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.
2 Chronicles 7:14
So those who turn in repentance will receive this threefold promise of God. He will hear, He will forgive and He will heal! What a promise.
God will hear, do you really believe that God listens to your prayers? If you don’t then God’s word is a lie.
God is listening to every prayer, He hears from Heaven, and it is from this same heaven that true revival comes. Revival is never engineered by man, it is beyond the scope and power of mankind, true revival is only by the grace of God from Heaven.
God then promises to forgive our sin. Even though we have hindered him and quenched the Holy Spirit for years, the moment we turn to Him in true repentance, He forgives totally. As we read in the promise of 1 John 1:9; “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
God then promises to heal our land. In the context of 2 Chronicles, this was clearly a promise for restoration of a physical land. And it is not inappropriate for us to pray for the healing of our land. But, the land that many of us struggle with is our own spiritual lives. Because of neglect, we are far from God and our spiritual lives are rotting from the core. Only God can restore this land.
So as we come to the end of this study, we see why revival waits.
- We struggle with pride – we don’t know how to humble ourselves.
- We don’t pray enough, passionately enough and sincerely enough – we don’t know the power of prayer.
- We are reluctant to turn from our wicked ways, our comfortable sin and to genuinely repent.
This is not a light burden, to pray for revival, but we must put our every effort into it. We must humble ourselves, repent and turn away from everything that displeases God.
Revival is possible, although it is dependent on the sovereignty of God, God would not call us to pray for revival if our situation was beyond hope.
Are you called to pray for revival? Will you pay the price for what it takes to see God move in power in revival in our land?