The Presidential Prayer Team

If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. – Romans 12:18

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, widespread examples of ostracism spread in news accounts online, on social media, and even in person. The “cancel culture” has boycotted or shunned individuals deemed to have acted or spoken in a questionable or controversial manner, or whose beliefs were counter to the viewpoints of those doing the canceling. The Comptroller of the Currency recently reported how some of the largest U.S. banks engaged in debanking Americans between 2020 and 2025, based on customers’ beliefs, affiliations, or political views. Sadly, some people have even been estranged from family members over political or religious ideologies.

God has called believers to live life counter to the popular culture, despite the criticism, censure, or even persecution it may bring. Christ directed His followers to love one another and to bless the lost, not ostracize them. While contemporary society holds grudges, God tells believers to forgive one another (Colossians 3:13). While the current culture encourages rage, God says to let it go (Ephesians 4). While certain groups band together in bitterness and discontent, Scripture tells you to assemble with one another, loving as the Lord loves and encouraging one another (Hebrews 10). The precepts of Christianity are the opposite of the “cancel culture.“ You are called to be counter-cultural!

Ask the Lord to give you strength and wisdom to enable you to follow the mandate of today’s verse: “As far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” Pray for those caught up in societal divisions and hostility, especially in the halls of Congress, to be drawn to a new way of life through the loving example of believers around them who live out the truth of God’s Word.

Today’s Verse: Romans 12:18

If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

All Scripture quotations and audio are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Recommended for further reading: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ²And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

⁴Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant ⁵or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. ⁷Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

⁸Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. ¹¹When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. ¹²For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

¹³So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.