Page 1 - Good News October 2019 paper

"IF MY PEOPLE WHO ARE God despises it is pride! "God resists https://livingthedlife.com
CALLED BY MY NAME will the proud, but gives grace to the
HUMBLE themselves, and PRAY humble" (1 Peter 5:5). If therefore,
and SEEK My face, and TURN from we have pride in our hearts, we have
their wicked ways, then I will hear turned God into our enemy and He
from heaven, and will forgive their will be resisting us all the way.
s i n a n d h e a l t h e i r l a n d " Without learning to humble
(2 Chronicles 7:14). ourselves and to live in humility, we
shall never be able to lay hold of the
It should be clear from this grace of God!
Scripture how crucial the Church's
role is for the destiny of the nations. The second requirement is prayer.
God promises that He will bring There has never been a national
healing to the land, IF His people revival anywhere in the world at
will fulfil their calling and play any time in history that was not
their role. It is an amazing thought generated through prayer, and I
that there is a possibility for our mean real prayer: massive, united Holy Spirit. fully understand what repentance
nations to experience the healing and persevering prayer by a hungry Seeking God's Face is not so much is. We often confuse it with
power of God, and how we need and desperate Church! We need to taking our concerns to the Lord as it forgiveness, but asking forgiveness
that power among the nations ask God to do great things for our is learning to listen to what is upon and receiving it, is not the same as
today! nation because He is a great God,
His heart. It is the experience of repentance. Repentance requires
worthy of great petitions and well many that we can be seeking God more than that. It requires that we
God has set up four requirements able to give us exceedingly far above for a long time and wonder why we change our way radically and stop
for His people to fulfil before He what we ask or even think! never find Him. The reason is that doing the same thing any longer.
can come and heal the land. It is It is time for us to make concrete we seek Him according to our That is the real meaning of the
important for us to observe that requests to God for our nation. Like mindset and tradition instead of word "repent" - to change your
there are four, not one! the Scottish reformer, John Knox, seeking Him according to His way! direc-tion!
who came before God in a time of

The first one is: humble your- great need for Scotland and prayed: We must learn to lay down all of our To confess a sin, ask for forgive-
selves! What would it profit if we "Lord, give me Scotland or I die!" own self and come before God with ness and receive it, is something we
prayed and prayed and prayed, God honoured this faithful man of empty hands ready to hear His voice can do over and over again, but that
and God did not listen to us? Unless prayer and gave him Scotland and do His will. That is what it does not mean that we have
we know how to humble ourselves through sending over the land what means to seek God's Face, and that repented of it. Unless we change our
before God, we can forget about is known as the Presbyterian
kind of consecration and direction completely and turn our
being heard in heaven. Remember Revival. availability is a requirement if we backs on our wicked ways, we have
the parable Jesus spoke about the are going to see God heal our land! not repented in the true, Biblical
Pharisee and the tax collector? The In the third place we have to seek sense of that word. And until we
Lord did not listen to the Pharisee. God's Face. This is more than just The fourth requirement speaks turn from our wicked ways we can
All his boasting and self-righteous praying. It means that we actually about repentance: Turn away from not make a way for the Lord to
prayers were totally ignored by come face to face with the Lord. your wicked ways! God requires come and heal our land!
God, because his heart was full of God wants us to get away from
true repentance as a prerequisite [Extracts from: The Powerhouse of
pride. But the tax collector, who praying our own thing, and come to for the healing of the land. It is my God - Johannes Facius, Sovereign
humbled himself before God, went the point where we can be fully experience that believers do not World, 1995].
home justified! If there is anything available for the burdens of the