2 Chronicles 7:14 (NKJV) 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 I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
This is a scripture that I’ve heard quoted hundreds of times over the last 30+ years. And it’s for a good reason that it is so often quoted.
It is to the point and powerful.
Almost every time I have heard this verse quoted, it has been related to the condition of a nation.
But as I was pondering on this verse over the last few days, God showed me that there is a wider scope for this. So, let me share that with you today.
What God said in the verse above is what I’d like to call, “God’s Blueprint for Restoration”, even on a personal level.
If we look closely at the action points of that verse, we can see that they give us all of the steps necessary for us to be restored into God’s presence and His “good graces”, for lack of a better phrase, when we have fallen away.
It shows us how to go from being totally separated from God by our sin, to walking in His favor again, one step at a time.
This is not just for nations. It’s for each and every believer as well.
So, if our relationship with Him is falling short, especially because of sin in our lives, here’s how we fix that.
First, we recognize that we are separated from Him. Then, we humble ourselves before Him, acknowledging our sin or our failures.
Then, we go to Him, and we pray, seeking His face (His presence), confessing our sins to Him, and asking Him to forgive us.
Last, but certainly not least, we sincerely (genuinely) repent, turning from the very sins that have separated us from Him. And we turn from those sins on a permanent basis, not just temporarily in an effort to try to win God’s approval.
If we do this, and our heart is sincere (which is the key to everything in our walk with God), He will hear us and forgive us. And He will heal our “land” (our personal walk with Him and the things in our lives that were being affected by our sins).
This is very powerful once we understand the truth and the depth of it.
Again, our heart has to be sincere. These words are not just a 4-step self-help program to make us a better person.
They are words spoken by God Himself, so we need to recognize and honor the gravity of them and what they represent.
Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie
Seven Seas Ministries
49 N Lamplighters Walk
Hampstead, NC 28443
401-439-3780
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