Right now I am in Colorado. What a wild ride! We visited here 6 years ago and now by God’s grace we are back to see friends and enjoy the RMNP.
Reading through 1 and 2 Chronicles can be a chore. My advice- DO IT. (As part of the One Year Bible reading plan, this is where I landed today- July 6- 2 Chronicles chapter 7)
Today my mind was blown by 2 Chronicles 7:12
“Then the Lord appeared to Solomon by night, and said to him: “I have heard your prayer, and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice.”
II Chronicles 7:12 NKJV
God said “No way Jose” (just kidding, that’s some 4th grade humor for you)
God blessed Solomon & indeed granted him wisdom to lead God’s people. Solomon built the temple and chapter 7 is a beautiful ceremony where Solomon dedicates the temple. God appears a second time and says “I have heard your prayer”
The LORD constantly reminds me what a privilege it is, that we get to pray to our mighty God. We cry out to the God of the heavens and the Earth. We get to breathe prayers, pray silently or outloud, we can write in our prayer journals, we get to call out desperately to our big God we can scream our prayers, we can say them in a whisper or wimper or call out the 3-word prayer I say often “Jesus help me!”
Solomon is clearly and unequivocally dedicated the temple and saying publicly- this is a place of prayer!
Many of us are familiar with 2 Chronicles 7:14
“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 will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
This is a verse many of us have memorized. It appears to be almost a “template” for a prayer for our nation.
God used the modifier if…
God is directing us to prayer.
God is inviting us to pray to Him and with Him. The Holy Spirit lives to make intercession so in many ways, we are calling God and saying “Would you pray with me?”
God says, “I always pray. And Yes it would be lovely to pray with you”
2 Chronicles 7:12 should be a holy verse to us and reminder that God is a “choosing” God. God chose Abraham. God chose Isaac. God chose Jacob. God chose and selected David the son of Jesse. God sent Jesus who then chose “the 12” to be His disciples.
God chose Saul and pre-ordained him to he melted and transformed into Paul.
And here, way back in 2 Chronicles 7:12 God speaks and says “(I) have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice”
The LORD continues on and says
“When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, 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 will forgive their sin and heal their land. Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to prayer made in this place. For now I have chosen and sanctified this house, that My name may be there forever; and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually.”
II Chronicles 7:13-16 NKJV
My eyes and heart will be there perpetually
See, in the Old Testament, the people needed a “spot” to meet with God.
They needed a place to direct their gaze. They needed a location to offer sacrifices of lambs and rams and incense, etc.
… Jesus changed all of this!!!
Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, you no longer need to search for certain places to worship God. God is not locational or seasonal. God is the only LORD over everything and everyone.
You you no longer needed to sacrifice a lamb to momentarily cover your sin. Jesus became the Lamb to permanently take away our sins!
We no longer need to go to a temple to pray…
We now can pray DIRECTLY to God our Father in the Name of Jesus and inspired by the Holy Spirit.
God’s Holy Temple (like the One Solomon dedicated) is now within us.
“Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.”
I Corinthians 3:16-17 NKJV
Let’s praise God for making a new temple. You are the temple, I am the temple, we God’s people can pray and praise and lament and repent.
We are the temple of the living God! Let’s make this temple clean and welcoming for Him to dwell!
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