Heal Our Land The Humble, Prayerful, Seeking, and Repentant Church

2Chronicles 7:14 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 will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

Modern Christianity seems to lose its focus in latter day America. Too often wrapped up in the political landscape of the country, we have succumbed to leaders who are more concerned about the walk of the unsaved than the walk of those who profess Christ. A week cannot go by when we do not see emails after emails lamenting the coarsening of society and insisting that it is the plight of the Christian to bring the values of Christ to a fallen world. It is of course the gospel of Christ we are to bring to the world, not the morality of Christianity. Does our land need healing? Absolutely. With each passing day we see the world we live in decline into the moral abyss which was prophesied thousands of years ago. Is God willing to heal our land? Absolutely. It is important that we adhere to the conditions however, that God lays out for us so very clearly for that healing in the book of Second Chronicles.

The first portion of this scripture is apparently missed by some leaders in modern Christianity. God is not asking for humility from the world. He is not asking for prayer from the world. He is not asking for the world to seek His face nor turn from their wicked ways. No beloved; He is asking that of the church. "If MY people, who are called by MY name" is who this verse is directed to. Who are the people who are called by His name? Christians. It is an imperative given to the people of God. Why? Because we cannot represent God to the fallen world if we are not humble. We cannot expect to bring the lost to the foot of the cross if we do not pray and seek His face. We cannot expect a depraved world to listen to us if we ourselves fall victim to the same depravity.

So this is the deal God is offering to His church today. He is promising three things. First He promises to hear us from heaven. Now this may seem odd to some Christians as we always like to believe that God hears us but in fact He will not hear us without these conditions being met. We must humble ourselves. One of the things that God hates is a proud look (Proverbs 6:17). The Psalmist reminds us:

He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way. Psalm 25:9

He does not guide the proud. He cannot because the proud do not seek guidance. They do not think they need it. God also cannot hear us from heaven if we do not pray and seek His face. That seems simple enough. Does God know all things? Sure, but He desires a more intimate relationship with us. He wants His church to be actively praying and seeking His face. James teaches us:

The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. James 5:16

It is not the prayers from the world that are powerful and effective. They may cry out in their hour of need but they do not have the relationship with God that the church should already have. It is the prayer of the righteous that is powerful and effective. It is that prayer and seeking of the face of God which moves Him to hear us from heaven. God also cannot hear us from heaven if we ourselves are captive to sin. This Chronicles verse is imploring the church to turn from their own wicked ways. As the apostasy in these final days grows ever more severe, it is even more important that the church stand for something. Not something politically but something morally. Not something socially but something internally. Yet we seem more preoccupied with the world behaving like the world, than we are about our own behavior. How many times a year do we hear of another fallen Christian leader? How many times do we hear of Christianity wrapped up in ungodliness? How many would rather be preaching about the prosperity of this life than the riches we should be storing up in heaven? These double standards and mixed messages are not lost on the world. They are in darkness to the ways of God, not the hypocrisy of man. The church cannot be the powerful instrument in the hands of God to save the lost if itself, is lost.

The second offering God is extending is to forgive our sins. Sure we received this grace and mercy when we first were saved but we all continue to sin and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). Repentance is critical for us as Christians. This offer is also contingent upon the same conditions however. God will not forgive your sins without humility. The proud do not seek forgiveness. In a lot of the aforementioned "Christian" emails, we see very little humility. In fact there is a certain air of superiority over the worldly people. We have forgotten that it is not anything of our doing that we are saved. It is not of ourselves that we have any righteousness at all. The prophet Isaiah tells us:

All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. Isaiah 64: 6

Our righteousness is but filthy rags before our holy God. No brethren, it is only because of the blood of Christ that we have any righteousness at all. The apostle Paul wrote three quarters of the New Testament and was taken up to the third heavens yet always referred to himself as the "least of these." Even in his epic writing about the thorn in his flesh, Paul teaches us why God allowed the thorn:

To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 2Corinthians 12: 7

Why? To keep him from being conceited. What is the opposite of conceit? Humility. God will also not forgive us our sins if we do not pray and seek His face. Once again, that seems simple enough. It is about the relationship we have with Him. He knows our sin and He sees it. He just wants us to be humble enough to approach Him with it and seek His face so that He can forgive our sins. God also will not forgive those sins however, if we do not turn from them. Turn from their wicked ways, says God almighty. True repentance requires a change in heart and behavior. It was the primary message when Jesus began His ministry:

From that time on Jesus began to preach, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near." Matthew 4:17

Lastly, God is offering to heal our land. Impossible you say? Not so if the church would just be the church. Once again, the same conditions have to be met and met by the church, not the world. If the church would humble itself before God then God says he will heal our land. Do you see the connection? It is the lack of humility the church possesses that is actually contributing to the decline of our society! How so? A humble church allows God to be strong in it and through it. A proud church relies upon its own strength. A humble Christian wants to bring the lost to the saving grace of God. A proud Christian wants to bring his view of Christian morals to the lost. It is only through humility that we can realize that we cannot force Christ upon the lost. We can only bring the lost to Christ. It is the Gospel that breaks the yoke, not morality. In the Gospel of Luke we see a parable that closely relates to where we sometimes find the church at today:

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: " Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men--robbers, evildoers, adulterers--or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.' "But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." Luke 18: 9-14

We need to strive to be the tax collector in this parable, not the Pharisee. We need to strive to have the humility of the tax collector and not the pride of the Pharisee. It is only with this kind of humility that we can reach the lost and it is through reaching the lost, that our land is healed. Not through forcing legislation on the world. Not by demanding the baby Jesus is in the town square but rather by insisting that Christ Jesus is in our hearts. How do we heal our land and overcome the schemes of the enemy? God tells us in Revelation how we will do it:

They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; - Revelation 12:11

The blood of the lamb is where our righteousness comes from. It is where our sins are forgiven. It is where God hears us from heaven. The word of our testimony is where we humble ourselves and admit to the fallen world what Jesus Christ has done for us. Our land will not be healed through false prophets and prosperity preaching. It will not be healed through shady politicians in bed with would-be Christian leaders. It will only be healed through the church following the directives of God to humble herself before Him. It will only be healed when we earnestly seek His face in prayer. When we bow down before the altar of God not the altar of politics. Our land will only be healed when we ourselves turn from the very sin lifestyles we seem so quick to condemn the world of.

It is a pretty easy exchange says God. Humble yourselves, pray and seek His face, and turn from sin and in return He will hear you from heaven, forgive those sins, and heal your land. It is not the world He seeks this deal from but the church because it is the church that is His instrument on earth to bring people to His salvation. He cannot use that instrument if it is proud, un-prayerful, and sinful. We were not saved to enact laws to lead the world to a Christian utopia. We were saved to be humble. We were saved to pray and seek the face of God almighty. We were saved to repent and allow ourselves to be an instrument in the hands of God. If we do these things, God will hear our prayers. He will forgive our sins. He will heal our land.

Anthony Wade June 6, 2008