Week 42 Blessed is the Nation…
2 Chronicles 6 and 7:12-16
7:12…the Lord appeared to him at night and said: “I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a temple for sacrifices. 
13 When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, 
14 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. 
15 Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place.
16 I have chosen and consecrated this temple so that my Name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there.

We all probably have 2 Chr 7:14 memorized and hopefully we pray as it says. But I guess I’ve never really paid attention to the context of God’s conditional promise. 

In chapter 6 Solomon has finished God’s temple and prays a long prayer for God’s blessing and favor over the temple, asks the Lord to make it a place of answered prayer, and an abiding place for God’s presence. But most of the prayer asks God to make the temple a HIGH SUPREME COURT full of His justice and mercy, and healing, especially in the case of national sins.

A few months back the Lord gave me a fresh understanding of myself as His temple (See the theme for February.) So, reading verses 7:12-16 with that perspective adds a personal aspect to this prayer. When I take anything to the Lord in prayer, I am in essence bringing it to his temple where He has promised to hear my petitions. He promises His Name, eyes and heart will always hear my case. The Great advocate will always be pleading before the court on my behalf.

Knowing the power available in this temple, look at verse 14 again. ‘If my people’… people can be translated Nation. 

“IF My Nation, who has declared ‘In God we Trust’, would humble themselves in their temple, and intercede, advocating for the Nation, and seek an audience with the true Judge of the Highest Supreme Court, and repent by turning away from the path of destruction, THEN I will hear their case, pardon them and bring the land back into balance.” Selah.

It’s never too late. There is no higher court. Appeal to Heaven.