God’s Eyes – The Presidential Prayer Team

A man’s ways are before the eyes of the Lord. – Proverbs 5:21

Religion focuses on what man does to please God. Believers should aim to please God, but if their focus is merely on what they can do, God Himself can be disregarded. Religious acts can be performed apart from the Lord. That He has eyes, ears and emotions can be forgotten. Some people forget they are made in God’s image and through their philosophies attempt to make Him in their own image. They forget they are dealing with a living Being, omnipotent (all-powerful), omniscient (all-knowing), and omnipresent (all places at once). Today’s verse focuses on Him being all-seeing.

“Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord,” and he and his family were spared from the flood (Genesis 6:8). The books of 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles are often called the “kings’ report cards.” The kings of Judah and Israel were judged by whether they did right in God’s sight. The Psalmist says, “The Lord is in His holy temple; the Lord’s throne is in heaven; his eyes see, his eyelids test the children of man” (Psalm 11:4).

Peter quotes Psalm 34:14, “For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer” (1 Peter 3:12). Worship and live for the God who sees you. He intimately cares for you and the details of your life. As you make your requests before Him, intercede for the nation. The eyes of God see everything, even those things that are hidden from the eyes of man.

Today’s Verse: Proverbs 5:21

For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the Lord,
and he ponders all his paths.

All Scripture quotations and audio are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Recommended for further reading: Genesis 16

¹ Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. ²And Sarai said to Abram, “Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. ³So, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife. ⁴And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. ⁵And Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my servant to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the Lord judge between you and me!” ⁶But Abram said to Sarai, “Behold, your servant is in your power; do to her as you please.” Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her.

⁷The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. ⁸And he said, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” She said, “I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai.” ⁹The angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her.” ¹⁰The angel of the Lord also said to her, “I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude.” ¹¹And the angel of the Lord said to her,

“Behold, you are pregnant
    and shall bear a son.
You shall call his name Ishmael,
    because the Lord has listened to your affliction.
¹²He shall be a wild donkey of a man,
    his hand against everyone
    and everyone’s hand against him,
and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen.”

¹³So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.” ¹⁴Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; it lies between Kadesh and Bered.

¹⁵And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. ¹⁶Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram.