REVIVAL

In 2 Chronicles 7:14 God makes an incredible promise. He says,

“Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my     face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land”. 2 Chronicles 7:14

This is an amazing promise. It is one of over 7000 promises God gives us in the Bible. Most people don’t realize that God has made so many promises and can be called upon at anytime.

This promise, as well as most promises in the Bible, is called a conditional promise. That means there are certain things in the promise that God wants us to do FIRST before He acts and does what He promises. This is true in 2 Chronicles 7:14.

God starts off by identifying the people to whom the promise is directed. He calls them “people who are called by my name”. Who are these people? Very simply they are Christians. God is addressing this promise to Christians. Christians are people who have declared Jesus Christ to be their Lord and Savior and have asked Him to come into their lives and take control. Is this you????

In the passage God tells Christians to do four things. They are: humble themselves, pray, seek His face and turn from their wicked ways. Let’s talk about each one.

Humble themselves

God is asking us to remember that He is God, and we are not. He wants to us remember that He is in control, and we are not. He wants us to remember that He has all the power, and we do not. Jesus summarized this very well in the third Beatitude where He says,

“Blessed are the meek….” Matthew 5:5

However, most people really don’t understand what meek means. Most people confuse it with another term that sounds a lot like it. Meek sounds like weak, so for many people it has the same connotation. And since nobody wants to be weak, nobody is interested in being meek. But the truth is meekness and weakness are not the same thing. In fact they’re the opposite of each other. Meekness is in no way weakness. The Greek word for meekness literally means “strength under control.” A good illustration is a wild stallion that has been broken. The stallion still has all the strength he had before being broken, but now his strength is under control.

God wants us to be meek. The way He wants us to do that is to submit to Him, so He can provide HIS strength in our lives. The humble person (meek person) is willing to do that.

Pray

Prayer is a natural consequence of being humble. When we realize that we lack power and resources, we usually go to God. That’s called supplication, and it’s one form of prayer. However, there are other forms of prayer as well. For example there’s thanksgiving, where we thank God for what He does for us. There’s confession where we admit when we have sinned. And there’s praise where we talk to God and thank Him for His infinite attributes.

God wants us to communicate with Him using all forms of prayer. And He desires to communicate with us as well, because prayer is a two way conversation. It starts with us. We talk to God, and He talks back.

Seek my face

There is an old saying that says, “Look a person in the eye when you talk to them”. This is a reference to being honest as it applies to our relationships with other people, but it also applies to our communications with God. That’s why He wants us to “seek His face”. In other words, God wants us to “look Him in the eye”. So how do we do that? One of the best ways to do that is to think through what we say to God BEFORE we say it. And that’s not really that hard to do. We just stop and take a moment to evaluate what’s going on in our lives and what we are capable of doing or not doing. That’s it! This will give us a clearer idea of what we want to say to God. We may ask Him for help or strength or wisdom or clarity or some special resource. We may see how He has already been working in our lives and we thank Him. We may see that we were on the wrong path to start with and repent.

Turn from their wicked ways

This is simply living life under the control of God and not under our own control. Proverbs 3:5-6 says,

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In ALL your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths”. Proverbs 3:5-6

This is good advice, and for many of us this would be a new way of living. We are used to figuring everything our ourselves. This passage says don’t do that. It says, “in ALL our ways acknowledge Him”. All our ways includes everything. Nothing is left out.

OK, back to 2 Chronicles 7:14. God says if we do these 4 things He will restore our land. That’s called Revival. In this passage that God is telling us that revival starts with each person. When we do the 4 things God asks us to do, we will live godly lives and that will impact our families. As our families are impacted, they will impact our communities, and as our communities are impacted they will impact our nation, and on and on and on. That’s how revival works.

So, let’s do this…. Let’s humble ourselves, pray, seek God’s face and turn from our wicked ways…..

Let’s expect God to move and restore our land….. Let’s expect revival…..

For more information about The River, contact:  bob@riverrecoverychurch.com