him” (Dan.7:13-14). Rejoice that our God wins and His people along with Him.

2. God has always used the nations surrounding Israel to bring her to repentance.

   “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. From the days of your fathers, you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you”, says the Lord of hosts (Malachi 3:6-7).

In Israel’s long history, God has had to discipline her for idolatry, shedding of innocent blood, and neglecting the widow, orphan, and foreigner. Scripture tells us He has repaid her double for her sins (Isaiah 40:2). If we did not know God’s character and His ways, this would be a confusing and seemingly unfair discipline. But God chose Israel out of all the nations on the earth to love Him and to bring all other nations to know and serve Him (Isaiah 49:6; Isaiah 60:3). Instead, they followed the ways of those other nations, worshiping their gods. He warned them time and again through His prophets that if they chose not to obey Him but instead followed worthless idols and made covenants with other nations in their distress, trusting more in princes, horses, and chariots than in the Lord their God to defend them, then He would bring those same nations against Israel. These nations would attack them in the Lord’s discipline, exile them, and ultimately, the land itself would vomit them out for their sins (Lev. 18:28).

Although we are now living in a time when the Jewish people are returning to Israel according to God’s promises to them (Deut. 30:1-4; Neh. 1:8-9), Israel remains an unrighteous nation. They have not returned to the Lord in their captivity: Israel has one of the highest abortion rates in the world, the vast majority of the population are secular Jews who do not honor God or His ways, and many religious Jews continue to reject Yeshua as Messiah. But even as He returns them to the land according to His word, He promises also to cleanse them from their unrighteousness and put a new spirit within them (Ezek. 36:25-28).

We can pray that Israel will look on the One whom they pierced and repent! We can thank God that He is working even now to cleanse them and forgive all their sins (Ez. 36:33). We can call on the Lord’s kindness to lead them to repentance (Rom. 2:4) and declare that all Israel shall be saved (Rom. 11:26)!

3. God is regathering His people and planting them in the land.

   Behold, I will gather them from all the countries to which I drove them in my anger and my wrath and in great indignation. I will bring them back to this place, and I will make them dwell in safety. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them. I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul (Jeremiah 32:37-41).

Despite the ongoing war with Hamas, and the threats of a greater conflict involving Iran, more Jewish people than ever before are returning to Israel (making Aliyah) from the nations, including from here in the USA. We can pray for God to continue to regather His people and plant them in the land.

The Holy One of Israel is regathering His people according to His plans and purposes. He is doing this with His whole heart and soul. His promise is to plant them and never again have them uprooted. The end goal of this action is that the whole earth would know that He is God (Ez. 36:23).

Pray that Jewish people here in the USA would hear His roar (Hos. 11:10) and His whistle (Zech. 10:8) and come trembling from the West. Even though our natural minds balk at returning His chosen ones in the midst of a war, Aliyah (the return of Jews to Israel) is His holy work and He continues to woo His beloved back to their inheritance in the land He gave them forever. Pray that the church would see her responsibility to carry His people home and help them to be planted there (Is. 49:22-26; Is. 60:8-12; Rom. 15:27).

4. Pray against fear, despair, and hopelessness for Israelis —Jew and Arab— who continue to endure war.

   Strengthen the weak hands and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you” (Isaiah 35:3-4).

One of the strongest admonitions in the Old Testament is God asking the Gentile nations to comfort His people: Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins” (Isaiah 40:1-2).  This war has seen families devastated by loss and trauma — hostages dead or still captive, IDF soldiers and innocent civilians on both sides killed, whole communities destroyed or displaced.

At a recent event, I met a woman whose job was teaching English in the kibbutzim along the Gaza envelope. She lost almost all of her students on October 7. When I asked if she had been prayed for in this trauma, she replied, “No. There is no one to pray for us because the whole nation is traumatized.”

Pray that the Lord Himself will comfort His people (Is. 51:3-5) and that He will send laborers into this broken harvest field to minister tenderly to all of the afflicted. Ask Father to release the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, to minister His peace — shalom — to all who grieve, are injured, displaced, and mourning. Pray for families who have lost fathers and sons. Pray for business owners who have no income because the tourist trade is shut down. Ask for the joy of the Lord, which is their strength, to be poured out over the land (Neh.8:10).

5. Continue to pray for God’s enemies and Israel’s enemies to be saved.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:43-45).

Those attacking Israel, whether from Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iran, or internally in Judea and Samaria, are deceived by the evil one. The god of this world has blinded their minds to keep them from the knowledge of the truth that the Jewish Messiah is their Messiah also (2 Cor. 4:4). We, too, were once His enemies. We must remember that had we been born in another part of the world, under another regime or religious influence, we too could be fighting against God’s purposes in Israel and the earth.

Ask God for His compassion to arise in your hearts for Israel’s enemies. Ask Him to help us love these enemies unto salvation. Ask for increased visitation from the Man in white among terrorist cells and leadership. Be encouraged: 50,000 of the 75,000 mosques in Iran have closed because of revival there! God is moving to answer Jeremiah 49:38-39. Let our deepest desire be that the Lamb receive the full reward of His suffering.

6. Thank God that He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

   I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep (Ps. 121:1-4).

It is the Most High Himself who assumes responsibility for guarding His people.

Pray that the Lord of Hosts would contend for Israel against her enemies (Is. 49:25). Pray that the people of Israel would recognize their utter dependence upon God and cry out to Him. Proverbs 21:31 tells us that a horse is made ready for the day of battle, but victory is in the Lord’s hands alone. Pray that the leadership of the nation, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his war cabinet, turn from trusting in the USA or any other nation and trusting in God alone to be their defense. 

7. End your prayer time with thanksgiving.

Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire (Heb. 12:28-29).

But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain (1 Cor. 15:57-58).

God’s end-time purposes for the world are certain. These include the return of His people to the land of Israel, and the return of His Son, Yeshua, to rule and reign over the nations from Jerusalem. No plans of man or counsel of nations (Ps. 33:10) can stop the return of our King Jesus! His eternal kingdom is unshakable. He alone is our victory!

Do not be overwhelmed by the events in Israel, in the USA or anywhere else on earth. Cast every care unto Him who cares for you (1 Pet. 5:7) and declare His eternal word which He watches over to perform (Jer. 1:12).

Are these prayer points helpful? Share with a friend!

Lori Meed is a leader on IFA’s Headline Prayer Live and an IFA contributing writer. In 2004, God moved her family from Canada to the U.S., imparting to them His heart for this country and for revival. Having walked out her own journey of freedom after being radically born again in 1992, Lori has a heart to see others set free to walk fully in their destiny. She is also passionate about teaching on aliyah (“going up,” the return of the Jews to the land of Israel), the feasts of the Lord, and the rich connections of the gentile churches to Israel. Photo credit: Reiseuhu on Unsplash.