Hear Us from Heaven — Readers’ Choice

Scripture Focus: 1 Kings 8:49-50
49 …then from heaven, your dwelling place, hear their prayer and their plea, and uphold their cause. 50 And forgive your people, who have sinned against you; forgive all the offenses they have committed against you, and cause their captors to show them mercy…

Originally published on October 05, 2022, based on readings from 1 Kings.

Readers’ Choice posts are selected by our readers:
Kolade, Nigeria — Thank you for sharing God’s word.

Reflection: Hear Us from Heaven — Readers’ Choice
By Erin Newton

Upon the dedication of the Temple, the presence of God fills the Holy Place like a cloud. The cloud is so magnificent that the priests move away and can no longer do their jobs. With the manifestation of God in the Temple, Solomon begins to pray for God’s grace upon the people.

The prayer of Solomon begins with the adoration of God. He praises his superiority and supremacy. Solomon marvels at the magnitude of God. But overall, the recurring message in the prayer is the plea for mercy. He stands between God and the people and falls to his knees, knowing that only by mercy can they live.

Within this 30-verse prayer, the phrase “hear from heaven” (or phrases similar) occurs 13 times. Even seeing the cloud, a visible manifestation of God’s presence, Solomon wanted to plead with God to hear him. 

The design of the Temple that Solomon built had many features common to temples in the ancient Near East. There were distinct differences but nothing more distinct than the absence of images of the deity. God had already declared to Moses that they were to never make images of him. They worshiped the invisible God. 

The command to follow and rely on God, forever unseen, was a huge act of faith. The people struggled with knowing that God was working when there were no outward signs. Psalm 77 echoes this sentiment, “Your path led through the sea, your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints were not seen.” Even the miraculous parting of the Red Sea is couched in the idea of hidden footprints. 

Solomon prays over and over that in all sorts of situations God would be merciful and hear the pleas from heaven. Each scenario begins with a crisis, followed by a call to repentance, a plea for a listening ear, and a resolution to live righteously.

This prayer is as apt today as it was 3000 years ago. We have the Holy Spirit who brings the presence of God, not just into our midst, but within our being. But even with this constant presence, we plead with God to hear us. We need him to hear or we will be left in our crises.

One day our faith will be made sight. One day we will see our Lord face to face. For now, we pray to the invisible God and know that he is listening.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Greeting
Happy are they whom you choose and draw to your courts to dwell there! They will be satisfied by the beauty of your house, by the holiness of your temple. — Psalm 65.4

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
1 Samuel 25 (Listen 7:12)
Revelation 5 (Listen 2:39)

This Weekend’s Readings
1 Samuel 26 (Listen 4:30Revelation 6 (Listen 3:12)
1 Samuel 27 (Listen 1:59Revelation 7 (Listen 2:56)

Monday’s Reading
1 Samuel 28 (Listen 4:04Revelation 8 (Listen 2:15)

Read more about The House God Desires
When we make room for God in our hearts and lives, he will enter.
And when our lives are over, we will awake in the house of God.

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Hear Us from Heaven

Readers’ Choice Month:
Thank you for sending your selections of meaningful and helpful devotionals from the past 12 months. We have a few extra Readers’ Choice posts we will drop into this week and next. Remember that you don’t have to wait to send a Readers’ Choice. You can submit them all year long simply by replying back to our emails or filling out the form found at this link.

Scripture Focus: 1 Kings 8:49-50
49 …then from heaven, your dwelling place, hear their prayer and their plea, and uphold their cause. 50 And forgive your people, who have sinned against you; forgive all the offenses they have committed against you, and cause their captors to show them mercy…

Reflection: Hear Us from Heaven
By Erin Newton

Upon the dedication of the Temple, the presence of God fills the Holy Place like a cloud. The cloud is so magnificent that the priests move away and can no longer do their jobs. With the manifestation of God in the Temple, Solomon begins to pray for God’s grace upon the people.

The prayer of Solomon begins with the adoration of God. He praises his superiority and supremacy. Solomon marvels at the magnitude of God. But overall, the recurring message in the prayer is the plea for mercy. He stands between God and the people and falls to his knees, knowing that only by mercy can they live.

Within this 30-verse prayer, the phrase “hear from heaven” (or phrases similar) occurs 13 times. Even seeing the cloud, a visible manifestation of God’s presence, Solomon wanted to plead with God to hear him.

The design of the Temple that Solomon built had many features common to temples in the ancient Near East. There were distinct differences but nothing more distinct than the absence of images of the deity. God had already declared to Moses that they were to never make images of him. They worshiped the invisible God.

The command to follow and rely on God, forever unseen, was a huge act of faith. The people struggled with knowing that God was working when there were no outward signs. Psalm 77 echoes this sentiment, “Your path led through the sea, your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints were not seen.” Even the miraculous parting of the Red Sea is couched in the idea of hidden footprints.

Solomon prays over and over that in all sorts of situations God would be merciful and hear the pleas from heaven. Each scenario begins with a crisis, followed by a call to repentance, a plea for a listening ear, and a resolution to live righteously.

This prayer is as apt today as it was 3000 years ago. We have the Holy Spirit who brings the presence of God, not just into our midst, but within our being. But even with this constant presence, we plead with God to hear us. We need him to hear or we will be left in our crises.

One day our faith will be made sight. One day we will see our Lord face to face. For now, we pray to the invisible God and know that he is listening.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence
Show us the light of your countenance, O God, and come to us. — Psalm 67.1

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings*
Ezekiel 5 (Listen 3:28)
Romans 8 (Listen 6:22)

*We have diverted into 1 Kings and Ephesians for this week. Devotionals on our daily readings will continue next week.

Read more about The Mountain of the Lord
Jesus is the mountain, the Temple, that is exalted over all other gods, rulers, and authorities.

Read more about The House God Desires
When we make room for God in our hearts and lives, he will enter.
And when our lives are over, we will awake in the house of God.

Better Temples

Scripture Focus: 1 Kings 8.27, 30, 41-43
27 “But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!… 30 Hear the supplication 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.

41 “As for the foreigner who does not belong to your people Israel but has come from a distant land because of your name—42 for they will hear of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm—when they come and pray toward this temple, 43 then hear from heaven, your dwelling place. Do whatever the foreigner asks of you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your own people Israel, and may know that this house I have built bears your Name. 

Ephesians 5.8-10, 13-14
8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) 10 and find out what pleases the Lord… 13 But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. 14 This is why it is said: 

“Wake up, sleeper, 
rise from the dead, 
and Christ will shine on you.” 

Reflection: Better Temples
By John Tillman

The dedication of the Temple was a momentous occasion for Israel. It was in many ways a culmination of God’s promise to Abraham to bless the nations. 

The dedication of the Temple and God’s indwelling of it was an event that later generations would look back to as part of God’s unique identity. He was the God who brought them out of Egypt and the God who sanctified his own Temple.

In many ways, Jesus is our Temple and Solomon’s prayers are better answered in Jesus than in the structure Solomon built.

Jesus’ life stands, like the Temple, as a miraculous work of God. He is the promised one who fulfills all of God’s promises.

Solomon asks the question, “Will God really dwell on Earth?” In answer, God’s Spirit fills the Temple as a cloud, but the more resounding answer was described by the apostle John, who, speaking of Jesus, said “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

Solomon asked that the Temple be a channel of prayer, open to all people at all times. Regardless of location and even when being punished for their sin, he asked that God would hear from his Temple the prayers of his people. In Jesus, we become not just worshipers but family, able to cry to God as our father. God’s Holy Spirit hears us not from some distant structure, but from within our own hearts.

The most significant request Solomon repeats is that the Temple be a place of God’s forgiveness to which sinful people could cry out, cling to, and be saved. This is also answered in Jesus. The cross is an altar greater than Solomon’s. It’s sacrifice more precious. It’s forgiveness enduring forever. It is an event we look back to as a part of our God’s unique identity.

As believers, we are God’s Temple. (1 Peter 2.5; 1 Corinthians 3.16) We are God’s means of blessing for the world. We are his priests offering forgiveness to the world. 

May we be a better Temple, shining the light of truth that exposes sin but also celebrating and proclaiming forgiveness for all.

To a world asleep to sins of all kinds, both individual and collective sins, we must sound the call to wake up, return to God, and receive forgiveness and life forevermore.

“Wake up, sleeper, 
rise from the dead, 
and Christ will shine on you.” Ephesians 5.14

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence
May God be merciful to us and bless us, show us the light of his countenance and come to us. — Psalm 9.11

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
1 Kings 8 (Listen – 10:23)
Ephesians 5 (Listen – 3:42)

Read more about Christ our Temple, River, and City
Christ himself is our temple. He is the gate, the doorway, through which we enter to worship.

Read more about Treasuring Our Temples
It is difficult to overstate how confident Judah was…It was unthinkable that the Temple would fall.

From Privilege to Prisoner to Priest

Scripture Focus: Ephesians 4:1-2

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.

Many churches in the United States celebrate the Feast of St Francis of Assisi on October 4 each year. The feast commemorates the life of St Francis, who was born in the 12th century. Jon provides us an excellent reflection on today’s reading in Ephesians drawn from events of Francis’s life.

Reflection: From Privilege to Prisoner to Priest
By Jon Polk

St. Francis of Assisi is generally known for his peaceful disposition and love for animals and nature. The Prayer of St. Francis (authorship uncertain, but often attributed to Francis) begins…

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.

However, this devoted follower of Christ, widely regarded for his vow of poverty, did not begin life in a humble way. Francis was born in Italy around 1181 to a wealthy cloth merchant and his beautiful French wife. By age 14, Francis, spoiled by luxury, dropped out of school and gained a reputation as a rebellious teen, known for drinking, partying, and vanity.

His privileged upbringing afforded him training in archery and horsemanship and when war broke out in 1202, he joined the cavalry. Having no combat experience, Francis was easily captured by opposing forces and imprisoned for a year before ransom was negotiated.

But during his time as a prisoner of war, Francis began to receive visions from God and arrived home a changed man. He turned his heart towards God and spent time in prayer, seeking direction.

Eventually, he felt the call of Christ to serve the Church and to live a life of extreme poverty—fully devoted to Christianity. He is considered by many to be one of the purest examples of living the Christian life, other than Jesus himself.

Certainly, Francis embodies Paul’s encouragement to the Ephesians to “live a life worthy of the calling you have received” and to “be completely humble and gentle.”

Francis’ deep dedication and gratitude to God is seen expressed in these excerpts from a song he composed, Canticle of the Sun. May these words guide our worship and service to Christ.

Most High, all powerful, good Lord,
Yours are the praises, the glory, the honor,
and all blessing.
To You alone, Most High, do they belong,
and no man is worthy to mention Your name.
Blessed are those who endure in peace
for by You, Most High, they shall be crowned.
Woe to those who die in mortal sin.
Blessed are those whom death will
find in Your most holy will,
for the second death shall do them no harm.
Praise and bless my Lord,
and give Him thanks
and serve Him with great humility.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer
Come now and see the works of God, how wonderful he is in his doing toward all people. — Psalm 66.5

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
1 Kings 7 (Listen – 7:47)
Ephesians 4 (Listen – 3:58)

This Weekend’s Readings
1 Kings 8 (Listen – 10:23) Ephesians 5 (Listen – 3:42)
1 Kings 9 (Listen – 4:16) Ephesians 6 (Listen – 3:17)

Thank You!
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Read more about Paul’s Prayer for the Power of Faith
Give us service to perform.
Give us needs to meet.
Give us debts to cancel.
Give us trouble for which you are the only answer.

https://theparkforum.org/843-acres/pauls-prayer-for-the-power-of-faith/

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Read more about How to Know When to Give
As the Corinthians’ generosity caused Paul to celebrate, may our generosity bring joy and refreshment to those doing good in the world.