Thursday, March 21, 2019: 2 Chronicles 7:14

“ 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

You may have heard this verse applied to the United States as a call to repentance and revival. To be sure, its principles are applicable to any nation, but 2 Chronicles 7:14 was written for the people of God. The issue at hand was not the success of any earthly nation, but the spiritual health of God’s people.

The key to that spiritual health and fellowship with God is humility in the form of prayerful repentance. Pride gets in the way of fellowship with God because it prevents us from seeing our need for God. He calls us to humility so that we can embrace Him as our hope. Without humility, we cannot truly seek His face.

Sometimes we might think we just need to tell God we are sorry and confess our sins, but genuine repentance goes further. God doesn’t water it down to make us feel better about ourselves. He said we must “turn from” our “wicked ways” and seek Him instead. We can’t have it both ways. We can’t expect to experience the fullness of a relationship with Him in effective prayer and at the same time continue in our sin. Instead, it is when we repent in prayerful humility that God promises to hear, forgive, and heal us.

  • While 2 Chronicles 7:14 is true for individual believers, it was written as a corporate call to all God’s people. Does the call to corporate repentance make you uncomfortable? Why? What role should corporate repentance play in our corporate prayer life?
  • Pray: Set aside time for accountability and prayer with one or more other believers this week. Share areas where you struggle and need to repent and pray for each other to turn those areas over to God.