Will God heal our land?

During times of moral decline and lack of spiritual concern, God sometimes judges His people through drought, disease, economic collapse or by withholding certain blessings.

God’s promise in 2 Chronicles 7:14 is that “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 will I hear from Heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land”.

These conditions and the promise, though originally given to Israel, apply to His people of every generation who meet four conditions.

 Humble themselves

Humbling oneself means recognising one’s spiritual poverty and desperate need for God’s mercy; in other words, having a broken and a contrite heart.

We make personal sacrifices — sometimes for good reasons and sometimes for bad reasons.

That is why God is not overly impressed by what we can do for Him.

 What God really desires is for us to recognise our helplessness without His strength and surrender our situation to Him.

God will not turn away a broken and humble heart that is full of grief and regret over sin.

 Our Lord Jesus Christ calls it “being poor in the spirit.”

 We must recognise that we are not spiritually self-sufficient; we need the Holy Spirit’s life, power and sustaining grace.

Pray

As God’s people, we must desperately call on Him for mercy and must completely trust and depend on Him for help.

 Our prayers must come from faithful hearts and we must continue to call out to God until He answers.

Christ’s assurance that those who ask will receive from God is based on keeping our priorities focused on God, seeking His Kingdom purposes first and keeping our desires in line with His.

Seek my face

 As God’s people, we must turn toward Him and seek His presence with passion.

We must not do this for selfish reasons or simply to avoid difficulty or disaster.

Note that He says “seek my face” and not “seek my hands”, as we often do for what we will grab from His hands.

Seeking the Lord faithfully has wonderful results.

For example: If we seek the Lord, we will experience God’s peace and protection.

Peace is not just the absence of conflict; it also includes the experience of forgiveness, a clear conscience and a sense of wellbeing.

If we seek the Lord, we receive mercy and grace (i.e. undeserved favour, help, and empowerment) to help us in times of need, as seen in Hebrews 4:16.

To ‘seek the Lord’ requires pulling away from evil influences and committing your life to purity and holiness (1Chronicles 16:11).

Seeking the Lord involves putting all your passion into a relationship with God and showing devotion through faithful prayer.

It also means relying on God as your greatest helper (Hebrews 13:6), being confident that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.

Turn from wicked ways

This is the crux of God’s call on us to make things right with Him.

We who are God’s people must genuinely repent (i.e. Turn back, make a complete change).

This involves confessing and forsaking specific sins and everything that has taken priority over God.

It also means depending on God for mercy, forgiveness, and spiritual cleansing.

One of the main reasons why we neglect God’s work is that we have become so busy with our own interests.

Like the people who were called by God’s name in the Old Testament, we are giving great attention to the details of beautifying our own homes, using lovely panels of cedarwood, but leaving God’s house in ruins.

 In the Old Testament days, the prophet Haggai insisted that God and His work had to come first.

This is a timeless message to us today as well.

 Our priorities in life—the things we give our time and attention to—are a good sign of where our hearts are and how much we really love God.

“Then will I hear…forgive…heal.”

When God’s four conditions for spiritual revival and restoration are met, then His three-part promise to us — hear…Forgive…Heal — will be fulfilled.

Answered prayer

The first evidence of revival is that God begins to answer prayer and responds with compassion toward His followers as we read in Psalms 85:4-7; 102:1-2,13; Jer 33:3; Joel 2:1213,18-19. During times of great distress, when nearly everything seems to be going wrong and we find ourselves helpless to change the situation, our only hope is to call on God and place our lives and circumstances in His hands.

 God will forgive us and cleanse us spiritually.

God promises to restore us and indeed we can say that our ultimate restoration is in our Risen Lord Jesus Christ, but we cannot benefit from His finished work if we do not repent totally so that we can be forgiven totally.

God will heal and refresh us spiritually.

God will pour out the Holy Spirit in order to bring spiritual salvation among those who do not yet know Him.

The call by the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship is for Ghanaians to “repent and live!”

The writer is the Executive Director of the Salt and Light Ministries

his article is a reflection on God’s Word and is occasioned by the proclamation of a National Day of Repentance by the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International(FGBMFI).