“And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. According to all that David his father had done.”
– 2 Chronicles 29:2
I love this 2 Chronicles 29:2. I love this chapter. It is a refreshing chapter in the history of Israel or specifically Judah here, the people of God and all these different Kings, who as we looked at in 2 Chronicles 28 were faithless and idolatrous and immoral. Hezekiah comes on the scene and this is such a refreshing chapter. 2 Chronicles 29:2, just talks about all the reforms that Hezekiah made returning to the Lord and calling the people to repent and return to the Lord and the result was great joy and unity and harmony and peace among God’s people because they were doing what was right in his eyes.
Oh, doesn’t that just remind us that this is the way to joy and unity and harmony and peace and life doing what is right in the eyes of the Lord? Living through his eyes, focused on his perspective, according to his word, in every single thing we think and desire and say and do. God help us to do what is right in your eyes.
2 Chronicles 29:2 Leads Us to Praise God
And especially on this Christmas Eve. God, we praise you for coming to us and showing us what life looks like that is completely, totally right in your eyes. Even as we think about Hezekiah’s reforms, but then in ways he fell after that. Jesus, we praise you as the one who never fell pray to sin, who always did what was right in the father’s eyes. You are our Lord, our savior. You are our life and we want to live. We want to live today like you live.
Jesus, we want everything we think and desire and do to be right in your eyes, to be right in the eyes of the father. God, may it be so. And may the joy and unity and harmony and peace that we see in a chapter like this be ours. We think about the announcement from those angels. Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth among those with whom he is pleased. God, we pray for your peace in our hearts, in our lives, in our relationships.
2 Chronicles 29:2 Leads Us to Pray for Revival
God, we pray for reform and revival like this in your church today. God, we pray you’d help us to return to you to repent of ways we have done what is right in our own eyes. And you would help us to do what is right in your eyes. By the power of your spirit in us, Jesus, we pray for this kind of refreshing that we read about in 2 Chronicles 29:2. We pray this over our lives, over our families, over our churches. We pray this over the countries where we live. God, we pray this over nations that have yet to hear the gospel for the Bedouin of Morocco. God, we pray that you would make the good news of Jesus known among the Bedouin of Morocco. Especially on this Christmas Eve when we celebrate your coming.
Lord, we think about billions of people in the world who don’t know the good news of who you are. And the people who don’t know what you have done in Jesus. Please cause the gospel to go to all the unreached in the world and help us as your people to do what is right in your eyes to make disciples of all the nations. Oh, Jesus, we love you. We praise you as the king who shows us what is right in the eyes of the Lord. And we pray you would help us to follow your lead in every way today. You are our king and we love and praise you. In your name, we pray, 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.
