I would like you to image for a moment how different live would have
been. What if....
-
President Kennedy had
canceled his trip to Dallas, or ridden in a car with a hard top
-
Germany had won World War
II
-
Nixon had destroyed the
tapes
-
Rodney King was never
beaten
-
Adam did not eat the
fruit
-
Jesus had changed his
mind in the garden of Gethsemane
If speaks of potential, of
possibilities, of chance. The future could look like this, or that. The
outcome depends on actions that are determined by choices.
IF.
What a powerful two letter word. Its greatest value can be realized when
it is applied to the here and now, when the consequences of our choice
is still in our hands. When the future stretches out before us like two
branches in a road. Once the choice is made and actions are
carried out, 'If' no longer has any power, instead we can only imagine
what the outcome would have been if you had made a different
choice.
In 2 Chronicles 7:14 God
is asking His people to humble themselves, pray, seek His face, and
repent. His in turn promises to hear our prayers, forgive our sins
and heal us. Why did this text start with If? Could it be
that God knew that we would be distracted by the hustle and bustles of
life, modern technologies, making a living and all the other things that
come along with life that we wouldn't pray? We are wretched, poor, blind
and naked and don't know it. We as God's children are starving while
seated at the father's table.
Heaven is waiting our request for power. (Mark 11:23, 24) We can attain
this power through prayer. This prayer power can be used to overcome the
mountains of discouragement, spiritual lethargy, lost of purpose and
powerlessness that many of us face.
If we humble ourselves and pray we would:
-
Discover our fantastic
privilege as redeemed children. Many of us don't fully understand or
even know what our Savior has done for us, and what he is willing to
do for us. We are like eagles roosting in a sparrow's nest
when we should be soaring high.
-
Come to understand the
reason why we are here. Some of us believe the only reason we are
here is to love our family, live a good clean moral life, and pay
our taxes. God has a greater plan for us. He wants to make us the
executor of his will and establish His kingdom through us.
Understanding this fact alone will revolutionize our prayer life.
-
Have a better understand
of who God is. Stop trying to box him in with our preferences,
traditions, culture and religious forms. When we make God as small
as we are it is impossible for us to have faith in him. We make him
seem weak, wishy-washy and unreliable. But when we pray in the
Spirit, God grows to enormous proportions. He becomes our all in
all, the source of our joy and the reason and focus of our worship.
We will find the love of our
lives in Jesus 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 will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will
heal their land."
What If?
|
