Lord, Teach Us To Pray! Part 133

Prayers of the Old Testament
The Prayer of Abraham continued...

Abraham loved God. This is obvious in his actions and conduct. Abraham did not love God for what God had given him, nor for what God had promised to give him, but for who God was. Because Abraham loved God for who He was, and not for what God could do for Him, God counted Abraham as His friend.

Too often men attempt to build a relationship with God having a certain vested interest as the motivator or the driving force behind the desire for intimacy. Since God knows all things, including the intent of the heart and why men do what they do, often times He rejects men’s friend requests because their true desire was not friendship with Him, but leveraging the friendship for something else entirely.

How would you feel if someone attempted to befriend you only to get something from you? Well, that’s the same way God feels when we attempt to cozy up to Him, just to ask for something we might want a little further down the road.

The heart is a duplicitous thing, and all those scriptures concerning the heart being exceedingly wicked are not exaggerations. God knows the hearts of men better than men know their own hearts, and as He searches the heart, and pierces the heart, weighs the heart, and purifies the heart, He knows exactly what’s in it.

Because Abraham’s heart was pure before God, because Abraham loved God for whom He was, God counted him as His friend forever.

2 Chronicles 20:7, ‘Are You not our God, who drove out the inhabitants of this land before Your people Israel, and gave it to the descendants of Abraham Your friend forever?”

As His friend, God knew He could not keep from Abraham that which He was about to do with Sodom and Gomorrah. As He knows the true meaning of every word, God also knows the true meaning of friend. This was not a one way relationship. It was reciprocal, and as such God shared His plans with Abraham, and Abraham shared his heart with God.

Although Abraham is widely considered to be the first intercessor in the word of God, he is not the first man to be made privy to the plans of God.

We serve a faithful God, who has no desire to leave His children in the dark, or keep them in ignorance. God shares His plans, and foretells us what is to be that we might prepare spiritually, and know He is God, omniscient over past, present and future when we see what He foretold come to pass.

Genesis 6:13, “And God said to Noah, ‘the end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth.”

Of those who walked the earth in his day, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord, and the Lord told him what He was about to do. Not only did God tell Noah His plan, He also gave him specific instructions concerning the building of an ark, which would be a place of safety for him and his family.

Noah could have chosen not to heed the voice of God. He could have pretended not to hear God’s instructions, seeing as what God was asking of him was time consuming, labor intensive, and would likely be derided by his contemporaries.

Because Noah was a good servant however, he obeyed the voice of the Lord, and in his obedience he found a place of refuge not only for himself, but also for his family.

Be a friend of God, and you will know what the future holds. Be a friend of God, and He will commune with you and fellowship with you, and speak to you that you might understand His will for your life, and walk in His commandments.

John 15:14-15, “You are my friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.”

A servant does not know what his master is doing…a friend does. Jesus called His disciples friends, and because they were His friends, He told them all things that He had heard from the Father, and as such they knew what God was doing.

In order to know the plan of God, you must first know God Himself. There are many people today who want to know the plan of God, but have no desire to know Him. They want to know what God is saying, they want to know about prophecy, and dreams, and visions, but when you tell them that the knowledge of things to come absent a true and vibrant relationship with God is worthless, they bristle and begin to accuse you of judging them.

Abraham knew God, and because he knew God, he was also able to know the plan of God. Because he obeyed God, God considered Abraham His friend, and as such shared His plan with Abraham before carrying it out.

We begin to understand just how intimate Abraham’s knowledge of God was, by what He said to God upon being informed that Sodom was about to be destroyed.

Genesis 18:23-25, “And Abraham came near and said, ‘would You also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there were fifty righteous within the city; would You also destroy the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous that were in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing as this, to slay the righteous with the wicked so that the righteous should be as the wicked; far be it from You! Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?’”

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.