The Fixed Ears and Eyes of God

Now, O my God, let your eyes be open and your ears attentive to the prayer of this place.
2 Chronicles 6:40

After finishing the construction of the temple, Solomon dedicates it to the Lord through prayer. As we listen to his prayer in chapter 6 of 2 Chronicles, we can hear throughout what he seems to believe is the main purpose of this temple.

...that your eyes may be open day and night toward this house, the place where you have promised to set your name, that you may listen to the prayer that your servant offers toward this place. And listen to the pleas of your servant and of your people Israel, when they pray toward this place. And listen from heaven your dwelling place, and when you hear, forgive.
v.20,21

If your people Israel...pray and plead with you in this house...
v.24

...if they pray toward this place...
v.26

...whatever prayer, whatever plea is made by any man or by all your people Israel, each knowing his own affliction and his own sorrow and stretching out his hands toward this house...
v.29

when [a foreigner] comes and prays toward this house...
v.32

If your people...pray to you toward this city that you have chosen and the house that I have built for your name...
v.34

...if they...pray toward their land, which you gave to their fathers, the city that you have chosen and the house that I have built for your name...
v.38

In building the temple, Solomon knows that if heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain God, how much less this house that he has built (v.18)! So his purpose in building the temple isn't so that God would actually dwell there, but rather that the temple would serve as the place where God would be pleased to meet with His people, to see them and hear their prayers. The temple serves as the place where God has fixed his eyes and his ears so that if His people desire to be seen and heard by Him, this is where they are to come.

So it clearly was in Solomon's day. But what about in ours?

Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.
John 14:13, 14

If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
John 15:7

Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you.
John 16:23

For all the promises of God find their Yes in [Jesus Christ]. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.
2 Corinthians 1:20

God's eyes and ears are still fixed. But they are no longer looking at and listening to what's happening in a temple. They are not even looking at or listening to a people. They are looking at and listening to one beloved Son and His infinitely worthy name. Jesus Christ serves as the place where God has fixed His eyes and His ears so that if His people desire to be seen and heard by Him, this is where they are to come. This is where we must abide.

I tell you, something greater than the temple is here.
Matthew 12:6

Father, thank You that shadows are only that, shadows. Thank You even more for the substance that is Your Son, that our worship is not found on any mountain but as we draw near to Him in spirit and in truth. Thank You that You always hear us through Him. Help me to believe that more often than I do. And, even more importantly, help me to abide in Him so that I would ever be found in the place where Your eyes and ears are fixed in the same way that Anna never departed from the temple where Your eyes and ears were once fixed. In Jesus' name, Amen.