Elections Prayers and Cheerfulness as Spiritual Warfare

and other election resources

1/ If you are wondering who the King of all the earth is: Psalm 47

2/ Voting Prayers

I wrote a few prayers for the upcoming election.

Here are two prayers for before and after casting a vote:

And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him. (Colossians 3:17)

A Prayer Before Voting
In the name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Heavenly Father, You have chosen me in Christ before the foundation of the world, that I should be holy and without blame before Christ (Eph 1:4). Thank You for the opportunity to love and serve You and my neighbor with this vote. Give me wisdom and courage that this vote be toward the protection of life and peace, the upholding of law and order, and rewarding righteousness and prevention of wickedness. May Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.

A Prayer After Voting
O Lord, the vote is cast. Out of Your divine, Fatherly goodness and mercy, deal with us not according to our sins, but in Your mercy give us faithful rulers, wise judges, and good laws. Keep us through the troubles of this life until we attain to the eternal joys of the life to come. Amen.

(Find these online here.)

3/ Prayers the Night before the Election

I also wrote Prayers for the Home for the Night Before Elections. These can be prayed individually or with your family. Most importantly:

Prayer for a Right View of Government and Rulers
Lord Jesus Christ, Your kingdom is not of this world(5), and You command us to trust not in princes.(6) Keep us always mindful that our citizenship is in heaven, from which we eagerly wait for You, our Savior.(7) Keep us from being conformed to the ways of this world (8) so that we look to You for all good, and find refuge in Your protection. Strengthen our faith in Your promise of the new heaven and earth, where the righteous dwell (9), so that our hope, being set in You, would set us free to truly love, serve, bless, care for, and have compassion on our neighbors. Lord, in Your mercy, hear our prayer.

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Scripture References:
(5) John 18:36
(6) Psalm 146:3
(7) Philippians 3:20
(8) Romans 12:1-2
(9) 2 Peter 3:13

4/ Litany for Election Night

One more: a Litany for Election Night.

You can download a print-ready PDF with all of these prayers here.

5/ More Election Resources

Also, this Voters’ Guide to the Ten Commandments is my attempt to sanctify our thinking about elections.

I found the information about the pro-abortion constitutional amendments here.

World News has a nice election tracker here, which also includes links for every state.

If you have more resources or suggestions:

6/ Grant that We May Set Our Hope on Your Name, One of the Earliest Recorded Christian Prayers

…which also includes a beautiful prayer for the nation and rulers. Find it here.

Give concord and peace to us and to all who dwell on the earth,
as you gave to our fathers
when they called on you in faith and truth with holiness,
that we may be saved,
while we render obedience to your almighty and most excellent name,
and to our rulers and governors on the earth.

7/ Cheerfulness is Spiritual Warfare

Here a bit from And Take They Our Life, Martin Luther’s Theology of the Martyrs (which you can download for free here). We were talking about this with the pastors up in Canada last week:

Faith is mocking the devil. These are not two different acts, but one and the same, two sides of the same coin. Believing the Lord is disbelieving the great liar. Trusting God is despising Satan.

Luther says, “We will turn the tables on him and learn to mock both the devil and the world. Then we will laugh gleefully at them, not they at us. The skill with which they want to make us sad, angry, and impatient will fail them; and they will consume themselves, together with their hatred and wrath; and when they see us, they will suffer great agony. They will see that we remain cheerful through it all and scorn them when they attempt to vent their anger on us so vehemently.” (LW 24:277, On John 15:19, c. 1537)

This confident, joyful, bold suffering of death looks like madness to the world (and even to our own flesh), but it is a fruit of the Spirit.

Again, Luther, “In this way the godly are filled with the Holy Spirit, so that they cannot keep from breaking forth into thanksgiving, confession, glorifying God, and teaching and proclaiming the Word of the Gospel. The apostles and the martyrs were like this when they were drunk with the Holy Spirit. For a vine of this kind is very choice, and concerning it Wisdom says in Prov. 9:5: ‘Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Then you will drink and become drunk, but with spiritual drunkenness.’

“Thus I understand this passage to mean that in Christ and in the time of Christ we must become drunk on the abundance of His house (cf. Ps. 36:8); that is, we are to receive the Holy Spirit from the Word and hearing. This causes us to become other men, just as an inebriated man conducts himself far differently from one who is fasting and famished. For the former laughs, rejoices, exults, sings, and shouts for joy; the latter snarls and is sad and full of complaints.” (LW 8:249, On Genesis 49:12, c. 1545)

And Take They Our Life, 7-8

And one more. This is great:

This courage and joy in the face of death is so strange Luther considered it a kind of spiritual drunkenness, drunk with joy. There is a sanctified madness to the Christian’s approach to suffering.

Luther writes, “In Rom. 5:3 St. Paul says: ‘We also rejoice in our sufferings.’ Later on many martyrs, men and women, went to their deaths with happy hearts and laughing mouths as though they were going to a happy festival or dance. So we read of St. Agnes and St. Agatha, who were virgins of thirteen or fourteen years, and of many others. They not only boldly and confidently conquered the devil and the world through their deaths, but were also cheerful with all their hearts, just as if they had been drunk with great joy. And it does vex the devil beyond measure when one can so confidently despise his great might and guile. In our times, too, many have died cheerfully because they have confessed Christ.” (LW 12:177, On Psalm 23:5)

And Take They Our Life, 47

God grant us this cheerfulness!

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Christ is Risen! Pastor Wolfmueller

Psalm 27:4

www.wolfmueller.co

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