Let It Be So

April 10
“Let It Be So” by Dr. Jim Denison

"There is a spiritual battle in our nation today to define what love and truth are. The kingdom of darkness is assaulting this generation with deception concerning the truth about Jesus, His message of grace, and what the lifestyle of His kingdom should look like.

God is looking for faithful witnesses who will stand for biblical truth about Jesus and His definitions of love, morality, and truth." So states Mike Bickle, director of the International House of Prayer Missions Base in Kansas City, endorsing the 2015 Collegiate Day of Prayer. More than 1,600 campus ministries, churches, and individuals will pray for some 1,300 campuses across the nation.

The Collegiate Day of Prayer has been organized by leaders from 24 collegiate ministries, including The Navigators, CRU (formerly Campus Crusade for Christ), and Inter-Varsity. The impetus for this intercession comes from a movement that began some 200 years ago. By 1815, the Concert of Prayer for Colleges had become a regular event on the campuses of Yale, Williams, Brown and Middlebury in New England.

By 1823, nearly every major denomination and university in America set aside a time for united prayer on college campuses. The result was widespread revival on campuses across the country. By the end of the 19th century, repeated student awakenings radically transformed the culture and moral climate of many of America's largest universities.

Believers are praying today for the same movement of God's Spirit. Do we need a moral and spiritual awakening on college campuses? According to Gallup, college graduates are the most likely group to say abortion should be legal in any circumstance and they endorse many other activities that go against the law of God.

When university professors were asked if they harbored negative feelings toward particular religious groups, three percent admitted that they held such animosity toward Jews, nine percent toward mainline Protestants, 22 percent against Muslims, but 53 percent against evangelical Christians. And they are teaching the next generation of Americans. It is urgent that we join believers across the nation in prayer for our youth, and it is urgent that we pray every day for spiritual and moral renewal on our campuses and across our culture.

C. S. Lewis said, "Christians increasingly live on a spiritual island; new and rival ways of life surround it in all directions and their tides come further up the beach every time... Some give morality a wholly new meaning which we cannot accept, some deny its possibility. Perhaps we shall all learn, sharply enough, to value the clean air and 'sweet reasonableness' of the Christians' ethics which in a more Christian age we might have taken for granted."

May it be so.