May 6, 2020
FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:
HOW GOD HEARS, FORGIVES & HEALS
“If My people, which are called by My name, shall humble themselves, 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 Chron. 7:14, KJV.
Isn’t this one of the answers to the question all are asking today? How will we and “the land be healed” from this covid-19 plague-like scourge!
Not till suddenly thrust in dire straits, unexpected reversals of our well-laid out plans or life-threatening emergencies, are the real necessities of life seen and appreciated in their true light; not till we suddenly lose what and those we took for granted.
The straight testimony of “the True Witness” to the lukewarm Laodiceans that they are spiritually sick— “wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked”— often finds its mark in times of duress and severe afflictions, when our “days are numbered” and dark storm clouds are gathering all around us, like this covid moment of earth time.
There are 4 conditions to be met in order for God to do 3 things: hear from heaven, forgive our sins, and only then “heal our land.” Spiritual things are spiritually discerned. The carnal mind with the “old man’s” heart will read these same verses differently than one who has been “renewed in the spirit of the mind, and put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” Eph. 4:23,24.
The 4 general conditions to be met through the empowering grace in Christ are : 1. Humble ourselves 2. Pray 3. Seek God’s invisible “face” 4. Turn from, i.e., forsake our wicked ways, cherished sins, willful ignorance and negligence of God’s Word and law.
Humility! How little we understand of what this virtue really means! We wonder why we often fail and why any spiritual success seems so short-lived. But this may be due to merely repeating the experience of the early disciples when they, in self-confidence proudly declared, “Even the spirits are subject to us.” (Luke 10:17). They were still “full of self.” Thus:
“Jesus could discern their danger, and He said, ‘Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest awhile.”(Mark 6:3). Come out of the din of battle, away from the conflict, and hold communion with God.
“Thus it is with many workers. They are too strong, too full of self. The Lord cannot lead them or teach them or use them to His glory, for they are too wise in their own conceits [Rom.12:16], and vainly imagine that the Lord cannot do without them. SELF MUST BE BURIED.” E.G.White, Letter 16F, May 9,1892.
Ah! The “self” of the “old man” keeps asserting itself even among the so-called disciples of Christ today that He cannot lead, teach or use them for His glory in that self-centered condition. They must “humble themselves, pray for a new mind and renewed spirit, and “seek God’s face” where He now is pleading His blood in the final atonement and examining our lives as it passes in review in judgment before we can even “pray for the healing of the land” from the ravages of the covid-19 pandemic.
Let all remember that “the fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much,” “before honor is humility” and that “If we neglect to hear His law even our prayers are an abomination.”
Indeed! True humility will bring other blessings in its train!
More blessings of humility tomorrow, God willing! NMF