Got your palette and brushes ready? Because God is going to pay another visit to His friend Abraham and you may want to add some more shades to your masterpiece. Gen. 18:1 says, “The LORD appeared to him (Abraham) in the plains or by the oaks of Mamre.” There should be no doubt in your mind Who one of these men are, who visits Abraham in the plains of Mamre, in the heat of the day. Gen. 18:1 says, “The LORD (Jehovah – The YHVH) appeared unto him.” Well, He is omnipresent, isn’t He? Everywhere present at once! Then in v.10 He says, “I will certainly return unto thee according to the time of life, and lo, Sarah thy wife shall have a son.” It is the LORD Who gives life because He is omnificent, He is unlimited in creative power. One of His Omni-attributes seldom discussed. Then in v.13, “The LORD said to Abraham, why did Sarah laugh?” Showing the LORD knows everything, about everyone. Even the things we whisper in secret, proving He is omniscient, but the real cap-stone is in v.14. A verse we should inscribe on our hearts, “Is there anything to hard for the LORD?” The answer, NO! Not even for a 90 year old woman to give birth and nurse her son for three years. Why? Paint omnipotent on your canvas, right over omnificent, omnipresent and omniscient. That’s the God Who meets you in your prayer closet in the morning, or in your ‘Prayer Garden’ before the cock crows, before the dew dampens your manna, and before the sun warms the crust of the earth.

Now this meeting in Gen. 18 is more than meeting God in your ‘Quiet Time.’ Abraham gets a personal visit from Yehovah. He is in Mamre (Fatness) in Hebron (Communion) residing near the altar he built in Gen. 13:18 and God personally pays him a visit. There is fellowship and communion here we know little of today, (YADA) spiritual intimacy, spiritual intercourse, on a level few of us will ever encounter. Abraham was, “A friend (ahav – a lover) of God.” Can that be said of you? Can it? What sweet communion they enjoyed two-gether, close intimate fellowship. A friend, a real friend, a true friend will share the inner personal thoughts and intents of their hearts. Someone said, “When we lose a friend we die a little.” No, when we lose our best friend we die a lot and we may never recover. “A friend is a present you give to yourself.” Here is one of my favorites, “Friends are the chocolate chips in the cookie of life.” But a real, true friend will share the thoughts and intents of their hearts and the LORD, Yehovah in v.17 said just that, “Shall I hide from Abraham (My Friend) that thing which I do?”

Oh to have that kind of relationship with Yehovah God, that He chooses to share with you, His cares, His intents, and His will with you. It makes me well up with tears as I type these words right now, I can hardly see my screen. Oh God, please help me to finish painting this portrait for my readers, I am not worthy, please God stay Your hand LORD, I am trembling by the power of Your very presence in this room, at this very moment, please Jesus help me……I need to focus, Thank You. (Sorry) Isn’t that what He has done in Christ and in His Word – Reveal His will and His intents for us to pray about? I John 5:14-15; Eph. 5:17. Oh to see God, to talk with Him, to walk with Him, to share the burdens of our hearts and have Him share the burdens of His heart, but could we even bear to hear it? But He does reveal His heart to us and His burdens, in His Word. That’s where He talks with us and we can share our hearts with Him in prayer. In our Quiet Time, Our Secret Place, Our Prayer Garden, Matt. 6:6, but remember to, ‘shut the door!’ He is waiting for us in, ‘The Secret Place,’ patiently, longingly, lovingly, and calling tenderly, ‘Come Unto Me.’ In our Mamre, (fatness) our Hebron (communion) but do we enter or do we walk away empty?

In Gen. 18:20, The LORD shares that burden with Abraham, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah was great and because their sin was so very grievous.” He goes on in v.21, “I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry (zah-ak; shriek, outcry, to cry for help in a time of distress) against it.” Most frequently this cry is directed to God. In Gen. 19:13, it was a tortuous cry or prayer of those being abused in the city. It could have been the neighbors surrounding the city. However, whoever it was, God had enough and He had heard enough! “And enough is enough!” So, He sent messengers down to check it out, along with His Son, and to destroy it if necessary. God never acts over or against any of His creation without a full understanding of all the circumstances, never! What God heard and saw is found in every large and small city today world-wide, namely, “The Noon-Day of Hell!”

But He heard the outcries, the tortuous shrieks against Sodom and Gomorrah and there lies the key, ‘Against!’ Can our prayers, shrieks, cries, tears, outbursts, against, abortion, perverse sexual sin, alcohol, drugs, crime, SIN, gambling, pornography, child abuse, etc, etc, make a difference? I believe it can and just like Sodom and Gomorrah, God will come down and see America and judge it, if our outcries against it are genuine and loud enough and great enough for Him to hear. But I don’t believe we loathe it enough yet, I don’t think we hate it enough yet; Our outcry like theirs must be tortuous and painful and our prayers must literally shriek to heaven’s throne room. As one man said, “If God does not judge America soon, He will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.” Do you believe that? Then pray, like you really hate sin! “Between The Lines”

“Oh God, help us to hate sin like You do, to loathe sin, to detest sin, to abhor sin, all sin, any sin, every sin and may our prayers be a tortuous outcry against it and may You remove it from our midst and heal our land. LORD, we long to be Your friend like Abraham, help us to have fellowship like he had, and to have a prayer life like he had, teach us, O LORD. In ha Shem Yeshua we pray, Amen!”

“Portraits of Prayer in Genesis” ‘Missed Pigments #2’