Repentance, Prayer, and Humility before God Are Our Only Hope

Repentance, Prayer, and Humility before God Are Our Only Hope

Good Morning Friends,

We are to be continually engaged in God’s continued acts of creation even in the face of evidence that sometimes we are not making it the way we expected. Some days I just feel overwhelmed about the state of our collective affairs and sometimes angry and maybe rightfully, so but then I inevitably come to the conclusion that Repentance, Prayer, and Humility before God Are Our Only Hope.

Scripture: Then the Lord appeared to Solomon in the night and said to him: ‘I have heard your prayer, and have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice. When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place. For now I have chosen and consecrated this house so that my name may be there forever; my eyes and my heart will be there for all time. As for you, if you walk before me, as your father David walked, doing according to all that I have commanded you and keeping my statutes and my ordinances, then I will establish your royal throne, as I made covenant with your father David saying, “You shall never lack a successor to rule over Israel.”

2 Chronicles 7:12-18 (NRSV)

to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.

Luke 2:11 (NRSV)

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?

1 Corinthians 3:16 (NRSV)

Message: So you think you can fool God…think again. One generation is supposed to help the next and maybe we are in some cases, but in general I think we have some explaining to do. The drama is our hypocrisy. We want a Jesus who never negotiates when it comes to the perfection of others, while still allowing us to be without discipline. We oscillate between being rigid and impervious to God’s voice regarding other’s behaviors and expecting a kind Jesus open to seeking out paths to help us justify our less than humble ways. Frankly we need to be rebuilt from the ground up and consecrated in a new way. And that is basically what is happening in today’s scripture from 2 Chronicles. You see it was written from the perspective of the Babylonian captivity. There was a promise of a Temple and King but all they had was their own bodies and scripture and prayer…the hope of a God to physically dwell with them. Interestingly the tone of the scripture is about personal as well as corporate revival… about God creating a new way of healing land and lives. As you read it notice how God wants us each to be a place of holiness. He wants the dedication of buildings of worship, but more importantly God desires His people to be dedicated as places of worship… obedient to His love and filled with his power and presence. Here we realize that when God builds in us, He is using material that can be strong because it is alive. Here revival is not a rebuilding of buildings but God stepping into our lives and filling them with His power in a fresh way that changes us as individuals. So, when we call on His name… When we confess our sins…When we pray that God would stretch us and bend us to His purpose, then the rebuilding in us can begin. Friends, follow His building plans. Build others up too in the promises of God. Do not ignore His directions. Realize that God recognizes our faults more clearly than we recognize the faults of others. So here we are, one week away from celebrating Christmas and perhaps the gift we need the most is a hunger for His righteousness in our lives. A hunger that brings the hope of repentance, prayer and humility. Are you ready to unwrap those kind of presents?

Pray that the humble, broken, urgent requests of our hearts be holy in your eyes Lord. Pray we have the courage, wisdom and faith to invite God into our lives. Pray we let the revival be so strong that it brings us to our knees in ever more powerful prayer and then builds in us the strength to stand up for Jesus. Pray we let his broken body, the temple of the Lord, be rebuilt in us. Pray we realize our hope is in Christ alone…in humility. Pray we are not closed to salvation. Pray we accept correction and trust in the Lord. Pray we ask the Lord of grace that our hearts might be simple, filled with the light of truth. Pray that God gives us a right attitude of persistent prayer so we might be able to be lovable, forgiving, understanding of others…building each other up so in God’s way we might be changed and transformed into a Holy Temple of new hope.

Blessings,

John Lawson