The Healing of a Nation

2 Chronicles 7:14 (NKJV)
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.

        The rise and fall of any nation is according to whether or not the people of God are following God’s plan or not. If you ask 100 people how to fix the problems of this country, you will get 100 different responses. God’s word carries the only way that a nation is to be blessed.

        Did God tell us that every last person needs to clean up their lives, to heal the nation? No. Did God tell us that we need a bigger government? No. Did He say that more Christians need to be involved of leadership roles? No. He went straight to His people. The only people that can properly help a nation are God’s people. The biggest problem is the fact that God’s people do not want to do what God says in His word.

First of all, He tells His people to humble themselves. If we do not have a humble spirit, God cannot work through us to His full extent. We need to be willing to do or go anywhere that God leads. Too often selfishness, busyness, lack of desire or comfort often distracts us from seeing things God’s way. After humility, we need to pray. Prayer takes commitment, time and work. But the power that we see in prayer, the blessing we receive and the changes that happen are all worth every effort to pray. We have an enemy who knows the power of prayer and he will stop at nothing to keep us from praying.

Seeking the face of God is a vital component of prayer. In many ways this is similar to prayer, but when we seek God’s face we are on a mission to know our heavenly Father greater. We want to know Him to the fullest extent possible and experience Him personally in every way.

We also must turn from our wicked ways. Too many of us say one thing and do another. Sometimes we even tell God or promise to Him one thing and do another. Repentance is a key aspect to our salvation, but we need to practice this every time we fail. Every sin and weakness that we have needs to be seen as a repulsive cancer that we need to run away from.

It is then that God will hear the cry of our hearts and heal our land. God does not says “if My leaders” or “if select people” do this, He will heal our land. He states “My people”. “People” is a plural term, we need to seek Him as a body, a team, a full unit in order for Him to realize how serious we really are. The only way our land will be helped is if we corporately come to God on our knees in all purity and humility.

Thoughts, comments, objections, prayer requests.

Daniel A. Smith