Changes Always Are Coming – What Can We Do?

Word-Of-The-Day: ‘<God said to Solomon,> “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.”’ (2 Chronicles 7:14)

We are in the midst of change at the start of 2025.  It’s a new year, with new members of Congress and a new/different Presidential administration coming as our government.  We’ll have a new College Football Champion, and we’ll find out next month if we’ll have a new Super Bowl Champion.  There will be changes in all aspects of our lives – some changes may come from our own doing; many will come without any input from us at all – whether we want these changes or not.  The changes that will come without our input – what can we do to ‘sway’ the change?  What will happen – will the economy improve or worsen?  Will there be peace or war; will Notre Dame beat Ohio State?

Know that our Lord has all these answers, and more.  He knows where, what, when, why and how will happen to who.  There are things we can do to help mold the future – Hezekiah temporarily stalled God’s Wrath on Israel in Chronicles/Kings; the people of Nineveh repented and forestalled their destruction when they listened and obeyed the Word of the Lord given to them by Jonah.  We as Christians must stand and continue to speak out to others about the Gospel and Biblical truths, and if enough of us can share God’s Word with enough of those who have not heard the Gospel, perhaps our nation will become a God-centric society once again.  If it doesn’t only God knows what will happen…

God gave this ‘if you will/then I will’ promise to Solomon after the completion and dedication of the Temple; as long as the Israelites remained faithful to God, God would bless them.  One thing to note is God in His promise did not expect them to be perfect, as He states He will continually forgive their sins as long as they are faithful.  The people should strive not to sin; they can’t be sinless but they can try to sin less.  Unfortunately, as we seen throughout history, for whatever reason we cannot seem to stay humble and faithful to God but we steer ourselves into being haughty and faithless.

The promise then becomes a ‘if you won’t/then I won’t’ promise; God’s statement could also be translated in the negative as ‘If My people won’t call My name and won’t humble themselves or seek Me and stay wicked, then I won’t hear from heaven and won’t forgive their sin and won’t heal their land.’  The statement also tells us in either the positive (you will/I will) or negative (you won’t/I won’t) translation, God is ‘on watch’.  God is listening and watching at all times; we often hear expressions that are incorrect – ‘God is ignoring us’, ‘God’s Hands are no longer on us’, etc.  He not ignoring us when He doesn’t provide us blessings when we are doing improper things.  God has not left us, but like a parent He is watching what we do, ready to reward good actions and correct wrong actions – in His due time and method. 

He’s already told us how to do things the ‘easy way’ (If you call & follow God, then God will hear you and bless you). He allows us the freedom to choose – his easy (positive) way or our hard (negative) way.  He gives us free will to choose, and we humans seem to choose the negative.  Like a parent, when it gets too far out of hand, He corrects us – the wandering in the desert in the Books of the Pentateuch (Genesis through Deuteronomy), the exile to Babylon in Jeremiah.  Sometimes before God smacks us with the spiritual 2×4, someone realizes we need to turn around and turn back to God – Hezekiah was such a person, as was the Apostle Paul. 

We don’t know if it is too late for the US to turn around from its downward spiral, if enough of us can convince God not to pour out His Wrath but instead pour out His Blessings.  Those of us who call ourselves the Faithful are God’s People, and we need to humble ourselves to seek Him, to reach out in prayer to Him, and repent of our sins, follow Him and obey Him by following the Great Commission.  We may yet be able to change history, as some have done before us.