People in the state of Tennessee are engaged in 31 days of prayer and fasting during the month of July to “seek God’s hand of mercy and healing.”
Governor Bill Lee signed House Joint Resolution 803 calling on citizens of the Volunteer State to pray as fast as they are able.
“We recognize that God, as Creator and King of all Glory, has both the authority to judge and to bless nations or states,” the resolution declares.
The resolution points to the need for prayer by highlighting crises plaguing the state and nation including violent crime, human trafficking, drug addiction, the fentanyl crisis, children in foster care, and government corruption.
Christians across the state have been praying, while pastors and even public officials are leading believers to seek God together. WBBJ reports about one event in which Madison County Mayor AJ Masey, Rep. Chris Todd, several county commissioners, city council members, law enforcement, and school board members publicly gathered to pray together.
Pastor Garry Martin of Jackson First Assembly was among them, stating, “Everything that we’re doing in our country is not changing anything. And they (lawmakers) realize that the one element that’s missing is the presence of God in our relationships – in our meetings and across America.”
The resolution has even prompted calls for prayer and fasting in other states too.
California Pastor Jack Hibbs of Calvary Chapel Chino Hills called upon “every pastor” and “every Christian church” in the nation to join with Tennessee and intercede for America and all the states. “Let’s all be Tennesseans this month of July and pray and fast as the Lord leads,” stated Pastor Hibbs.
The Tennessee prayer movement comes as CBN is also engaged in a campaign called “Pray for America.”
The Tennessee resolution declares in part:
“…we, as public servants in the Tennessee General Assembly, seek God’s Mercy upon our land and beseech Him to not withdraw His Hand of blessing from us.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that we recognize our sins and shortcomings before Him and humbly ask His Forgiveness.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that we ask the Lord Jesus to heal our land and remove the violence, human-trafficking, addiction, and corruption.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that we ask that the Holy Spirit fill our halls of government, our classrooms, our places of business, our churches, and our homes with peace, love, and joy.”
The TN resolution also refers to proclamations by America’s Founding Fathers, specifically citing one from John Adams on April 15, 1799, which states the following:
“(This day) be observed throughout the United States of America as a day of solemn humiliation, fasting, and prayer; that the citizens on that day abstain, as far as may be, from their secular occupation, and devote the time to the sacred duties of religion, in public and in private; that they call to mind our numerous offenses against the most high God, confess them before Him with the sincerest penitence, implore his pardoning mercy, through the Great Mediator and Redeemer, for our past transgressions, and that through the grace of His Holy Spirit, we may be disposed and enabled to yield a more suitable obedience to his righteous requisitions in time to come; that He would interpose to arrest the progress of that impiety and licentiousness in principle and practice so offensive to Himself and so ruinous to mankind; that He would make us deeply sensible that ‘righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people’.” (Proverbs 14:34)
Source:CBN
