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Week One:

Spend the first session (of six sessions) providing the group an overview of the Forty-Day Challenge to Save Our Nation. Special emphasis should be placed on the following points:

• Our nation’s retreat from many of the positive values that were commonly accepted only a few decades ago
• Why things are not currently right in America
• Some of the striking similarities between the depravity of Sodom and Gomorrah and the current moral condition of the United States
• How we can stop our county’s downward moral and ethical spiral and reverse this trend by recognizing God’s good intentions toward His children (One such intention is detailed in II Chronicles 7:14: “If my people, which 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 heal their land.”)
• By “my people,” God means people who know Him, enjoy a relationship with Him; i.e., He is saying that if we Christians humble ourselves and pray and seek to truly know Him, abandoning any habits and ways that are evil, that He will forgive us and RESTORE OUR LAND!

• II Chronicles 7:14 doesn’t mention what nonbelievers should do — just those of us who call ourselves “Christians.” This means if we — we Christians — obey this command, God will restore our land, benefiting both Christians and non-Christians.

  We can realize this promise if we (personally and as a group) do the following: humble ourselves, pray, seek His face, and turn from our wicked ways.

• What a “healed land” would look like
• That God is willing to withhold the judgment on our nation (much like He was willing to do for Sodom and Gomorrah) if we prove to have a significant element of sincerely righteous people in residence
• That the future of our country possibly depends on our willingness to accept this challenge.
• Challenge members of your group to accept (individually) the forty-day challenge to humble themselves, pray, seek God’s face and turn from their wicked ways. Provide members a copy of “A Thought for Each Day of the Forty-Day Challenge” for them to use as a guide to help them accomplish this goal.
• Spend the first ten minutes of the next five sessions (continuing subsequently with your group’s regular lesson) to emphasizing the following lessons.

Week Two:

Have each person in the group examine his or her heart for the following: pride, selfishness, and entitlement; desire for praise, notoriety, or fame; a need to build themselves up; arrogance, boastfulness, etc. If any have erred in one or more of these areas, that person should ask for God’s forgiveness and help to overcome these weaknesses. They should ask Him to enable them to be sincerely humble as they go about their lives and to seek His glory rather than their own.

Week Three:

After humbling themselves, the next thing individuals should do is examine their hearts to determine what is hidden in there and then compare that with what God requires of us. Once they recognize their sins (there always seems to be some sin lurking in people’s hearts), they should ask for forgiveness of each sin specifically.

Week Four:

After the group prays for forgiveness of their transgressions, they should then pray for our nation. They should pray specifically for every subject pertaining to our nation’s moral and ethical downslide that comes to their minds.

Week Five:

After humbling themselves before God and praying, the next thing they should do is to “seek His face.” Seeking God’s face means being passionate about knowing God’s heart and mind, and desiring to hear from Him related to how they should conduct their lives. They should try to accomplish this by cultivating an open heart and being sensitive to what He is saying to them.

Week Six:

The final step in the healing-our-land process that should be addressed is “turning from their wicked ways.” This means that after humbling themselves before God, admitting they are sinners, confessing their sins and asking Him for forgiveness, they must actually turn from these sins, i.e., abandon them.

I think that God is waiting for us — for Christians — to humble themselves, pray, seek His face, and abandon our wicked ways. I believe that God is willing to withhold the judgment on our nation (much like He was willing to do for Sodom and Gomorrah) if we prove to have an element of sincerely righteous people. I feel that we do indeed at this point have a significant number of righteous people in the United States and that if we join together in appropriating His conditional promise, humbling ourselves, praying, seeking His face and turning from our wicked ways, He will indeed “heal our land.” I challenge believers — including myself — to join forces with other Christians in a movement to fulfill the conditions of this promise from God. The future of our nation may depend on our willingness to fulfill the conditions and claim this promise that God has given us.

Parting Thoughts:

I would like to conclude by expressing my sincere thanks to any who elect to participate in this movement. I hope that you will continue applying (on a daily basis) the four conditions of God’s promise that are detailed in II Chronicles 7:14, even after completing the forty-day challenge.

Although you may come up with your own plan, what I have included here is one possible scenario to assist people in implementing the conditions of the promise in II Chronicles 7:14 in their lives.

Questions/Scheduling of Speaking Engagements

If you have any questions or are interested in scheduling me to speak in your area, my contact information is listed below.

Bill Elder
Founder of the Save Our Nation Movement
Email: mailer1@bill-elder.com
Blog: Bill Elder’s Books
Twitter: SaveOurNation
Facebook: Save Our Nation

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