Week of Monday, September 28 – Saturday, October 4
Take a Knee - Man as Chaplain
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. - 2 Chronicles 7:14 (NKJV)
You may have heard this verse applied to the United States as a call to repentance and revival. To be sure, its principles are applicable to any nation, but 2 Chronicles 7:14 was written for the people of God. The issue at hand was not the success of any earthly nation, but the spiritual health of God’s people. As Solomon learned and expressed in Ecclesiastes, everything—the success of our nation, our careers, and even our children— is futile apart from God. Life in Christ, then, is not about achieving any outward mark of success, it is about spiritual health through inward healing and transformation.
Because of the blood sacrifice of Jesus Christ for our sins, we can experience spiritual health and fellowship with God. We enter that fellowship through humility in the form of prayerful repentance. If we are to be spiritual chaplains, leading our families and communities to experience God’s healing, we must first submit ourselves to God. We must humble ourselves, pray, seek God, and turn from whatever sin exists in our lives. Yet, pride often gets in the way. Pride prohibits intimacy and fellowship with God because it prevents us from seeing our need for Him. He calls us to humility not so that He can wield control over us but so that we can embrace Him as our hope. Without humility, we cannot truly seek His face.
Sometimes we might think we only need to tell God we are sorry and confess our sins, but genuine repentance goes further. God doesn’t water down the truth to make us feel better about ourselves. He said we must “turn from [our] wicked ways” and seek Him instead. We can’t have it both ways. We can’t expect to experience the fullness of a relationship with Him in effective prayer and at the same time continue in our sin. Instead, it is when we repent in prayerful humility that God promises to hear, forgive, and heal us.
Take a Knee - Man as Chaplain
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. - 2 Chronicles 7:14 (NKJV)
You may have heard this verse applied to the United States as a call to repentance and revival. To be sure, its principles are applicable to any nation, but 2 Chronicles 7:14 was written for the people of God. The issue at hand was not the success of any earthly nation, but the spiritual health of God’s people. As Solomon learned and expressed in Ecclesiastes, everything—the success of our nation, our careers, and even our children— is futile apart from God. Life in Christ, then, is not about achieving any outward mark of success, it is about spiritual health through inward healing and transformation.
Because of the blood sacrifice of Jesus Christ for our sins, we can experience spiritual health and fellowship with God. We enter that fellowship through humility in the form of prayerful repentance. If we are to be spiritual chaplains, leading our families and communities to experience God’s healing, we must first submit ourselves to God. We must humble ourselves, pray, seek God, and turn from whatever sin exists in our lives. Yet, pride often gets in the way. Pride prohibits intimacy and fellowship with God because it prevents us from seeing our need for Him. He calls us to humility not so that He can wield control over us but so that we can embrace Him as our hope. Without humility, we cannot truly seek His face.
Sometimes we might think we only need to tell God we are sorry and confess our sins, but genuine repentance goes further. God doesn’t water down the truth to make us feel better about ourselves. He said we must “turn from [our] wicked ways” and seek Him instead. We can’t have it both ways. We can’t expect to experience the fullness of a relationship with Him in effective prayer and at the same time continue in our sin. Instead, it is when we repent in prayerful humility that God promises to hear, forgive, and heal us.
- Based on this verse, what do you need to do to be a better spiritual chaplain for your family, church, community, and nation?
- While 2 Chronicles 7:14 is true for individual believers, it was written as a corporate call to all God’s people. Does the call to corporate repentance challenge you? Why? What role should corporate repentance play in our corporate prayer life?
- Pray: Set aside time for accountability and prayer with one or more other believers this week. Share areas where you struggle and need to repent and pray for each other to turn those areas over to God.