As we start this journey of prayer and fasting, as we move into 2024 can I encourage you to take a posture of humility and repentance.
When we start to think about fasting and prayer, we often start to think about our nation or matters beyond us. We pray in hope and sometimes even arguably in a posture of disobedience that God would do his work without us (yes I know a little confrontational)
In the often quoted passage of 2 Chron 7:14 it says “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 sin and will heal their land.”
Often this passage is used to talk about the nation or nations. People make it about the nation state but that is not what this passage is about. In its original context it is about the people of God, Israel. They were called by his name yet living in disobedience, living in fear, living according to their own desires, not that of the Lord.
If we are to properly apply this now, it is for those called by his name, for the royal priesthood and holy nation (1 Peter 2:9), the Church.
The point in humbling ourselves, praying and repenting is that we firstly come before God that he would do a good work in us and THEN through us he would see his Kingdom done and will be done (Matt 6:10)
Remember grace is for the one who postures with repentance, “if my people who are called by name, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray…:” he will then do a work of restoration, he will bring revival IN US.
When we are faced with the cross of Jesus, we are faced with death, we are faced with the broken body and blood spilt for us. I encourage you to take communion in community each day understanding that it is only when we lean into the death of Jesus, when we carry the death of Jesus in ourselves that we discover his life (2 Cor 4:10)
My prayer for you is that as you take a posture of repentance, that you would rediscover the power and purpose of the Spirit, that in holiness and repentance, you would know a grace beyond your wildest imagination.
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