Genesis 20:7
Now return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you will live. But if you do not return her, you may be sure that you and all who belong to you will die. NIV 2011
Imagine you are an innocent man who sees a beautiful single lady and decide to have a relationship with her. A powerful authority then threatens to end your life and that of your family because you have actually taken a married woman. But hold on, you did not know that she was married! You plead your innocents. The authority then says fine you did not get to be with the lady because of me anyway but get the person who withheld the truth and marital status of this lady to you, (who happens to be her husband) he is special, let him come and beg for your life.
Depending on your persuasion, although man had been communicating with God before, this is arguably the first clear reference to prayer.
Above are the words of GOD, speaking to Abimelek king of Gerar in a dream after he had taken Abrahams wife, Sarah. This is the real first introduction of the word pray in the Bible. Of course before, man were talking to GOD but the scripture had not yet used the word prayer.
Now this man Abimelek had been going on about his life in the way that Kings of that day were commonly expected to behave. Just like you and me going on in our daily lives. someone unknown to him had come to his territory with a good looking lady. A king could take of himself any woman to be a wife or lady of the court.
All the same this was wrong in the sight of GOD. Here he then introduces prayer by asking the king to to get someone else, who also happened to have withheld the full truth, to talk to GOD (himself), on their behalf to be forgiven and live.
Many Christians refer to this as intercession. Accordingly this I feel should be the heart of prayer. Less of it being about oneself and more about others. Personally, I am guilty of starting off by praying for myself, but as I have been engaged in this blog, I have started to put others first. After all if you are right with GOD, he does have your back anyway right?
My name is Fabian and I am as passionate about prayer as I am about living life itself. I also have a great team that is equally devoted and together we are building a community of like minded individuals and feel that this is a call that GOD has laid on my heart.
Now I invite you to Join me on this journey as we explore prayer.
Peace Be!!
Founder Prayersonline.org