Cherlyn

Abraham showed persistence by continuing to plead for fewer and fewer righteous ones. He showed he honored God but cared deeply about God's people. He did not stop with the first request. Persistent prayer shows our heart and the depth of our concern. It shows our faith and our trust in Him. I am "praying through" now. It is like waiting. You just hold on and trust and wait, with thanks and expectancy.

Yes, Abraham showed respect for Him and love for others. It showed he felt comfortable with God and knew he could approach Him. He kew he could share his concern. God delights in relationship with His people. For us to go to Him shows our love, our need and our desire for fellowship.

Abraham was direct and respectful. He was pleading for God's people. He had a heart for the righteous to be spared and a love and respect for His Master. Boldness with respect is honorable.

As long as there were righteous in Sodom there was hope. He wanted the righteous to be spared. Mercy. God is mercy and grace.

We cannot change His mind from anything that is contrary to God's character. God is God, He will not be changed. When we pray asking for a different outcome it must be within the paramiters of God's character.

If we do not pray the kind of gutsy prayer as Moses we are not acting in a faithful trusting manner. Clearly Moses prayed in a way that God heard his heart and relented. If we have the attitude that our prayers make no difference and that everything is going to happen the way it will, we are not living, we are but puppets-existing. If I thought my prayers made no difference, I would be hopeless.

They had made graven idols out of their jewelry because of their impatience. They had worshipped and placed their trust in those idols. God was angry because of their impatience. He saw them stubborn and hard-headed. He was ready to destroy them. Justified? Yes. He was still going to fulfill His promise of the descendants, however thanks be that Moses had the compassion and love for the people which God had placed in him to plead their case. God relented.

We are not perfect. We mess things up and sin all the time. We have to ask God to examine us and show us our sin. Sometimes we have sins that have become part of our personality and therefore we nurse them or are not even aware of them. God in His grace will point sin out to us and then we must confess and turn. Sometimes it is painful mostly it is humbling. Unforgiveness blocks our relationship with God because is breaks fellowship with Him through disobedience. I well remember once thinking and saying to God "but God it was my child" only to quickly hear "He is My Son, I forgave and forgive." There is no choice in the matter, we must forgive.

Our sin nature is seen as little children in the statement "I do it myself." We do not want to be dependant. We want to be in control. Truly our only way to be in control is to totally surrender to His control. He is our one true provider. He wants us to ask Him to give us what we need. He is our Father.

Surrender. We ask for His kingdom to come and surrender our lives to His plan. We ask submitting our lives to Him. We should be affected by this by living a life laid down to His will. We should be expectant of His power and guidance in our lives. Sadly we mostly do not live this way, we tend to go off in our own direction busy and preoccupied.