What Does 2 Chronicles 16:9 Mean?
"For the eyes of the LORD move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His. You have acted foolishly in this. Indeed, from now on you will surely have wars."
2 Chronicles 16:9(NASB)
As Christians, we are children of God, fellow-heirs with Christ, citizens of heaven and God's ambassadors in a foreign land, and yet too often we set our hopes on things of this world when life begins to spiral out of control.
· Instead of maintaining unbroken fellowship with the Lord and looking to our heavenly Father for help and sustenance, too often we leave our first love and turn to our bank-balance or earthly relationships to supply our need.
· To often we look to the government for help.. or rely on our skills; our education; our inner-self or personality! It is only after we have exhausted all the natural, worldly avenues of hope that we finally look to the Lord as our last resort.
How like the children of Israel in this passage. They started off so well under the reign on King Asa.
The people were obedient to the Lord; the land was purged of idolatry; enemies were put to rout and God prospered the people in their land of promise.
But as time passed and complacency took root, Israel's life of ease began to be threatened and King Asa sought the help of man rather than maintaining his trust in the Lord.
Complacency is Dangerous for Christians Because It Means You Are Not Growing
Webster’s definition of the word “complacency” is: “a feeling of being satisfied with how things are and not wanting to try to make them better: self-satisfaction especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies.” This sound like a very dangerous place to be if you are a Christian.
God had delivered them out of Egypt and established them in their own land. He had proved Himself so many times to be faithful and true, and yet the nature of man is always to be independent of God, despite the testimony of His never-failing grace in our lives.
Like Israel we have the witness of the word of God together with our own personal testimony that God is our Defense and Defender; our Source and Supply and He is the Rock of our salvation, Whose ear is open to our every cry.
But He is also our life for we have been made a new creation in Christ and have the additional privilege of being positioned in Him by grace through faith and are seated together with Him in heavenly places. Unlike Israel we all have the indwelling holy Spirit of God, Who is working in us to will and to do His good purpose in our lives - as through life's trials and tribulations He is conforming us into the image and likeness of Christ.
· When we choose to turn to the world for sustenance and supply, in times of difficulty or ease.. it means we have turned away from Christ - and in so doing we inhibit or quench the inner workings of the Holy Spirit.
· When we start to trust in anything other than the Lord Jesus, we are looking to the wrong source of supply and allowing the old sin nature to govern our lives rather than the new life in Christ, which we received at salvation
The eyes of the Lord are still searching out men or women whose heart is completely His - so that by grace through faith - Christ may be formed in us.
My Prayer
Heavenly Father, thank You for the truth of Your word and the lessons we can learn from it. I pray that my heart may be completely Yours so that I may be increasingly conformed into the image and likeness of the Lord Jesus - to Your praise and glory, AMEN.
