Monday: Abraham’s Love for Everyone
Daily Lesson for Monday 23rd of October 2023
Read Genesis 18:1-33:16-33. How did Abraham exercise his great quality of love for all people without distinguishing tribe, race, or people?
The second quality of Abraham drawn from Genesis 18:1-33 was his love for people, even for those he did not personally know. This is a great lesson for each of us. The people of Sodom and Gomorrah were sinners, far removed from his values, but his heart was full of love for everyone without any distinction of race, gender, language, or religion.
God, then, reveals to Abraham His decision to annihilate the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. “Then the Lord said, ‘Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know’ ” (Genesis 18:20-21, ESV).
Image © The Classic Bible Art Collection – Formerly Standard Publishing at Goodsalt.com
With great humility and reverence, Abraham addressed his request to God: “ ‘Far be it from You to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?’ ” (Genesis 18:25, ESV).
Through his love, Abraham hoped to save all the people in these cities, not only the righteous. Certainly, Abraham knew just how evil and wicked the people were who lived there. Who knows what stories he had heard regarding those people and their practices? And from what we know about them, as revealed in the next chapter, with the sordid story of Lot and the mob outside his house (see Genesis 19:1-11), these were very evil people.
Yet Abraham, knowing for himself the love of God, appealed to Him in their behalf. Abraham knew that human beings always can return to God in repentance. To Abraham, saving the inhabitants of these cities would give them a chance to repent.
In the end, Abraham based his request on what he personally knew about God’s love for human beings. He himself had a great love for sinners, and he knew that as long as there is life, there is hope for salvation.
Why is intercessory prayer so important in our own prayer life? How can praying for others in need help us grow spiritually and experience more the reality of God’s love for sinners?
(29)
Bill Hayden died a few days ago. He was in his 90s and had been a leading figure in the Australian Labor Party. He never became Prime Minister but was ousted from the leadership by Bob Hawke. He however served under Bob Hawke as a minister in his government. Later, he was made the Governor General of Australia - a position he held for about 7 years. Bill Hayden was an outspoken Atheist for most of his life but in his senior years he became convinced that Christianity was meaningful.
The thing that changed Bill Hayden's mind was a visit with a Catholic nun, Sister Angela Mary Doyle who had worked with compassion for people suffering from HIV/AIDS in the 1980/90s. (This was a time when some church leaders were promoting the idea that AIDS was a punishment from God) Bill's comment on the visit was:
The challenge for us is that we too show the compassion of Jesus to those folk who society ignores and despises. Are we so busy defending doctrine that we have lost the compassion of Jesus?
When praying for others we should remember that God answers that prayer through our compassion for others.
A stronger requirement of "Love your enemies...", King Jesus in Matthew 5:44 KJV (and as demonstrated by Abraham) is necessary than merely proving to the world that you are His disciples by loving one another.
This is the mark of a true Christian: if we "Love our enemies..." as King Jesus has asked us to.
We are not to give up on others because the Lord did not give up on us we can help others by our prayers.
The only example I see for Hospitality in Abraham in this chapter is for how he entertained the "Three Divine Messengers," that came to him. I see nothing in this chapter indicating in any way the different ethnic or religius groups of Sodom and Gomorrah in this chapter either.
I have been contemplating the question: what makes people overly cautious and uncomfortable, sometimes outright ‘shut-off’ to engaging ‘heartily’ with strangers? I came to consider that it might mostly be out of fear and the concern about one’s own ‘safety’ on many different levels.
Asking myself the question: ‘What really is at work when people pray, or when compassion is being extended to those who ‘society at large’ tries to avoid interacting with in a meaningful way’? The answer might be: 'It is because when we include the stranger in 'loving each other', we ‘suspend’ our fears and trepidations of the ‘otherness’ in him and focus our attention on the ‘caring and nurturing’ aspect of him. Eph.2:10 gives the explanation/reason why this is possible.
The fear of ‘otherness/different’ might still lingering, but the Love of our heavenly Father released through the Holy Spirit is powerful to override our fear of being ‘vulnerable’. Can we love the folks we might feel ‘afraid’ of? With-in Christ – all things are possible! We demonstrate trust and faith when we let go of our self-protective shell and put on the armor of God instead. It will be much superior toward protecting us against all 'challenges'we might encounter when meeting strangers.
Praying for the strength to extend the love our Father showed us when we were yet sinners demonstrates that we truly trust the armor of heavenly Father to keep us safe. In my opinion, deciding to engage with others through an openly caring and kind disposition requires that we are willing to love/accept the stranger’s ‘otherness’ first. How best to do this will be revealed to us by the Holy Spirit at the time of the engagement.
We should be moved to pray for the world just as Abraham prayed for the sinful Sodom and Gomorrah
And the greater our love for the Father, the more we will see people as He sees them and the more we will share His love for all His children.
We are called to love one another and to exercise hospitality. Doing this God's way requires submission to the Holy Spirit moment by moment. While we might entertain angels unawares (Hebrews 13:2), we could unfortunately also welcome agents of the devil, if we are not submitted to God's guidance. Let us seek to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves (Matt. 10:16). We are called to share certain things with certain people at certain times, and we need discretion to know the difference.
Prayer for discernment is always a good starting point. I don't recall the reference, but EGW had an experience of being asked to pray for a certain man to be healed, and through private prayer with her husband James she learned that they were being misled by the man and that he had some cherished sin that was causing his sickness. The Lord did not want them to spend time with this man the way he had requested.
We each need this spirit of utter dependence on God, even for doing things that look like obvious good ministry.
"...utter dependence on God..." : Yes Karmaine, yesss !!!
Abraham’s first question of God in Gen 18:23 seems troubling almost blasphemous in light of God’s dealing with Noah and the Antediluvians. Was he not sure of Lot’s status before God? However he spoke more accurately in v25 when he said: “Far be it from You to do such a thing… Shall not the Judge of all the earth do justice.”
Like John 3:16, Abraham showed how he was willing to empathize with the people of Sodom, to the point of trying to save some of them. May our example and influence help us to save those who are in Sodom situations.