The eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him – 2 Chronicles 16.9
If you let those words stand alone like that you may picture, like I do, God looking for people who are fully committed to him so that when he finds them he can give them strength.
When you’re reading the whole Bible for yourself you see more. You see before this that Judah’s king Asa used the treasuries of the temple to pay another king to fight Asa’s enemy. So God sends a messenger to Asa reminding him that when God was trusted in the past, he had delivered. Those words above are the words of that messenger.
And you realize Asa thinks things worked out great but now learns God had not only wanted to save Asa from his enemy in that battle, but to deliver Asa’s enemy into Asa’s hand, ending all future battles. But since he wouldn’t rely on God all he got was the solution money could buy – help for the moment. And it’s not really a solution, because God tells him “from now on you will be at war.”
And you see that a big reason Asa didn’t rely on God was because for a long time he and Judah had been very prosperous and so developed the habit of not needing God.
No one had to tell you these things. No one had to tell you what you need to watch out for and what can happen if you’re not very careful. Because you saw them for yourself and they spoke to you as if God were telling you personally.
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