What do you do when life doesn’t make sense? Where do you turn when the pain is overwhelming? There is an answer to life’s hurt. Get down on your knees and pray to God. There is strength in prayer during turmoil.
God’s instructions are found in 2 Chronicles 7:14, “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 will heal their land.” Let’s examine this verse for further insight.
1. Are you called by God’s name? God loves all people, but that doesn’t automatically make us a member of His family. Jesus speaks plainly in John 3:3 when He says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” How do we become born again, or members of His family? Romans 10:9-10 tells us how: “If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved, for with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” If you are not yet a member of God’s family, then it is time to confess with your mouth that you believe in your heart that Jesus is risen from the dead.
2. Let’s talk about humbling ourselves. Proverbs 22:4 tells us, “Humility is the fear of the Lord; its wages are riches and honor and life.” In order to be humble, we must first recognize who He is, and His ultimate supremacy over all. We must willingly take on this attitude from John 3:30, “He must become greater; I must become less.”
3. God’s people are to pray. In fact, we are to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17). And we are to be “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints.”
4. We are to seek His face. We are to do as Isaiah 55:6 says, “Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near.” And as Hebrews 12:2 says, “Let us look to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”
5. Turn from our wickedness. In 2 Corinthians 13:5, Paul tells us, “Examine yourselves, seeing whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not know that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified.” After we examine ourselves, then we are given these words to live by: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). And there are promises of spiritual benefits that come from repentance. It says in Acts 3:19, “Therefore repent and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.”
And if we will do these things, His promise to us is that He will hear our prayers, forgive our sins and heal our land. Come on, people of God. It’s time to pray. {eoa}
Becky Dvorak is a prophetic healing evangelist and the Destiny Image author of DARE to Believe and Greater Than Magic. Visit her at authorbeckydvorak.com.
