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If My People Pray

2 Chronicles 7: 11-22 (ESV)
If My People Pray

11 Thus Solomon finished the house of the Lord and the king's house. All that Solomon had planned to do in the house of the Lord and in his own house he successfully accomplished. 12 Then the Lord appeared to Solomon in the night and said to him: “I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice. 13 When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, 14 if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.15 Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place. 16 For now I have chosen and consecrated this house that my name may be there for ever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time. 

17 And as for you, if you will walk before me as David your father walked, doing according to all that I have commanded you and keeping my statutes and my rules, 18 then I will establish your royal throne, as I covenanted with David your father, saying, ‘You shall not lack a man to rule Israel.’19 “But if you turn aside and forsake my statutes and my commandments that I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, 20 then I will pluck you up from my land that I have given you, and this house that I have consecrated for my name, I will cast out of my sight, and I will make it a proverb and a by word among all peoples.21 And at this house, which was exalted, everyone passing by will be astonished and say,‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house?’ 22 Then they will say, ‘Because they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers who brought them out of the land of Egypt and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore he has brought all this disaster on them.’”

These were the instructions that God gave King Solomon after he had finished building and dedicating the temple.  As leaders who have built up a ministry (a temple) and are physically serving the Lord (we serve as princes and princesses in The Kingdom), may we be prayerful for one another to dwell richly in God, that our hearts would be focused on God's every move.  May the Spirit lead us and continue to humble our hearts as we use our shield of faith.  In the passage above we see that God asked the PEOPLE to

-Humble themselves
-Pray and Seek His face
-Turn from their wicked ways, I want to paraphrase and just say turn from our way.  

He asked Solomon to follow Him.  God desired Solomon's heart.  God gave Solomon all that he could ever imagine, and more.  An example from the beginning of Solomon's reign is from In 1 Kings 3:7-9 when he asks for wisdom, and discerning heart of right and wrong. God's instructions to Solomon from the beginning was to follow Him. Unfortunately King Solomon's biggest struggle, though he had justice in his heart and all the wisdom and wealth in all the world, was that he allowed other gods and idols into his life.  So at the end of his 40 years reign we see that he writes Ecclesiastics as his last wisdom to the people to follow the Lord and know that all things on earth are temporary and looses its meaning without the Father.  We all fail, but with our failures God makes us have great faith.  May we be prayerful for one another to have a mind set to follow our Father and to help us filter out the idols in our life.  

-Walk before me as David your father walked
-Do all that I have commanded you and keep my statues and my rules

As we pray together, we seek his face together, and we are humbled together. 
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