Hearing Us from Heaven By: Patricia Raybon
Jan 12, 2022 16:38:26 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Jan 12, 2022 16:38:26 GMT -5
Hearing Us from Heaven By: Patricia Raybon
Click here for the Audio Message
Hear from heaven their prayer and their plea.
1 Kings 8:45
Today's Scripture & Insight:
1 Kings 8:37–45
At eighteen months old, little Maison had never heard his mother’s voice. Then doctors fitted him with his first hearing aids and his mom, Lauryn, asked him, “Can you hear me?” The child’s eyes lit up. “Hi, Baby!” Lauryn added. A smiling Maison responded to his mother with soft coos. In tears, Lauryn knew she’d witnessed a miracle. She’d given birth to Maison prematurely after gunmen shot her three times during a random home invasion. Weighing just one pound, Maison spent 158 days in intensive care and wasn’t expected to survive, let alone be able to hear.
That heart-warming story reminds me of the God who hears us. King Solomon prayed fervently for God’s attuned ear, especially during troubling times. When “there is no rain” (1 Kings 8:35), during “famine or plague,” disaster or disease (v. 37), war (v. 44), and even sin, “hear from heaven their prayer and their plea,” Solomon prayed, “and uphold their cause” (v. 45).
In His goodness, God responded with a promise that still stirs our hearts. “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” (2 Chronicles 7:14). Heaven may seem a long way off. Yet Jesus is with those who believe in Him. God hears our prayers, and He answers them.
Reflect & Pray
What troubling situation can you pray about today, believing God is hearing you from heaven? What help from God can you thank Him for because He hears your plea?
Heavenly Father, during my toughest struggles and troubles, I thank You for hearing my humble cry.
SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
It’s interesting to note the “funnel of contexts” in 1 Kings regarding Solomon’s temple. At the top—the broadest context—is the account of the dedication of the temple (7:51–9:9). Down one layer is Solomon’s speech (8:12–61). The final layer is the prayer of dedication (vv. 22–53), where Solomon rehearses the circumstances in which God is bound by His covenant with His people to act on their behalf.
J.R. Hudberg
1 Kings 8:37-45
King James Version
37 If there be in the land famine, if there be pestilence, blasting, mildew, locust, or if there be caterpiller; if their enemy besiege them in the land of their cities; whatsoever plague, whatsoever sickness there be;
38 What prayer and supplication soever be made by any man, or by all thy people Israel, which shall know every man the plague of his own heart, and spread forth his hands toward this house:
39 Then hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, and forgive, and do, and give to every man according to his ways, whose heart thou knowest; (for thou, even thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men;)
40 That they may fear thee all the days that they live in the land which thou gavest unto our fathers.
41 Moreover concerning a stranger, that is not of thy people Israel, but cometh out of a far country for thy name's sake;
42 (For they shall hear of thy great name, and of thy strong hand, and of thy stretched out arm;) when he shall come and pray toward this house;
43 Hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, and do according to all that the stranger calleth to thee for: that all people of the earth may know thy name, to fear thee, as do thy people Israel; and that they may know that this house, which I have builded, is called by thy name.
44 If thy people go out to battle against their enemy, whithersoever thou shalt send them, and shall pray unto the Lord toward the city which thou hast chosen, and toward the house that I have built for thy name:
45 Then hear thou in heaven their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their cause.
Click here for the Audio Message
Hear from heaven their prayer and their plea.
1 Kings 8:45
Today's Scripture & Insight:
1 Kings 8:37–45
At eighteen months old, little Maison had never heard his mother’s voice. Then doctors fitted him with his first hearing aids and his mom, Lauryn, asked him, “Can you hear me?” The child’s eyes lit up. “Hi, Baby!” Lauryn added. A smiling Maison responded to his mother with soft coos. In tears, Lauryn knew she’d witnessed a miracle. She’d given birth to Maison prematurely after gunmen shot her three times during a random home invasion. Weighing just one pound, Maison spent 158 days in intensive care and wasn’t expected to survive, let alone be able to hear.
That heart-warming story reminds me of the God who hears us. King Solomon prayed fervently for God’s attuned ear, especially during troubling times. When “there is no rain” (1 Kings 8:35), during “famine or plague,” disaster or disease (v. 37), war (v. 44), and even sin, “hear from heaven their prayer and their plea,” Solomon prayed, “and uphold their cause” (v. 45).
In His goodness, God responded with a promise that still stirs our hearts. “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” (2 Chronicles 7:14). Heaven may seem a long way off. Yet Jesus is with those who believe in Him. God hears our prayers, and He answers them.
Reflect & Pray
What troubling situation can you pray about today, believing God is hearing you from heaven? What help from God can you thank Him for because He hears your plea?
Heavenly Father, during my toughest struggles and troubles, I thank You for hearing my humble cry.
SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
It’s interesting to note the “funnel of contexts” in 1 Kings regarding Solomon’s temple. At the top—the broadest context—is the account of the dedication of the temple (7:51–9:9). Down one layer is Solomon’s speech (8:12–61). The final layer is the prayer of dedication (vv. 22–53), where Solomon rehearses the circumstances in which God is bound by His covenant with His people to act on their behalf.
J.R. Hudberg
1 Kings 8:37-45
King James Version
37 If there be in the land famine, if there be pestilence, blasting, mildew, locust, or if there be caterpiller; if their enemy besiege them in the land of their cities; whatsoever plague, whatsoever sickness there be;
38 What prayer and supplication soever be made by any man, or by all thy people Israel, which shall know every man the plague of his own heart, and spread forth his hands toward this house:
39 Then hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, and forgive, and do, and give to every man according to his ways, whose heart thou knowest; (for thou, even thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men;)
40 That they may fear thee all the days that they live in the land which thou gavest unto our fathers.
41 Moreover concerning a stranger, that is not of thy people Israel, but cometh out of a far country for thy name's sake;
42 (For they shall hear of thy great name, and of thy strong hand, and of thy stretched out arm;) when he shall come and pray toward this house;
43 Hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, and do according to all that the stranger calleth to thee for: that all people of the earth may know thy name, to fear thee, as do thy people Israel; and that they may know that this house, which I have builded, is called by thy name.
44 If thy people go out to battle against their enemy, whithersoever thou shalt send them, and shall pray unto the Lord toward the city which thou hast chosen, and toward the house that I have built for thy name:
45 Then hear thou in heaven their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their cause.