How Many?

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, 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 Chronicles 7:14

This is probably one of the most often quoted scriptures in the Bible.  Yet, it seems to be one of the least believed in.  Why would I say that?  Let’s examine it.

If my people...  Not the whole country, state, region, county, city or even church; just my people called by my name.  For some reason we have it in our head that revival must come before God moves.  Isn’t God moving the revival? 

shall humble themselves…  Notice this is something the people do; not God; yet time and time again, I hear people asking God to humble them.  To humble yourself simply means to agree with God.  We picture a humble person as someone who cowers, head down groveling in the dirt.  The biblical picture of a humble person is one who agrees with God’s way of doing and being and is bold as a lion to stand for Him. 

and pray …  It seems we have decided to camp out on begging for forgiveness.  We are so consumed with our own short-comings that we can’t get past them.  We keep hunting things to repent over so we can make sure we are good enough for God to hold up His part of the bargain.  Won’t happen—ever.  We need to just accept forgiveness and move on.  Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,  Philippians 3:13

and seek my face…  We have a problem.  It’s hard to seek His face when we are consumed with guilt but we will never actually get past the guilt until we seek His face, learn who He is and who we are in Him.  It’s the seeking that humbles us and makes us bold as a lion. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness…Matthew 6:33a.

and turn from their wicked ways…  Wicked ways are simply those ways that are not like God.  Notice turning from comes after humbling, praying, and seeking; not before.  It is the very act of turning to humble, pray and seek that turns us away from our wicked ways.  What we focus on, we do.

then will I hear from heaven…  God has to be deaf!  Why else do we think that He won’t hear our prayer or our church’s prayer or several churches’ prayer?  We have become focused on the numbers; if we just get enough people to pray maybe… 

and will forgive their sin…  Are we ever going to accept this at face value and move on?  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9.

and will heal their land…  It is God that does the healing; not legislation, not elections, not our rights because the healing has to come from the inside out.

So the question is:  how many of us will it take for this scripture to come to pass in our nation, state, region, county, city or church?  There are several instances in the Bible where it only took 1. 

A city—The woman at the well. John 4:39

A region—The Gadarene demonic.  Luke 8:38-40

A nation—Elijah on Mount Carmel. 1 Kings 18:17-39

A world—Paul. Acts

There are several scriptures that tell us the unity we need for things to change.

Leviticus 26:8;  5 chase 100…100 chase10,000

Matthew 18:19;  2 of you shall agree…

Matthew 18:20;  2 or 3 are gathered…I am in there

Acts 1:15;  the number of names together were about 120

So instead of looking for the 1,000s or 100,000s, why don’t we start with our 2 or 3 and change the world.