Many of us are believing God for great things for our life, wanting to see explosive growth in our church, our city changed by the gospel, and our nation too. God puts it right back on us. He simply says, it starts with you.
Me. It starts with me. The individual. What is the status of my heart?
“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.” –2Chronicles 7:14
If I don’t humble myself, pray and seek God, turning from my wicked ways, my Christianity will be powerless in seeing my church, my city, or my nation changed for Him.
What are wicked ways? Tolerating jealousy, pride, envy, covetousness, selfishness, wrong suspicions, compromise, doubt, lovelessness, gossip, lustfulness, disobedience, to name a few.
These things remain in our internal world of our thinking and emotions, our heart. It is our heart that we must humble before God. When we humble our heart, get honest with Him, confessing our sin, all our wrong attitudes–none of them are small, or benign–we allow God to transform and purify and cleanse us, from all unrighteousness, 1John 1:9.
If we don’t humble our hearts before God, that junk remains in us. It becomes something the enemy can, and will, at the opportune time, use against us.
If we don’t humble our hearts before God, that junk remains in us, and becomes the leverage the enemy uses to divide God’s people. Disunity creeps in quickly, dislodging people from relationships, from churches, and sometimes from faith–because of the disillusioning that occurs. People cannot understand or separate the behavior of some Christians from that God. So they blame God and walk away from faith. The enemy celebrates…
When we are divided we hamper God’s work. Jesus said, every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or house divided against itself cannot stand, Matthew 12:25. This is true of a family, a church, and a nation.
The status of every Christians heart before God is very important. We have a responsibility before God, to humble ourselves, pray and seek His face, no longer tolerating sin, no more compromise. And allowing God’s hand upon our lives, to touch and transform our hearts. Our prayers for our churches, cities, and nations depend on this.
Related post, with information on Spiritual Sickness; which occurs when we tolerate sin and compromise.
