Heavy On My Heart...

Since late December 2023, the Lord has laid on my heart the need for prayer, now more than ever. I know that for myself, I have been called by God to pray for those around me, far and wide. If He calls, He is faithful to see it through. So I pray. And then I pray some more.

What He has put on me lately is a verse from the Old Testament. If you have been in the Church for any length of time, you have probably heard this verse. This verse is 2 Chronicles 7:14. It goes like this:

"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 passage brings a lot to mind for me. It is very important to see and remember that God’s promises to His people are often conditional. This Scripture is a true If/Then proposition. If we do X, then He will do Y. Simple, right? But not easy! But this is His promise, and we can facilitate this promise as it comes to fruition because we are His partners in the Earth.

 First, God is calling His people to pray. His people, not unbelievers. His people, the Israelites. For us in the current day, if we are in Christ, we are Israelites. We are called by His name. We have been grafted into the family of God by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8). We are the ones who need to pray and seek His face and turn from our wicked ways. The Word does not say if pagans turn from worshipping false gods, the Lord will hear from heaven. NO! He wants His people to pray. And furthermore, not only individually but as a body. My people is plural. We need to come together and do this for the sake of “our land” and to work with the Lord as He fulfills a great promise.

Secondly, we need to humble ourselves. This is often difficult to do, as our society is more and more arrogant, boastful, proud, self-righteous, and all-knowing. The Lord is asking, nay telling, us to stop this behavior. Humble ourselves! What does that really mean? In this instance, we need to realize that the Lord Jesus is Supreme. All things hold together through Him. He still reigns. He is still on the throne. His Word is the guideline for right and righteous living. Not the CDC. Not the White House. Not the World Economic Forum. The Word of God is our Truth and our Guide. Our lives are but a mist, but He is eternal. How do we get to a place by which we can humble ourselves? We confess. We name our sin and turn from it. In the case of this Scripture, He is calling for a corporate change of behavior and heart. Therefore we, as a Church, as a community, as a Nation, need to get truly humble before the King.

Thirdly, the Lord says that we need to pray and seek His face. What a blessing! What an honor He gives us that we can pray, and He will hear us, and that we can actually seek after Him to our benefit, and to the benefit of those with whom we share our lives, in our homes, our towns, and our Country. He is a good, loving, gracious Father! We are His partners in effecting change in the Earth; He said so! He is faithful and His promise is true (Revelation 3:14).

Lastly, He tells us to turn from our wicked ways. This is the hard part, as we all have wicked ways, and as “a land” our ways are very wicked. We have lost sight of what holds all things together; He holds all things together by His Word (Hebrews 1:3). Our standards change day by day, year by year; always for the worse. So as His people, called by His name, we need to repent for our “land”, be that our homes, our communities, or our country. Turn from abortion! Turn from mutilating children! Turn from ignoring the hurting and the lost and the hungry! Turn from chasing after our lusts for money and wine and power at all costs! Turn from New Age nonsense that sounds harmless, sounds lovely, but leads to destruction! Turn To Him! Turn to Jesus! There is power in that. There is power for us when we cry out to Jesus for His help, His deliverance, His healing. His strength is proven in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9) when we cry out to Him.

IF we do all of these things, He will fulfill His promise. What is His promise? THEN He will hear from Heaven, forgive our sin and heal our land. That is a very big promise, a very beautiful promise. And honestly, I trust in God. I trust Him fully to do what His Word says He will do. His Word goes forth to accomplish what it says, and it does not return void (Isaiah 55:11). But we, as His people, must partner with Him, and obey Him in this. As a Church, we need to remember and not forget, teach and share, that when we obey Him, we walk in Victory. We walk in Blessing. We walk in Healing.

So as I have been praying about this for the past months, meditating on it, speaking it day and night, I know now more than ever that the Lord is calling on His people—to humble ourselves, to pray and seek His face, and turn from our wicked ways.

It is a small verse. Stuck in the midst of the Old Testament. You might overlook it if you didn’t know it was there. Or you might overlook it if you don’t want to obey. But I am asking you now, as God’s people called by His name, to pray this with me. Pray it with me daily for 10 days and see what happens—in your home, in your town, in our Country. Or better yet, pray it with me for 30 days! Together as the Body of Christ, we can shake the Heavens. We can pray in the power of The Holy Spirit, in partnership with the Father and the Son, and effect change in the Earth.

All Glory to Jesus Christ, My King! He is Worthy to be Praised!

Pray this with me:

Dear Father In Heaven,

We come together now, in the mighty name of Jesus, as Your people called by Your name. We thank You and praise You for loving us and wanting to bless us from the Heavenlies. As Your people, Lord, we want to humble ourselves before You. That is so alien to us, Lord. We consider ourselves to be self-sufficient, and knowledgeable about all things. Father, we are not! You are knowledgeable and right and true and good. Hear our prayer as we seek to be more like Your Son in these matters, and less like this world. We bow down before You now, in Love and Obedience. And we come before You in prayer. We are so thankful that we can come boldly before the throne of grace to obtain mercy in time of need. Thank You for Your very best blessings of Mercy, Grace, and Love-Everlasting. We lift up before You “our land”—be that our homes and families, our towns, our Churches, or our Country. We ask Your blessing, Your healing, Your cleansing, Your forgiveness. We seek Your face! We seek to be more like Your Perfect Holy Son Jesus. We seek to Love like You, and serve like You, and walk like You. Help us as we seek You and find You when we seek You with all of our hearts! As Your People, Your children, Your heirs, we turn from the sin of the land. We repent, we change our actions so that You can change our hearts! Help us to turn now from the evil that is plaguing our homes and our land. We repent from the evils that are now “legal”, and we repent from the evils that are institutionalized in our society. We turn from the sins that poison our families and our children, And we call out to Jesus for deliverance from addiction, pornography, violence in the streets, abuse against the poor and the helpless, and attack by the lawless one. Lord Father, You are our Living Hope, our True Salvation, the King of the Universe. Thank You Lord that You hear us from heaven, that You bend Your ear to Earth to hear the prayer of the hurting and afflicted. Thank You FatherGod for sending Jesus to cleanse us from all unrighteousness and make us new creations in Him. Thank You Lord that the prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Please Lord, heal us; heal our homes and families; heal our land. We know You are faithful, that Your promises are Yes and Amen. And we thank You! And we praise You! And we magnify Your Holy Name! All glory, all honor, all blessing are Yours Lord Jesus!

In Jesus’ name we pray,

Amen.