Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Chronicles 5-7.

I love the prayer of dedication which Solomon prayed for the temple when it was completed.  I also love God’s response to Solomon’s prayer as recorded here.  Early in his prayer Solomon says, “Hear the supplications of your servant and of your people Israel when they pray toward this place. Hear from heaven, your dwelling place; and when you hear, forgive.”  Most of the rest of the prayer is about circumstances where God’s people have sinned and turn to God in prayer.  The one exception is when Solomon prays that God will also hear, and answer, the prayers of foreigners who seek Him.  God responds by telling Solomon that He has indeed chosen the place of the temple as the place for sacrifices.  In this way, God addressed the command He had given Israel to gather to one place to worship Him (which I mentioned yesterday).  God also says that His eyes will always be open and His ears attentive to prayers offered at the temple.

In my opinion, the most important part of God’s response to Solomon’s prayer is, “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 I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. ”  I want to take that apart to examine it a little more closely.  First, it is a promise to God’s people, and it tells us who God’s people are: all who are called by His name are His people.  So, if we accept being called by His name we can become one of God’s people.  However, if we wish to gain any benefit from being one of God’s people we must humble ourselves, pray, and seek God’s face.  Furthermore, if we have sinned, and Solomon told us in his prayer that there is no one who does not sin, we must turn from our wickedness.  Then, God will forgive our sins and heal our land.  We often overlook something this passage tells us about prayer: being humble is a precondition to prayer.  No matter what we think we are doing, we cannot pray unless we are humble.  Until we seek to be fully dependent on God, our attempts at prayer are worthless.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.