“if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
2 Chronicles 7:14 NIV
https://bible.com/bible/111/2ch.7.14.NIV
This verse appears in a post on Facebook followed up with the request to pray for our country’s healing.
What struck me about this verse is that the responsibility for the health of the “land” rests on the people who claim to be God’s people. The path to healing according to this verse is not in the creation of or strict adherence to rules and laws, either. Neither does healing come by prayers alone.
“If my people,” the God inspired verse states, “will humble themselves, pray, and seek my face.” Then, he will heal the land.
Humble Themselves
What does true humility look like? I think we can agree that it does not look like the “holier-than-thou” that nonbelievers and media often associate with fundamentalist Christianity. So, we can reiterate that the creation of and strict adherence to “our” rules, “our” morals, and “our” interpretation of scripture is not humility. It is often hypocrisy when being “holy” 24/7 is not even possible for any of God’s people (See Matthew 23:27).
Romans 12:3 tells us not to think too highly of ourselves, but to think soberly or unpretentiously about ourselves. Reading, studying, and applying scripture is how we see us as God sees us. How often, though when convicted by a scripture or scriptural concept do we reverse it and transfer it onto others? “Amen, if only the lost would turn from their wicked ways this land would heal,” we pharisaical hypocrites say, “let us pray that God will heal them.”
Turn From Your Wicked Ways
“if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways….” Whose wicked ways? Their wicked ways. Who does “their” refer? My people called by my name will turn from their wickedness. But I am a Christian, I do not practice wickedness. If I reference a list of outcomes as wicked ways, I can fool myself into thinking that I am not wicked. But if I compare my actions to the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23 realizing this is what I should reflect, then I might be able to find sins I need to confess. Condemning Christ because he broke traditional rules is what kept religious leaders from believing Christ was the prophesied Son of God. Jesus labeled that as hypocrisy, spiritual blindness, and even satanically influenced (John 8: 42-47).
Seek God’s Face
What does it mean to seek God’s face? To me, it means to pursue his character, his truth, and his ways. It means to follow Christ. Jesus told his disciples that if they want to follow him that they would need to deny themselves, bare a cross, and follow. Are you willing to let God reveal characteristics you need to change? Are you willing to do so at any cost? Are you ready to be, to do, to go where God directs you? That is what it means to seek God’s face. The changes do not come overnight. The changes do not come painlessly or easily. The outcomes develop you into a more fulfilled individual, joyful, kind, patient, passionate, and real and alive.
Heals the Land
The result of a life of humbly, prayerfully pursuing God’s way and not your ways effects others positively in a spiritual way. The measure of the land’s health is in the spiritual health of God’s people. If we want to pray for our country, we need not pray that sinners find God, but that we, his people, become more like God in nature which results not in condemning others, but loving others. That comes when his people learn to love God more than anyone or anything.
Categories: Devotional
Douglas Knight
I have the rich life full of a sinner wounded by misunderstanding and punishment but blessed by mercy and forgiveness.
Knight Writer 