Guard Your Heart (2 Chronicles 12:14)

And he did evil, for he did not set his heart to seek the Lord.
—2 Chronicles 12:14

Let me read that one more time. Just let it soak in. This is talking about King Rehoboam: “He did evil.” Why? Because “He did not set his heart to seek the Lord.”

2 Chronicles 12:14 teaches the importance of intentionally seeking God.

If you don’t set your heart to seek the Lord, then you will do evil. But when you set your heart to seek the Lord, you will do good. This is such a simple, powerful verse that shouts to you and me, “Set your heart to seek the Lord.” Obedience and the good life, according to God’s good design, don’t happen accidentally. It happens when you set your heart to seek God. And I just want to encourage you to intentionally do that today. Set your heart to seek God.

Let’s think about what that means and what that looks like practically, to set your heart to seek God. Suddenly, that means to set your heart on God’s Word, to fix your heart on God’s Word, to spend time with him in prayer, like concentrated time in ways that lead to continual time in prayer, seeking God all day long. Set your heart to seek God in everything you need, for everything you need, in every moment you need help, which is all day long. Set your heart to seek the Lord today, and it will lead to good.

2 Chronicles 12:14 teaches the danger of a heart that doesn’t seek God.

If you don’t set your heart to seek the Lord, then it will lead to evil. It will lead to that which is not good.

So God, we pray in this moment. We want to set our hearts to seek you, to seek you with all our hearts, as we read about in David’s charge to Solomon, to seek you with a whole heart as we read in 1 Chronicles 16, to seek you and your strength, to seek you and the joy that comes from you, to seek your presence continually.

God, we pray, Jeremiah 29:13, that we would seek you with all our hearts and we would find you, and experience you, and walk with you, and see you, and know you, and understand you, and glorify you, that we would experience in all of this the good life you have for us. God, we pray that you would help us to avoid evil. Lead us not into temptation. Deliver us from evil, as our hearts are set on seeking you.

God, we pray that you would help us to bring others along with us, to seek you with us. You would help us to encourage other brothers and sisters in Christ in seeking after you today and experiencing the good life in you, and leading others who don’t know you to seek you and find you.

Prayer for the Hatkar People

And God, we pray this for peoples of the world. We pray for the Hatkar people of India, for 400,000 Marathi-speaking Hindu men, women, and children. No known followers of Jesus among them.

We pray, God, that among the Hatkar people, seekers of you would spread the good news of who you are to them and that they might seek you and find you and experience your salvation and experience the good life you have for them forever. We pray that over the Hatkar people. Please cause the gospel to spread to them that they might seek you and experience your salvation. Lord, we pray all this according to your Word, which we love in 2 Chronicles 12:14: set our hearts to seek you; we pray. Amen.