Abraham’s Prayer

In Gen15:4-5 we read about the promise The Lord gives to Abraham about his heir and the seed would become as stars of heaven, that’s a very big promise.

Abraham achieved greatness not because he was especially clever, but because he knew the secret of prevailing prayer. Let’s look at the seven important elements of prayer.

1. The Promise: Fear not Abraham, I am thy shield and exceeding great reward(Gen 15:10. Faith to be valid must have a promise upon which it can anchor.

2. The Petition: “Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless?”(Vs 2)

James said,” ye have not because ye ask not “We must ask in order to receive. Notice Abraham’s petition is to God the creator.

3. Faith; Abraham believed the Lord’s promise even though a miracle was required.”And he believed in the Lord: and he counted it to him for righteousness.”

Here lies the great secret of a successful prayer life- faith in God, faith that He has power to do all things, faith that He can even change the world in answer to our prayers. James tells us that without this confidence in God, prayer is unavailing. One cannot waiver in faith and at the same time receives mighty answers to their prayers.

4. Opposition by Satan: Man has an enemy, even the devil. Who strongly resists prayer getting through to God, When Abraham offered the sacrifice, and laid the pieces on the altar, the “fowls “flew down upon the carcasses:

Any time you pray the devil will try to come between you and God, so your prayers don’t reach Him.

5. Delay in the answer: “Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them, and they shall afflict them four hundred years”(Vs 13)

Abraham had already suffered a long delay, in the fulfillment of the promise. Years had gone by and the promised heir had not come. Now he is being informed that after the heir (who was to be born) should come, yet 400 more years, would collapse before his seed would inherit the land that had been promised.

This tells us that some prayers, by the nature of the case, require a time element in their fulfillment. Many people fail, because become impatient and give up. So they miss the blessing that ultimately would have been theirs.

6. Miraculous intervention: the “horror of great darkness” was dispelled by a “burning lamp that passed between those pieces “God thus intervened and honored the faith of Abraham.

7. Fulfillment; When Abraham believed God, the Lord then considered the matter accomplished “Unto thy seed have (past tense) I given this land. (Vs18) True to the promise, four centuries latter, Israel entered the promise land.

Let us learn from this pattern of prayer and follow it so that we can have God given promises, being full filled in our lives.