
The Text:
“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves…” -2 Chronicles 7:14a
But remember…
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” - Jeremiah 17:9
Q: So what heart attitude IS pleasing to the Lord?
A:
“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves…”
“Humble” in Hebrew means: “to bring down”, “to be low”, “to be subdued, under subjection”
Q1: How do we do that?
Q2: What does this have to do with prayer?
Q: How do we “humble ourselves”?
A: bring
Jesus taught…
“When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” - Luke 14:8-11
A2: We humble ourselves when we see ourselves
Isaiah saw God correctly…
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” - Isaiah 55:9
A3: “We also see ourselves
Remember God said: “very good” - Genesis 1:31
Q: What does humility have to do with prayer?
A: Well…when you’re humble, you recognize your true
Q: But what DID God do?
A: Jesus
“Jesus humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” - Philippians 2:8-11
- Remember Jesus brought us “Salvation”!
POINT: Prayer IS an act of
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