Different people prayed to each other, but the first example in the Bible of praying to God was with Abraham who did so:
So, Abraham prayed unto God: and
God healed Abimelech, and his wife, and his maidservants; and they bare
children. (Gen 20:17)
Abimelech would not have children
because of incest. God closed the woman’s womb to the seed of Abimelech.
Abraham prayed to God, not just any person or thing, and God healed them of
their sins, and her womb was receptive to Abimelech’s seed. The seed was
fertilized, grew in her now fertile womb, and she bare children.
Note several things: nothing
was happening, Abraham prayed, and it happened. The request was not
frivolous, the prayer was with sincere faith because it was Abraham (Rom 4:16; how
faith is measured), and lastly, the prayer resulted in action on behalf
of God.
So, prayer was not answered either
mentally or verbally but by results. What is missed, sometimes if it is not the
will of God, there would be no action taken by God on behalf of Abraham.
The model prayer that Jesus
prayed included this: “Your kingdom come; Your will be done in earth, as it is
in Heaven.” (Mat 6:10). To pray effectively, the will of God must be considered.
To pray for something that would not be the will of God is futile; therefore,
the will of God must be known. That requires some type of matching of the wills
of man and God; in this case, it was Abraham and God who were matched for it to
happen.
It is known that Abimelech was
not in the will of God, so his prayer would have been futile; hence prayer
requires a matching of the wills. The thoughts of any person praying must be
the Thoughts of God; in this case Abraham’s thoughts; their wills had to be
aligned. Abraham desired that life be given, and God surely had the same idea
in mind.
Abraham had some type of
relationship with God to approach Him. He was not just a passer-by who as a
last resort called on God for actions. Abraham had great confidence in God for
he never turned to something else first, always going to God first.
Something had happened to
Abraham. Indeed it had, because God changed him from mere “Abram” to “Abraham”
adding the Hebrew letter hey to his name. God breathed love unto Abram.
Abram understood the difference
between motionless gods, and the living God. Too many times, when people pray,
they go elsewhere first, as those before Abraham had… they said, “I pray you…”
not “I pray God”!
First, we’ll examine prayer. The
notion is that there is communication between the person praying and God. Let’s
see if that aligns with the Hebrew notion of “pray” — palal. Prayer is
asking God to intervene about some issue requiring judgment
Children could not be conceived,
so Abraham prayed to God that He intercede. God judged the matter worthy, not because
they deserved children, but because Abraham asked. He trusted God whether
anybody else did or not. The prayer was answered, not because they deserved it,
but because of the faith of Abraham; hence it was by grace.
Now you will learn how to interpret
a few Hebrew pictographs for literal meanings.
Upon further exploration, prayer
has a literal meaning: פָּלַל. The first letter (right to left) is pev.
Its pictograph is a mouth, so it has something to do with speech or
communication of some sort. The double letter lamed implies something in
palal, as it is not commonly used in spelling Hebrew words. It conveys
the double “L” sound. Hence, the sound from one to another.
The pictograph of the letter lamed is a shepherd’s hook, which implies
several things: (1) to/from, (2) to teach and to learn, (3) and possibly
two-way communication. However, there is a fourth factor that might be missed:
(4) About the Law of Love, “On these two commandments hang (lamed) all
the law and the prophets” (Mat 22:40). Hence, palal implies that the
will of God is essential, and that the double lamed means that the will
of the person praying must be the will of whom the person prays.
The double lamed seems to purvey the notion that God leads and the
person praying must follow. Follow what? God’s Will is revealed by the Law. The
prayer request must be lawful. The Law, as Jesus indicates, hung on the Law of
Love — The Greatest Commandment.
It was asked of Jesus about the greatest Law. Jesus replied with two: (1)
to love God, and (2) to love others. That coincides with the basic tenets of the
Law grouped 1-4 and 5-10, respectively. The double lamed may imply those
two loves as one.
Abraham revealed love for Abimelech, so that passed the second part, and He
turned to God which satisfied the first part of the Law of Love. The Greatest
Commandment is not singular but two commandments. That does explain the double lamed
quite well, does it not?
If that is true, then for prayer to be answered, there must be love for
both God and others. Abraham met that criteria. His prayer, to be answered,
hung on the Law.”
It has always bothered me that Jesus put the love of God and the love of
others into one Law. The word palal (prayer) has now revealed why that may
be so — prayer must be because both God is loved, and also the person who prays
loves those for whom he prays.
“Praise” means to “highly esteem.” High estimation is the concept of love. Prayer
is communication (supplication, asking, talking), while praise is adoration
(celebrating who God is and what He has done or has the power and authority to
do.).
Prayer is a way of adoring God, and if the adoration is sincere,
then He adores in return. The person praises God by turning to Him first, and
God expresses gratitude by judging the bequest sincere and according to His
will, or not.
Divine love is expressed by adoration and what better way to adore God than
going to Him first, not after all other modes fail. Nothing is too hard for
God, and since God has saved Abram from the fire of Ur, Abraham knew that.
Abraham going to God first was a way for him to show gratitude for what God had
already done for him, then He could do such things for others. Abraham’s faith
had a secondary purpose; to demonstrate to sinners that God was real and
powerful compared to the idols of Terah that were lifeless.
The God of Abraham provided life in dead places, whereas the gods of Shinar
could do nothing.
Abraham and God had acted as one entity. Abraham prayed and God answered,
not by words, but by actions. If his request had been against the will of God
(The Law) then the answer would have been silence. Between the Old and
New Testament times there were 400 years of silence wherein God
did not communicate with mankind. In other words, they did not pray to Him, so He
withheld His resources. God was there but remained silent because His people either
did not pray or were not His People.
God revealed His will during the exodus as they could either choose Him or
not; “I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be My people”
(Lev 26:2). God, as Yeshua (Jesus) would walk among them, and some of
them would be God’s people. God was revealing Jesus to the Israelites. but the 400
years of silence is because they were not His people.
God’s will was to covenant with them. They need not do anything but
be His people (i.e., to adore Him in love).
Now for “The Greatest Commandments” from The Old Covenant:
- "You shall love the Lord thy God with all your heart, and with all your
soul, and with all your might” (Deut 6:5).
- “He stranger that dwells with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Lev 19:13).
Jesus was not saying anything new. The Greatest Commandment was always what
the Law hung on. Love is the bind that holds us together in the will of
God.
The Hebrew word translated “love” is ‘ahab: אָהַב. The first letter, El, is the
Power of God. El (from aleph) is spelled אלף. Hence, the first letter of ‘ahab indicates spreading (pev)
the power (aleph) of God from on high (lamed).
The second letter in ‘ahab is “hey,” meaning that love is
God-breathed; and not surprising the letter bet represents the “House of
God” — Yeshua (Jesus). Hence, Jesus is indeed the mediator between God
and mankind: “There is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the man
Christ Jesus” (1 Tim 2:5). To reach God, the Christian must go to Jesus to
communicate in prayer.
Love is that baffling dynamic that entangles man and God. Somehow God
breathed love unto Adam and his woman, and sin exhumed it.
Love is power scattered from God to whosoever will receive it (John 3:16).
Love is not an emotion but a dynamic gift from God. God must breathe love
unto a person for him or her to become a Christian.
The love that Jesus felt leave to heal the woman with the blood issue is
virtue (dynamis in the Greek; Mat 5:25-34). Love is the Dynamic of God —
the aleph in the word ‘ahab. When “El” is translated “God”
that is virtue that He is spreading — the love of God. There must be mutuality
between God and man, and between God and Abraham. He was his God and Abraham
one of His people to have prayer answered.
“The LORD is far from the wicked, but He hears the prayer of the
righteous" (Prov 15:29). Another way of saying that is, “God does not hear
sinners; but if anyone is a worshipper of God and does His will, He hears him."
(John 9:31).
For God to “hear” (perhaps listen is better said), the prayer must be
righteous — those who are not wicked and under the Law of God. The “righteous”
are those who love God. Abraham and God were united in love to the extent that
Abraham trusted God over anyone else. It would have been sacrilege if he had
prayed to anyone else or dumb idols.
Love, if I am correct, is very quantum-like. In physics, a “quantum”
is “a discrete quantity of energy proportional in magnitude to the frequency of
the radiation it represents” (AI Overview).
Radiation is scattering. God is the very discrete quantity of energy
(El Saday) — Almighty God. God created, indubitably from Himself. He would
have radiated all things from His quantum of energy — His almightiness. [1]
Of course, God is not quantum mechanics, or even science, but the author of
all things scientific. As such, I will use quantum mechanics to reveal God, His
love, and prayer. (More on that soon.)
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