March 6, 2018 – Please pray for France
France is a country whose territory consists of metropolitan France in Western Europe, as well as several overseas regions and territories. The metropolitan area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. The overseas territories include French Guiana in South America and several islands in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. Its capital is Paris, the country’s largest city and main cultural and commercial center.
With an estimated total population of 67.15 million people as of October 2017, with 65 million in metropolitan France, France is the 20th most populous country in the world and the third-most populous in Europe. France is also second most populous country in the European Union after Germany.
According to a survey held in 2016, 51.1% of the total population of France was Christian as of that year; at the same time 39.6% of the population had no religion (atheism or agnosticism), 5.6% were Muslims, 2.5% were followers of other faiths, and the remaining 0.4% were undecided about their faith. The current Jewish community in France of about 0.8% is the largest in Europe and the third-largest in the world, after those in Israel and the United States.
Catholicism has been the predominant religion in France for more than a millennium, though it is not as actively practiced today as it was. Among the 47,000 religious buildings in France, 94% are Roman Catholic. During the French Revolution, activists conducted a brutal campaign against the church, ending the Catholic Church as the state religion.
The above are from en.wikipedia.org. These statements have not been fact-checked and are only used here to help us gain a better understanding of this nation.
With almost 50% of the population opposed to the Gospel of Jesus, we can draw the conclusion that France is in a spiritual drought and don’t even know it. The same might be said about our nation if one could see and understand how God views the heart of humanity. The difference may be that the French are outwardly proud and boast there is no God while others may profess verbally they are ‘Christian’ but live as pagans.
Many within the population of all nations may claim they are Christians but they are the spiritually walking dead, if it may be paraphrased appropriately. Whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but in reality are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness, full of hypocrisy and lawlessness is how Jesus referred to the religious of His day. He spoke these words in Matthew 23:27-28 direct to the religious leaders.
The darkness over nations is growing darker by the hour. Men of all nations are allowing the deception of sin to lead them into darkness from which there is no return unless they repent. We, as believers, must pray for them.
1. Pray for the nation of France to be jarred awake to the reality there is a living, eternal God who will judge the world in righteousness.
2. Pray for the spiritual leaders of France, especially pray for those who are spiritually blind and dead and leading the people who follow them further into deception – pray for their salvation.
3. Pray for the faithful believers in Jesus to receive resurrection life to share the Gospel and take bold action to warn sinners of pending eternal doom unless they wake up and accept Christ as Savior.
It is time for all believers to stand up, speak up and spread the Gospel of the Good News that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that He will judge the world of sin which is a dirty word to many. Don’t be afraid to call sin for what it is – it is the indulgence of living life without Jesus at the helm of the core of our life (heart, soul and mind).
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