Pastor Robert Jeffress, senior pastor at First Baptist Church in Dallas, TX, and author of Courageous: 10 Strategies for Thriving in a Hostile World, shared a prayer for God to grant wisdom to President Donald Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KS), and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in addressing the coronavirus outbreak during an interview on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Sunday with host Joel Pollak.
Jeffress said, “In our New Testament, the Apostle Paul said, ‘I urge you then to offer prayers and petitions for kings and all those who are in authority that we might lead up tranquil and quiet life in godliness and dignity.’ So I encourage everyone listening to this broadcast, right now, to join me in this moment of prayer.
Jeffress added, “Father, we know you are the one true God. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who made this Earth and everything that is in it, and Father, we do pray, as your word tells us, for those that you’ve placed in authority.”
Jeffress continued, “We pray for President Trump and Vice President Pence. Father, we pray for the House and Nancy Pelosi and the leadership of that House. Father, we pray for the Senate and Mitch McConnell and all of those senators. We pray for our Supreme Court justices and the hundreds and hundreds of federal judges.”
“Father, we pray that you would grant them wisdom to know how to do what is pleasing to you and what is best for this country. We pray that somehow you would use this crisis to bring us together as a people who loved one another and love you. And, Father, we entrust our lives, we entrust the fate of this nation to you, and we pray this in the name of Jesus, our Lord. Amen.”
LISTEN:
Jeffress reflected on his most recent book’s relevance to the current coronavirus outbreak. “The purpose of the book is … all of us face incoming from every direction, every day,” he said.
“Great challenges” offer opportunities to be “courageous,” advised Jeffress.
The British World War II motto “keep calm and carry on” should resonate with “people of faith,” Jeffress determined “because we know God is in control.”
Jeffress warned against panic amidst an emergency, saying, “Paul’s message in the New Testament to Timothy [was], ‘God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love, power, and of a sound mind.'”
Jeffress added, “God doesn’t want us to be paralyzed with panic during the pandemic, but he does want us to think straightly about it, and that’s what I’ve tried to help my church do. We haven’t canceled services.”
“We’re not going to allow fear to overwhelm us. I don’t think that’s the right response,” Jeffress maintained.
Adversity offers people an “opportunity to re-establish that connection” with God, Pollak remarked, commenting on openings for unity amid difficulty. “I feel like that reminder of something we all have in common could be really powerful.”
“[God can] take the worst things that happened and use them for good,” stated Jeffress, adding, “Some things that happen are horrible, but God has the ability to take those worse things and use them for good.”
Breitbart News Sunday broadcasts live on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. Eastern.
Follow Robert Kraychik on Twitter.