Terms and Conditions

Terms and conditions. I am going to go out on a limb here and say that I am probably not the only one who has accepted terms and conditions without ever ready through what they are. Can I get an “amen”?  Who has time to read through all of that legalese to just get to the end and not understand what you just read anyway?  You need a lawyer to read through all of that to make sense of it, and who really has the time and money for that?  So, instead, we just click on the “accept” button and continue on with life.

The Bible has terms and conditions too. Some of them take no effort of our own, God takes care of all of it for us. Others have certainly conditions we must meet for God to fulfill His end of the agreement. We had an awesome sermon at church yesterday by Pastor Phillip about one of the most important terms and conditions found in God’s Word. Now before you jump all over me, I understand that this was originally given to the nation of Israel, but I’m sure it still holds true today to those of us that call ourselves Christians.

“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. - 2 Chronicles 7:14. The two words “if” and “then” are the terms and conditions of the agreement. If we do what God has laid out for us to do, then He will follow through with what He has agreed to.

God asks us, as individuals and as a country, to do four very specific things: humble ourselves, pray, seek Him and turn, or repent, from our wicked ways. I think they need to be done in the very order as well. We live in a society nowadays that thinks to be humble is to be week. We instructed to take the tiger by the tail and go after the things we want, even if it’s against God’s will. The final task in the lost is to repent, to turn in the complete opposite direction from where we are currently heading.

If we do those four things, God says that He will in turn do three things for us: hear, forgive and heal. He will not hear us until we have completed the four requirements listed above. Once He knows that we are sincere and completely turned from our sinful ways, then, and only then, will he hear us, forgive us, and heal both us individually and as a country.

The health of this country is dependent on Christians following through on the terms and conditions of this agreement. Non-believers will never do this, it is up to us as Christians to take part in this. Our country is headed in the wrong direction and it’s partly to blame for the lack of backbone found in Christianity today. Will you do your part?

Have a great day and God bless.