Most of us know the overused (in speech, yet underused in practice):
“…. 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 I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
That’s 2 Chronicles 7:14. It’s an amazing promise, but is so often used out of context. If you look it up, notice that it’s a lowercase ‘i’ so there was something right before it.
Let’s get it in context, okay?
“I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a temple for sacrifices. 13 “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, 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 I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 15 Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place. 16 I have chosen and consecrated this temple so that my Name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there.
King Solomon had ordered a temple built to our God. (His dad, King David was supposed to get that honor, but he missed his shot. That whole Bathsheba incident had some serious ramifications.) So the temple was completed and God showed up to Solomon and spelled out the deal.
After this chunk He basically goes on to say, if you guys screw this up and forsake Me and My commands, you will be uprooted from this land, I will reject the temple and all of this will become a joke to everybody else.
Did He mean be perfect? Of course not. But when you screw up, make it right by following the law for the repentance of sins, which they all had written down. (Many of them had it memorized!)
There’s our context, okay? We know it’s not some random pep talk in the middle of the Old Testament. This was spoken directly to Solomon, regarding His people and temple.
That fact means God has no obligation to fulfill it to anyone who calls dibs. However, we are welcome to point to it, as a precedent is presented to a judge, and ask for the same blessing.
We can ask, just like we ask for anything else, and God in His perfect loving knowledge makes the call. Jesus tells us in the New Testament, “You do not have because you do not ask.” So for heaven’s sake LET’S ASK. Fearlessly, annoyingly, repetitively. We are SUPPOSED to ask.
Okay, we’ve decided to ask. Great. Now let’s break down the first couple of lines of this well-known piece of scripture.
if My people, who are called by My Name
We know God was speaking to the nation of Israel in that particular time. But since we’re gonna make our case for this promise TODAY, who would apply to? Who would He be talking to? Who are His people called by His name right here in 2020?
Christians. Christ followers. Those who belong to Jesus.
Those who believe that Jesus’ death on a cross was the final blood sacrifice to cover all of our sins. Past, present and future. That the death and resurrection of God’s perfect Son took the place of our eternal death. And we are free.
We claim Him. He claims us. Amen.
Every age. Every race. Every political party.
We’re talking WAY above politics, people. Politics were designed by man. The salvation of the world was God’s plan before the beginning of time. So zoom WAY out for this.
If you are a Christian, He’s talking to YOU. Yes, His people, plural. A huge mass of believers and a gazillion individuals (including YOU and ME) pounding down the door of heaven. (Christian cliché alert. Sorry. I like the imagery.)
will humble themselves
This is a 100% conditional promise. Notice the ‘if… then…’ We’re still in the if.
When I think of this verse, it usually goes ‘will-humble-themselves-and-pray.’ Two pieces are smushed together into one, emphasis on the second one. But God has been leaning hard on this piece I tend to blow past.
And I think this is the missing piece.
Don’t we all just have it all figured out? I mean, WE GOT IT. We know ALL the answers, know ALL the history, ALL the laws and ALL their nuances.
Your feelings are irrelevant because they compete with my feelings, and watch this: See? I can just explain your feelings away. They were wrong. You were confused. Not (entirely) your fault. But since I explained your feelings away, you don’t have to feel them anymore. And now we agree.
You’re welcome!
Some of us have it ALL figured out.
And then there are people like me who readily admit that we don’t know ANYTHING. Does that mean we’re humble?
Not in my case. It just means I’m lazy.
I’m a hand-wringer. I’m maintaining my amateur status so I can compete in the Freak Out Olympics, if that ever becomes a thing. Otherwise I would be a solid professional.
I go back and forth between blocking out the world’s problems and hiding from reality to becoming glued to the “news” (for whatever that’s worth). I have no answers. And when I come up with ‘answers,’ they conveniently happen to be out of my hands. The mysterious ‘They’ become the object of my anger, fear and anxiety.
I see very little humility among the people called by His name, including me. I mean, I will research every opinion, every perspective any and all secular sources of information looking for answers.
In our minds, we have to KNOW what we think so we can fight about it with people who disagree (whether their idea or ours). And then we take matters into our own hands and make sure people on the ‘other side’ get fired, boycotted, destroyed or cancelled.
The audacity.
There is no creature so vicious as one who is afraid. Think about when animals attack. It’s when they feel threatened. And right now, the whole world is afraid. And we’re hissing and attacking anything that moves to protect ourselves.
Every single person who lashes out at another does it in fear.
Fear of being ignored and walked all over.
Fear of not being heard.
Fear of change.
Fear of no change.
Fear of this mysterious disease.
Fear of losing (our illusion of) control.
Fear of losing his/her rights.
Fear of losing his/her life.
This is what happens when we forget who(se) we are. And who we AREN’T.
We need to check out Job 38-41 to remind ourselves who we’re dealing with.
We can continue to whine, read, wring hands, accuse, attack and fear the future. We’ve been trying that for the past six months.
And you know what? The time has come (the walrus said).
This is a spiritual battle for our nation.
And WE have the answer, my fellow believers. This is all on us now. We’ve got to go to war for the soul of our country, for every kind of healing.
It’s our time.
“Well, you know, we haven’t been able to go to church or meet with our small group because of COVD.”
Are you kidding me? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Humble YOURSELF. You. You don’t need moral support. But if you prefer it, get your people on speaker phone, FaceTime, Zoom, whatever.
We have NO EXCUSE for being ineffective right now.
It is time for us to give up on man’s solutions to man’s problems. There is nothing that we can come up with that will heal our land without God’s power behind it. And even if we DID come up with something, it would be impossible to get everyone to agree on it.
You gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em…
It’s time to fold.
It’s time to bear our haughty, prideful, know-it-all, judge-everybody souls to the God of the Universe. Let Him search us and try us, every shadow of our hearts/minds for anything smelling like superiority and draw it out like poison.
Go back to 2 Chronicles and check out that verse right before our little magic chant in 14. The first part of that sentence:
When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people…
Y’all, we’re there. Locusts, no rain in some places, too much rain in others, plagues and all.
God’s people have to humble themselves, and in abject humility on our faces, intercede for our country, repent and beg for healing.
The answers are not online, in the news or anyplace else. They are in God’s word.
Get your Bible open, look for other times God’s people were in this situation (there are PLENTY of examples) and pray what they prayed, do what they did to be restored to their Lord and King.
But if you haven’t done a heart check, don’t waste your time. These are new days. We Christians can pray for healing all we want. But I am convinced if we leave out that one piece of humbling ourselves, our prayers will be like throwing water balloons at a wildfire.
Another thing God continues to pound into my heart so much, it’s making me mad:
We are creatures walking in darkness.
Satan is real, you guys. He and I have gone head-to-head before, most recently this past Tuesday night. And thank God Brad was there to pray for me and speak the word over me. Because I sure as heck wasn’t walking in victory in that moment. It was an intimidation move. And honestly, in that moment, it worked.
I think he’s all pissed off because I started praying my guts out for my country, in earnest tears. Then I called him out and started speaking truth against his lies.
The darkness we’re walking in, wading through waist deep, is lies.
Jesus calls Satan the father of lies. Everybody is accusing everybody of lying these days. About COVID, about politics, about the economy, about racism, about the protests, about the riots. Those are the corporate lies we’re believing.
Then there are the individual ones. The secret ones we carry around in our hearts that we fear to be true. About ourselves, about the ones we love, about things that matter deeply to us.
Can I just throw the BS flag in all of our faces?
Once I realized exactly how rampant and crushing this dark deception is, I started asking my coaching clients to write down lies they were believing. To shine the light of Truth in the dark corners of their hearts, drag out the garbage hiding in the shadows and see if it holds up when questioned.
Oh, the lies, you guys.
Jennie Allen said in her most recent book that our personal lies all fall into one of three categories:
- I am unloved.
- I am unworthy.
- I am powerless.
Most of mine fall into Category 3. I know others who have claimed 1 and 2. Those are the personal lies that shape our reality.
Much of what’s being spoken of about our country, citizen to citizen, is lies. Partial truths that bend ‘reality’ to our point of view. We hear them, we repeat them, we create them. Even when they are proven to be lies or partial truths, we continue to believe because we want to.
Let me repeat that: We continue to believe lies because WE WANT TO. And why do we want to? Because they make us RIGHT. Arrogant, closed-minded and RIGHT.
Humble yourselves.
It’s possible that you might not know everything.
Your perspective is not necessarily the whole truth.
You really might not understand what context people have grown up in.
Humble yourselves.
You might be following mob mentality, just because it’s easier and you’re being encouraged to.
You may be staking your personal truth on what a certain newsgroup says, based on what one person in authority is telling you.
NO ONE on this planet has the corner on truth.
Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. He’s got it. The rest of us, well, we just don’t have it. AND THAT’S OKAY. HUMBLE yourselves.
Satan has dropped a heavy blanket of deception over the United States. The lies have blinded us, we can’t see in the dark, and we’re just swinging at anything within our reach.
Tearing each other apart.
It doesn’t matter one bit who gets elected in November. Not in God’s perfect reality. One candidate cannot save our nation.
2 Corinthians says, “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
Drag that thought out of the deceptive darkness, into the light of Truth and test it. If it flees, it was just another stinking lie. If it stands, it is true. Believe it.
31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to My teaching, you are really My disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free,” John 8.
The answer is Jesus.
Not your pastor. Not your Bible study leader. Not your president now, not your president on November 4. Not the websites. Not the newscasts.
Jesus has the corner on truth. We have been walking in darkness. We have been deceived. We must repent and humble ourselves as we come into contact with people who disagree with us.
Humble yourselves. Demand truth. Test truth. Speak truth. And we will be the flashlights in the darkness.
And for those of you who don’t know Jesus and are fraught with fear, anxiety and the unyielding need to be right, well, I have the answer for you. You’ll like Him. He shares wisdom and only speaks truth.
Humble yourself. He’s waiting for you.
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