Reset

“ ... 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.”  2 Chronicles 7:14 

There is something about this verse that stops us in our busy tracks, isn’t there?  It is like a reset button that recalibrates us and returns us to reality, to God.  

What does this promise stir up in you?  Is it an inner sorrow for a decadent society and a world spinning out of control?  Is it anger over a population replacing its time-tested moral compass with a more convenient one that spins in the direction of one’s own desires?  Surely God is not pleased with these things. 

But God was not speaking about “the world out there” or to an unnamed “them.”  On the contrary, his concern was about “my people” already in covenant relationship with him, and both his call to repentance and his promise for healing were those “called by my name.”  This was not about pagan outsiders, but chosen insiders. 

The occasion for these resounding words of conviction and hope was the dedication of Solomon’s temple, and “my people” were the nation of Israel.  But God has since then made a new covenant, just as he explicitly foretold through the prophet Jeremiah.  And in this eternal promise, all who believe in Christ are not only God’s people, but also his temple, for he lives in us.  Writes the Apostle Paul, “For we are the temple of the living God.  As God has said: ‘I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people’” (2 Corinthians 6:16). 

Certainly we lament the state of the world around us today.  But it is we, God’s covenant people, whom he calls to humility and to prayer and to repentance.  And it is we, God’s covenant people, whom he calls to belief in his goodness and his authority and his love. 

For God uses powerfully a people who are emptied of themselves and filled with his Spirit.  And the world can receive truth from a people humbled before their God and speaking his truth from selfless hearts of love. 

So here is a little recalibration item for each of us.  When it comes to sin, let’s look inside ourselves and repent before God.  When it comes to salvation, let’s look outside ourselves and share with the world. 

Ready?  Press “reset.”  (And repeat as often as necessary.).

[Click here to see the daily reading in 2 Chronicles 7:11-16.]