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Good morning. I hope you enjoyed a safe Independence Day celebration. I'm Mark Foley, and this is the journey. This is the last of three special messages inviting your focus upon the responsibilities of 2 Chronicles 7.14. Now just to remind you, here's what it says that if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land. My eyes will be open and my ears attentive to every prayer made in this place. And the four responsibilities God prescribed for we who consider our lives defined by Jesus Christ, humble self, pray and enter his presence, seek him personally and intentionally, and confess sin and repent from it as he reveals it. These four responsibilities, consistently engaged, constitute a position of effectiveness for the believer. In position, the believer's spiritual tuning is fixed upon the instruction of the word, interpreted and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Now don't mistake this as being some passive walk in the garden, far from it. It is from position that the believer acts under the direction of the Holy Spirit. Will is conformed, an actionable thought is shaped, obedient response is enabled. Like an athlete on a field, the height of effectiveness is achieved when that player evaluates and reacts to ever-changing conditions from the position to which he or she was conditioned and trained and continually practiced. The elements of position and the athlete become one, so that acting from position is second nature. Failure occurs when a player allows pride or emotion to lure that highly trained athlete out of position. And it's the same for you and me. Like the athlete striving to win, you seek change for good in your community. The definition of that change varies from person to person, but the Bible is clear. God holds title to it all. So any change is his to conduct and ours to discover. It is a spirit-led process. Now, doesn't it make sense that the path to change is spiritually discovered? Did Jesus not teach us to pray? May your kingdom become reality and may your will be done here just like it is in heaven? And is that not exactly what God promised to the king of 2 Chronicles? I will hear from heaven and will forgive your sins and restore your land. My eyes will be open and my ears attentive to every prayer made in this place. So prayer gets to be central to it all. So on this week of national celebration, is it not essential that we attend the responsibilities God said he would honor? I'll quote Derek Prince at this point in his urging of people to pray for government. I recommend his book to you, Praying for the Government. You'll find it online. He said this, you complain a lot about government. If you prayed more for it, you might have less to complain about. Now I know you want to do something. Well, start with prayer. Lay down your phone, stop the text gossip, close the app, and get in position. Humble yourself, pray, enter the presence of God, seek him personally and intentionally, and stay there. And when he reveals sin, confess it and stop it. Pay attention to what he begins to do in you and around you. He'll make it clear. Then respond obediently to his urging, no more and no less. And there's that psalm, the great leveler, Psalm 139, 23, 24. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life. Well, there it is, the Fourth of July special. It begins with prayer. It ends with prayer. There's the key to the whole deal. Thanks for listening. I'm Mark Foley, and this is the journey.