Lord God, King of Kings, Ruler of Rulers, Governor of All Things, we pray for peace, justice, and hope.
We pray for the peoples of Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus. We pray for the area in Eastern Europe known by historians as the Borderlands and the Bloodlands, for Ukraine in particular. We pray for this nation of your precious image-bearers, comprised of Jews, Christians, and unbelievers, who suffered tens of millions of their own people dying due to Soviet starvation policies in the 1930s, under the genocidal armies of the anti-Semite Adolf Hitler in the 1940s, and the senseless purges of the anti-Christian Josef Stalin. We pray for these people, who are even now in the fourth day of a relentless assault on their very lives.
We pray, King of Kings, that you will protect the grandmothers cowering in their homes as missiles strike all around them, that you will provide for the mothers and babies seeking shelter even being born underground, that you will protect the men and women who block the advancing tanks with nothing but their own bodies. And we pray for the men and women who have taken up arms to defend the defenseless in their cities, villages, and farms.
We pray also you will empower the churches of your Son, Jesus Christ, to be bold in their witness to the only hope any human being has. We pray you will be with Yaroslav Pyzh and other Christian leaders as they convey both humanitarian relief and the gospel to the hundreds of thousands of women and children fleeing west toward safety. We pray you will be with Dasha and the many Christian missionaries from Ukraine who now find themselves classified as refugees in Africa and elsewhere with no way to check on their strife-torn families. We pray for the churches and synagogues who awake to find their places of worship were bombed.
We know that ultimately this conflict is not about man versus man but about the heavenly war in which Satan has declared a world rebellion against you, Lord God of Hosts. We pray you will shatter the demonic princes who mislead the nations. We pray you will not allow evil human leaders to prevail in this mortal conflict but bring them to justice by their own people. Please give all three nations democracy, personal liberty, freedom of conscience, and real religious liberty. Topple the tyrants, deliver the oppressed, elevate the lovers of liberty.
We pray for peace in our time. We pray for justice in our time. We pray for hope in eternity through faith in the Good News of Jesus Christ to be carried on every set of lips in Ukraine in our time. We pray for every ear in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine to hear and receive your forgiving love for all people through the Cross of Christ. We pray this horrific event will be the last of history’s brutalities visited upon these great nations and the beginning of worldwide revival even as we await your Second Coming, Lord Jesus.
Father in heaven, our hearts are broken. Hear our prayers in the name of Jesus Christ the Lord. Send your Spirit to execute justice, to heal the hurting, to offer life in the place of death.
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Note: Today, Pastor Mark Forrest asked me to pray for Ukraine during our morning service at Lakeside Baptist Church. My prayer came immediately after we learned that the Russian Nuclear Forces had been put on alert. Many of the congregants have asked me for a copy of the prayer. Perhaps it will help you voice your own prayers for the Lord to intervene. As you pray, please remember the lessons of Daniel 10: There is a greater spiritual battle occurring above the visible events we see. God answers the prayers of his people. There is no need for his people to be afraid.