“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14
As we awake on this Monday morning, do you feel the need to confess your sin to God? What then do we need to do? The answer is no mystery. It is clearly stated in this verse. These are the steps to God’s blessing.
1. We must recognize to whom we belong. We are God’s in Christ. “If my people who are called by my name…”
2. Then we must humble ourselves. The fallen nature within makes it hard for us to humble ourselves. In Christ we come before God and we are genuinely humbled, for it is then that we see ourselves as the sinful and rebellious creatures we really are.
3. We must pray. Because of our fallen nature we do not easily pray. Why? Because, we forget to whom we belong, what He has accomplished for us on the cross thus leading us to believe we are self-sufficient. This is why God often has to bring us very low. It is often only in the depths of life, when everything is crumbling around us, that we are willing to turn from ourselves back to God and ask him for the help we need.
4. Because we are His, we must seek God’s face. Only God can enable us to do this. He is the “…lifter of my head.”- (Ps. 3:3). Seeking God’s face means a radical change in the use of our time, talents, resources, and lifestyle. It is “working out our own salvation with fear and trembling.”(Phil. 2:12) In seeking God we will find Him and that should lead us to fear and trembling before Him the God of the universe.
5. We must turn from our wicked ways. If we do not think we have wicked ways, we will not turn from them—and we are fooling ourselves, even when we belong to Him. When God brings the reality of our sin home to us, we will find ourselves distressed by sin and unwilling to rest until we confess it to God, find his forgiveness, and turn from everything that is displeasing to Him, because we are all His, and He insists on genuine holiness and godliness through the work of His Spirit. We cannot serve God and sin too.
Is it difficult to repent…to God and to one another? It certainly is! Nothing is harder or goes more against the grain of our lingering sinful natures, but since we have been given a new nature one that through the work of the Holy Spirit overcomes the fallen nature we need to recognize to whom we belong, then we must humble ourselves by His grace and the work of the Spirit, then we must pray regularly to Him, then we must seek His face and then we must turn from our wicked ways.
Oh, and these are not just for us individually, in fact, this is a corporate call “my people.” God promises that if/when we repent of our sins, God will hear from heaven (He never turns a deaf ear to the repentant), forgive our sin (how much we need it), and heal our land. David said, “I cried aloud to the LORD, and He answered me from His holy hill.”(Psalm 3:4)
Remember, “Salvation belongs to the LORD. May His blessing be upon His people!” And it will be “For we are His people called by His name…”
God Bless y’all today.
In His Grip,
Pastor Mike
