How many times have you heard the word “revival” in the church over the past 30 years? Churches pray for revival while other churches plan a four-day revival. America needs a Revival or the Third Great Awakening to come soon. So many people ask me how can the church of America, the church of today have a great visitation for the Holy Spirit. I always simply reply that the recipe for revival is in the Bible!
2 Chronicles 7:14 says, “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 will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
Through this very familiar Scripture, I want to point out two parts.
First, the Lord says if you will 1) humble yourself, 2) pray, 3) seek My face and 4) turn from your wicked ways, then He will do three things: 1) hear from heaven, 2) forgive your sin and 3) heal your land.
The first thing the Lord asks us to do is humble ourselves. Now in America there is so much pride and arrogance that this would be a miracle in itself for this to happen. Let’s be honest, we have the brightest of Harvard, Yale etc. running our country, and we are in a mess.
The second thing is to simply pray. The prayer service is the most important service of the week and the most negated in the church of today. The third thing is to seek His face; most people seek the Lord for His hand of blessing but forget to have a close personal relationship with Him. Repentance is almost a lost part of the church today and this is the fourth thing. Turn from our wicked ways. If we can do these four things, God said he would do the next three.
In the second part of this passage, the Lord states that He would hear from heaven. So many Christians honestly believe that God is so far away that He doesn’t even hear our prayers. Many people are still dealing with illegitimacy and have such a father wound in their life that they carry that over to their relationship and walk with God.
The second thing the Lord said he would do is forgive their sin. Hallelujah! The third and final part is that he would heal their/our land! There is hope for America and that hope is Jesus Christ, the hope of America is found in a praying and fasting church!
Joe Joe Dawson is the president of Burn Texarkana Revival center and House of Prayer. Pastor Dawson also serves as staff evangelist for First Assembly of God in Texarkana, Texas, where he also is now the Tribe College/young adult pastor. Burn Texarkana has one revival/awakening service a month at First Assembly and also has Burn on the Road meetings in neighboring cites monthly. There are four Burn Texarkana prayer meetings each week! Joe is married to the love of his life, Autumn, and together they have three kids: Malachi, Judah and Ezra.
