“The Lord spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they paid no attention.”
– 2 Chronicles 33:10
Wow, what a verse that determined everything for Manasseh and the people of God. “The Lord spoke to them, but they paid no attention to him.” As I read that verse, can I just ask you, are you paying attention to what the Lord is saying in your life? I think, first and foremost, just look at the Bible, 66 books that are the word of God.
Are you paying attention to what he is saying? Oh, are you studying and memorizing and meditating on his word day and night? Are you paying attention to what he has said? And then, as his spirit leads you according to his word, are you, am I, following the leadership of his spirit? Are we inquiring of him every day, “God, what do you want me to do in this situation and that circumstance?” And are we paying attention to what he says? Or are we doing things just on our own, our own ways, according to our own thoughts?
Paying Attention to God’s Word
Help us to pay attention to what you are saying and to live according to your word to us.
Your life, my life hinges on paying attention to what God has said. So can we just pray, God, help us not to live 2 Chronicles 33:10 kind of lives when you’re speaking to us and we’re paying no attention to what you’re saying? God, please help us to be people of your word, people who listen to your word daily, who meditate on it day and night.
God, I pray this over my life, over the lives of every single person listening right now. Help us to read your word, study your word, digest your word, memorize your word, meditate on your word. We pray that your word would fill our minds and our hearts that we would be a people who are paying attention to what you are saying and that you would help us to seek you in the leadership of your spirit, in all things, that we would inquire of you, continually looking to you for help, looking to you for guidance, looking to you for direction. Not turning to ourselves or even to others before turning to you, oh God.
2 Chronicles 33:10 Prays for God’s Word to be Heard in All Nations
Help us to pay attention to what you are saying and to live according to your word to us. God, make us a people who are paying attention to your word and spreading it. Oh God, we pray for people groups in the world who don’t have your word. Who don’t know your word. God, for the Izarguien people of Morocco. God, these Sahara, Arab, Muslim people. So God, we pray, we pray for the spread of your word to the Izargian people of Morocco and thousands of other groups like them.
So God, we pray that you would give them receptivity to your word. God, I think about Christians I’ve met in Morocco. Specifically who heard your word over airwaves, via radio, or through other technological means. God, we pray that you would open ears and eyes today through phones and radios to the good news of your grace. That people in Morocco, specifically Izargian men, women, and children would hear your word and pay attention to it.
And God, we pray that you would help us as your church to be faithful in making it known to them that you would bless all of the attempts to spread your word in Morocco and among unreached people around the world. God, we pray that it would be true of us that we paid attention to your word in our lives, our families, our churches, that we obeyed it, and that we spread edit with zeal during the time we have in this world. In Jesus’ name, we pray according to 2 Chronicles 33:10. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
