Prayer in the Lord’s Name (3) – I Will Hear from Heaven

Then there is a promise here, “I will hear from heaven.” God will answer prayer.  He says, “Then I will forgive their sins and heal their land.”  I want to read II Chronicles 7:14 one more time. ”When My people, who bear My name, humble themselves…”  It is something to humble yourself.  That means to admit our own failures, to admit our sins and not hide them. Then, “Pray and seek My favor, turn from their evil ways, and I will hear from heaven, forgive their sins, and heal their land.” There is a whole bunch of things mentioned here and I want to go over them again one-by-one. It says, “When My people.”  It is not just the people out there, or the people over there, or some kind of an impersonal group of people but is “My people”, God’s people, or people who are God’s own possession. Then it says, “Who bear My name.” We, as Christians, bear the name of Christ; we bear the name of God.  Then it says, “Humble themselves.”  That means what?  Admitting where we are. There is one little principle of prayer I wasn’t planning to get into yet but I will go ahead and mention it.  Don’t be phony with God in prayer. When things are not going so good, tell it to God the way it is. Humbling ourselves means admitting where we really are, and admitting our own problems before God.  It says, “Pray and seek My favor.”  We need to seek the face of God. It is one thing to pray and seek God’s face, but along with this needs to come a turning from evil, a turning away from the things we know God is not pleased with or God is not happy with. There is a promise here, “I will hear from heaven.”  In other words, God hears prayer.  Then, “I will forgive their sins and heal their land.” That means God restores our situation.