Our cities and nations need healing - and God is promising this healing. However, it is a conditional promise. We, the people who are called by His name, play a vital role.
“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 will forgive their sin and heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14)
First, we must know how to humble ourselves before God, before we can begin to pray seriously. God says to “pray and seek My face.” What does it mean to seek God's face?
I understand it means to get directly into the presence of Almighty God—where every barrier and every hindrance is removed, and you are face-to-face with Almighty God.
A young man came to me seeking the baptism of the Holy Spirit. He was a youth worker in a church. I told him I could see him on Wednesday evening. He said he had to attend a prayer meeting that evening. I said, “I suppose that would be no good.” “Oh, no,” he said, “that would be okay. We pray from 8 to 9 o’clock.” That is a prayer meeting, but it is not seeking God’s face. When you seek God’s face, you do not stop until you get into God’s presence—even if it takes all night.
The fourth step is to “turn from their wicked ways.” Who must do this? The alcoholic, the young people that won’t go to church? No, Christians —God’s people! The hindrance to revival is inside the church, not outside. It never has been outside.
Do you know where judgment begins? At the house of God. “For the time has come,” Peter says, “for judgment to begin at the house of God” (1 Peter 4:17). To make it doubly clear, he adds, “It begins with us first.”
God has always operated this way. He begins with the people who know the most. “To whom much is given, from him much will be required” (Luke 12:48). You say, “Brother Prince, I don’t have any wicked ways.” I reply, “You never got close enough to God to see. If you had gotten into God’s presence, you would have seen your wicked ways. The very fact you say you have no wicked ways just shows how far you are from God.”
Father, thank You that I can freely enter into Your presence, by the blood of Jesus, without condemnation, without guilt, and that You have accepted me in Your Son Jesus! I seek Your face, Lord, and I want that, in Your love, You’ll show me possible ‘wicked ways’ so that I can turn away from it! In the name of Jesus, amen!
