January 7, 2010 Daily Reading

In the OT (Genesis 18) reading today, we find three angels coming to get their grub on with Abraham. During the intimate fellowship, they begin to divulge many plans that would change the outcome of Abraham’s life as well as many others. They also shared that they would destroy the city of Sodom in part due to the fact that he had great plans for Abraham. This places Abraham in the midst of a “query of posterior faith.” What I mean by that is that his questioning well lead to future generations developing into great people and nations of God.

As the story continues, we begin to see Abraham starts to intercede on behalf of Sodom. He begins to initiate a conversation with God which at the time was a unique action. (Exo 33:20) As he begins to bombard God, he starts to intercede that God would change his mind if there were 50 righteous men. He continues almost in an irritating mode until he gets God to proclaim that if there are ten righteous men he will not destroy Sodom. It brings one to wonder what would have happen if he continued on with the interceding; could he have gotten God to actually forgo the entire destruction of Sodom through his intercession.

We find in Gen. 19 that God in fact destroys Sodom but Lot is saved which proved to be the main reason for Abraham’s questioning. Amazing as it may seem there were not ten righteous men in Sodom before God destroyed it. God displays his mercy by removing Lot from the destruction but displays his justice as well due to Sodom’s sin.

As we muse through Matt. 6, we see a New Testament infomercial on the process of asking, giving and receiving. Matthew lays out precise instructions about giving, fasting and asking. He is extremely keen about being humble with your giving as well as private. Within this chapter you have the Lord’s Prayer that sets a precedent for prayer. Jesus explains to the disciple how they should pray and later how they should fast. As the chapter closes out we see Jesus flipping the script on the disciples. He goes from giving the process of prayer, to telling them not to be so consumed with the very things you receive. He concludes with making your primary focus the seeking of the Kingdom of God. Nestled within that seeking you find that God will address your personal needs.

As we look at the passage together we can conclude that there is such an innate need for prayer whether in supplication form or intercession. Prayer has the potential to be an irritating presence to God from the believer when taking out of context. We can’t get away from the fact that God is impacted by prayer. But prayer has predications that are laced together with righteousness. Righteousness places you in direct harmony with God which constrains one’s prayer to be centered on Christ. At the end of the day, I would have to side that prayer is not an irritation to God but requirement. Within prayer is the lifeline for intercession and supplication that we cannot find in anything else. When we understand that God wants to help us and meet our needs we start to see that our prayers are not irritating or bothersome to God.  (Matt.6:25-33)

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