Just-A-Tho't On Prayer & Prayer Meetings

Our Wednesday nite Bible Study took us to Genesis 18:23-33 - Where Abraham spent a great deal of effort and time with the Lord interceding for "the righteous" of Sodom.  By that, we learned that Abraham wanted God to spare the city from destruction if there were any righteous people there.  Abraham understood and assumed God would judge the wicked.  But it would not be just to destroy the righteous along with the wicked.  Ok.  That's the story, and as you remember, God certainly destroyed Sodom for their wickedness - but only after getting Lot and his family out of the way (these were the only 'righteous' ones in the whole city).

 

That has led me to a lot of thinking on the role, method, and purpose of intercessory prayer, and I learned a lot about how to approach God, how to press God, and what sort of character the Living God is.  That is important to anyone desiring a relationship with Him.  We must never expect God to act in contradiction to His character, purposes, or plans.  Yet, we have still been given the ministry of intercessory prayer.  That brings up a couple of questions: Why intercede if God will only do his thing?  What can we expect from intercessory prayer? 

 

I'll not answer them all deeply here today.  However, I would ask you this, did Abraham benefit from the practice of intercessory prayer?  Yes - he was at peace with God's will.  So often today that is the issue with people and God, namely we are not accepting God's will for our lives.  We want something different than what God wants.  So that answers both questions in part - we should intercede for others so we will be changed (to accept His will) and we can expect to be changed by being in the presence of the Almighty Himself.  It is a communion that cannot be replaced, but a communion that is first and foremost enjoyable.

 

So, I challenge all my readers to make intercessory prayer not only a Divine mandate, but an enjoyable practice in their lives for the fellowship we have with our Lord.