part 6 of the “7:14” series
In this series of posts, we have been looking at 2 Chronicles 7:14. In this verse, God is addressing His people – ALL people – and encourages them to do some things. He encourages and urges His people to be humble, to be prayerful, and to seek Him. Each one of those things so far in that list could have been their own series of posts.
As we are looking through these words and the phrases that follow them, we can see that there is more to this verse. This verse is an “if/then” verse. God says to His people “IF my people” will do these four things – be HUMBLE, PRAY, SEEK, TURN - “THEN I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” God is showing us a process in this verse of how forgiveness and healing truly works. In the book of Romans, this process is laid out in what is called the Romans Road.
The first verses in the Romans Road are Romans 3:10, 3:23, and 6:23 which say: “There is no one righteous, not even one. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” These verses are tough to take without a bit of humility. There is not a person on the face of this Earth that has not sinned or that is perfect. For me, those are some humbling words. But to reach the true forgiveness and healing that God has for us, we need to recognize that as an individual and a nation. We just simply need God. God has given us the gift of Jesus so that we can have eternal life and the payment of sin taken away. [1]
The next part of the Romans Road focuses on this: “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. For, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” [2] This is done by praying to God and seeking His face. This is for everyone. God wants everyone to be saved (see John 3:16-17). As I mentioned in the first post of this series, the process of salvation begins with prayer and if praying to God is only for a select group of people how will anyone ever be saved. God hears your prayer and is waiting for you to pray to Him and to seek Him – whether it is for the first time or you are returning to Him.
We then need to turn. This step is so important to once again experience the true forgiveness and healing of God. God does not want us to continue in the old ways of doing things after we have been made new! [3] This happened to Saul in Acts 9. Saul was not a nice guy at all. He spent his time looking for followers of Jesus (or people who belonged to the Way as Acts 9:2 describes) so he could imprison them or even kill them. God got his attention on the road to Damascus. Saul became blinded and was lead to the house of Ananias in Damascus. Saul went into the house as one man and came out as another. But Saul had to turn from his old ways. Saul had to leave a lot in the house of Ananias in order to come out and do the work of God. Even though it is not specifically laid out in Acts 9, I believe that Saul engaged every one of the four things we have been talking about in this series. He definitely turned his feet around.
God wants all of this for everyone on this planet. This process of humble, pray, seek, and turn is for everyone to do. We can do these steps as an individual or we can do these steps as a nation.
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[1] Romans 6:23 + Romans 5:8
[2] Romans 10:9-10 +13
[3] 2 Corinthians 5:17
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