TRANSFORMATION
Debra asked me to talk today about transformation. When she first approached me, the Lord put this verse on my heart. It’s not one that I’ve ever thought about for this subject, but it’s from 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 I will forgive their sins and will heal their land.”
Now, as I go through this a little bit and break it down for you, I ask you to pay particular attention to one word, the word “AND.” You’ll find it five different places in the Scripture. So as I go through it, I’ll point them out and I’ll show you how there’s a break in the conversation between one and, and the other because sometimes we look at it as all one thought process.
THE PROCESS OF TRANSFORMATION
- HUMBLE OURSELVES
There are distinct actions on our part. So it starts out by telling who this verse is about, it says, “if my people who are called by my name,” so it’s a command that is specifically for God’s people, people who are called by His name, that’s who this command is for. It says, “if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves,” and so humbled themselves is the first command. It’s very important that we understand there’s different ways we can come before the Lord. We can come before the Lord in arrogance. We can come before the Lord in selfishness. We can come before the Lord in many different ways. Specifically, here, he wants - PRAY
There’s many different ways we can pray. We can pray before our meals, and after a while, every prayer sounds exactly the same. While that prayer is genuine, it’s methodical, we can do it with in our sleep, we don’t even have to think about it. We can pray in church before a big group of people and we can use words that we wouldn’t use in everyday conversation. There’s many different ways we can pray. But if we humble ourselves first, and we go before the Lord in an attitude of humility, that prayer is different. So we need to go before the Lord in humble prayer.us to humble ourselves. - SEEK GOD
Then the third part of this Word, it says, “seek my face.” There’s a lot of different ways, just like prayer that we can go before the Lord. And a lot of times when we go before the Lord, we’re selfish. And we maybe intend to do things a little different but after a little ways in, we’re asking for one thing after another after another. It becomes focused on what you can do for me, but He wants us to see His face. He wants our prayers to be focused on Him, not on us. - TURN FROM WICKED WAYS
This is an important part of the process. We have to first humble ourselves and pray and seek his face. Then the rest comes naturally, to turn from our wicked ways is the progression of how this verse takes place. Then it turns from OUR responsibility to GOD’S responsibility. - GOD WILL HEAR US AND FORGIVE US
It says, “If they will turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sins.” So God will hear us first, then He will forgive our sins. - HE WILL HEAL OUR LAND
After he forgives our sins, it says, “He will heal our land.” This is a very important part to end with because we see this verse starts as a transformation in us and in God’s people. When God calls us, He transforms us. He shows us how to transform ourselves. But in the process of transformation, we see it goes from an individual transformation to a corporate transformation and God heals our land. So if we as a people want to change our world, it starts with our own personal relationship with Jesus Christ. When we’re able to make that transformation on an individual level, we can change our world.