With One Mind and One Voice

“So that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 15:6, NIV).

I’m Anne Graham Lotz. It’s my privilege to be the honorary chair for the National Day of Prayer for 2014. The theme has been taken from Romans 15:6—that with one mind and one voice we’re to glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But how can we glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ if we don’t know who He is? And how can we know Him; how can anyone know God except that He would make Himself known? And the Bible says in 1 John 1:5 that God is light.

The primary characteristic of light is that it’s made itself visible—and so God, through the pages of our Bible, has made Himself visible. So the very first verse of the Bible tells us who God is: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

“In the beginning”—that’s His eternity. And because He’s eternal, it means He’s not bound by time or space. For you and me, that means that He’s gone ahead of us into the year 2014, and if we follow Him, He’ll lead us on the right path.

“God”—that’s His deity. That means He’s greater than His creation; He’s separate from it. Just as a potter is greater than the clay he molds, God is greater than His creation, so that anything that’s in your life that’s broken, that needs mending, that’s hurt, God can fix. And it also means He’s separate from creation, so if we blow up this entire planet, nothing of God is destroyed.

“Created the heavens and the earth”—He’s actively involved in big things and small things. That’s His activity. And God is actively involved in great big things, like creating the heavens, and you may be facing a big debt, a big decision, a big responsibility, a big job, and God, whatever you’re facing that’s bigger than you are, it’s not bigger than He is.

He’s actively involved in great big things, actively involved in small things, creating the earth—the little molecules and chemicals that make up our planet. So it doesn’t matter what small thing that you’re concerned with—it can be a small hope or a small dream, a small insult, a small hurt feeling, a small fear, a small tear—God is actively involved in small things.

So, when we come to the One to whom we pray and we glorify with one mind and voice, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we’re coming to someone who is not a god we make up, not just a god that we feel suits us and that we’re comfortable with, not one that’s just revered by our own religion or tradition. We’re coming to the one true living God, the Creator of all things, the One who came down in human form so that you and I might see Him and know Him and hear Him.

The One who went all the way to the cross sacrificed Himself to make atonement for your sin and mine, that when we come to Him by faith, we can have our sin forgiven. We can be reconciled to Him in a right relationship and have the hope of going to heaven when we die. The One who rose up from the dead to give us eternal life—the One who, any day now, is soon to come back as King of kings and Lord of lords to rule and reign on this earth rightly.

So, I wonder what would happen if all of us gathered together with one mind and one voice and we prayed and glorified the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? I don’t think we’ll ever know until we gather together with one mind and one voice and we cry out to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, giving Him glory as who He is, and bringing to Him our needs and our petitions.

Anne Graham Lotz is a best-selling and award-winning author. Her most recent releases are Wounded by God’s People, Fixing My Eyes on Jesus, Expecting to See Jesus and her first children’s book, Heaven: God’s Promise for Me. She is the president of AnGeL Ministries in Raleigh, N.C.