If MY People....

Gotta share a conviction that has been growing in me since the fall of 2008.  We see the things going on in our nation, we pray for revival, we pray that our leaders will turn to God, we pray that God will turn our nation around, we pray that our nation will turn back to Him......we pray....we pray.....we pray.......for everyone else to get it together.

And yet....the Word is perfectly clear:

"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 forgive their sins and HEAL THEIR LAND."

We can pray all day for revival.  We can get on our face all night asking God to touch our nation.  But unless and until WE, the people of God, take care of OUR business......He's not obligated to answer.

• We have the same divorce rate as the world around us.
• Addiction of all kinds is as prevalent in the church as out of the church.
• We, the Church, allow all kinds of compromised lifestyles into leadership
• We argue over minute doctrinal stuff while the world wonders why they would want to be one of "us".
• We use His name in vain
• The percentages of sexual addictions, people involved in pornography, etc is not dramatically different inside the church walls than outside the church walls
• Kids inside the church are being raised in single parent families just like outside
• We have divisions upon divisions, and by and large each "church" is exclusive to itself
• We gossip like nobody's business (by calling it prayer requests)
• We share other people's life struggles told to us in confidence (by calling it newsletters)
• and the list goes on.....

He PROMISES to hear from Heaven and the promised result is that HE WILL HEAL OUR LAND.  But we the church need to change the focus of our prayers.  He promised that when WE, His people, turn from OUR wickedness.....He will heal our land.

I've been in more than a dozen nations, and in every one of them I've heard the same thing, in so many words - "why would I want to be one of them when I see how they live, how they treat each other, that all they care about is money, how they argue?"  "Them" being "Christians".  We, the church, are the biggest DEtractor from the very God we are supposed to represent. 

And we, His church, are the ones that can turn this around.

If we will humble ourselves, seek His face and turn from our wicked ways.....He must hear from Heaven, according to His own word, and He must heal our land, according to His promise.

II Chronicles 7:14
Psalm 138:2