Prayer Works Morning Devotion: July 14, 2025

In The Presence Of God/The Lord

"Genesis 17:1-8 Abraham"

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Good morning, good morning, everybody. I hope you had a wonderful weekend. You’re well rested ready for another day. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, our blessed Redeemer, our words cannot express the magnitude of who You are. You are our Father, we are Your children. You've done so much for us.  

Some that we know of and some things that we don't know of where You have intervened in our lives and set things straight when without our knowledge, that's how much You love us. So we are grateful for the new mercies that You provide every morning.  

So now God, as we look into Your word as we search You this morning, our goal and our desire is to meet with You. So we can get the daily bread for ourselves. So we thank You that every day, as we set these agendas that You are there to be with us.  

So as we look into Your presence as we try to understand everything that is about Your presence, we pray, Lord, that You open our eyes, our minds and our hearts so that we can receive what You have in store for us.  

We bless You and we honor You in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we pray, Amen. Brothers and sisters we've been in the names of God and now we are into God's presence.  

One of the things that I was asking myself earlier on this morning is there is always a reason why the Lord gets us or gets a group of people to start studying something. I've been asking why, why, Lord, are we into Your names? And now we are getting into Your presence and this is the words that God has ordered for us in this season.  

Because obviously there is something that he wants to do with us individually and as a group. And we need to experience that presence because it changes, it alters it, enhances it, strengthens everything that is on our agenda to do. 

Individually or together as a group, so this method of presence is so important especially in this season, because obviously God wants to do something.  

So what we're going to do today, we're going to start with Abraham. And the reason we're going to start with Abraham, because he's a very fascinating individual as it pertains to how God interacts with him and how he sets our faith on this one particular man.  

And I think it's important for us to understand the relationship between God and Abraham in order to find ourselves in this journey of life because he is the father of faith. A child that does not understand his father or does not know his father find it difficult to navigate this life.  

But nonetheless, we will never get the life back, there are certain things that will actually be deprived of. So we need to really understand the life of Abraham and his relationship with God.  

So we're going to start in Genesis 17:1-8. When Abraham was 90 years old, 90 years old. The Lord appeared to Abraham and said to him, I am almighty God. Walk before me and be blameless and I will make my covenant between me and you and we will multiply you exceedingly.  

Then Abraham fell on his face. And God talked with him saying, as for me, behold, my covenant is with you and you shall be a father of many nations. No longer shall you name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham.  

For I have made you a father of many nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful and I'll make nations off you and kings shall come from you and I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you in their generations.  

For an everlasting covenant to be got to be after you, an everlasting covenant to be God to you and your descendants after you. Also I give to you and your descendants after you, the land in which you are a stranger or the land of an everlasting possession and I will be their God.  

Brothers and sisters when you are 90 years old, you are most likely set in your ways. You have lived 90 years of life. That means your habits, the way you think, the way you function the things you like, it's set in stone.  

It's very difficult to change who you are or to change some things about you. The older you get because you are sick in your ways. So Abraham's journey, the preparation to meet God for Abraham took 90 years to develop, 90, nine, zero.  

That God, in his infinite wisdom, decided he was going to appear to Abraham, not when he's one, not when he's in his 20s or 30s or his 40s. But I'm going to wait and appear to him when he is 90 years old, when all of his faculties and where his life is shaped.  

And it is what it is at this juncture with Abraham. God appears to him and you say to him, I'm almighty God walk before me blamelessly and I will make my covenant between you. But the fact of the matter is that God appears to Abraham.  

He is in his presence in order to make this covenant now, brothers and sisters, yesterday we spend a little time talking about what happened in the garden. Man hid himself, God took his presence away and there is no presence.  

There's no appearing to anyone except when Cain killed his brother. God appears before him now. This time he appears before Abraham he’s present. It says in order for me to make this covenant, I have to be present.  

And Abraham, I'm starting something with you that nobody has ever seen at this point in time. Abraham, he is in Babylon. Present day Iran. That's where Abraham is from and as he doesn't know anything about God. For 90 years, he has lived a certain way.  

He is set in his ways. He knows I'm never going to have children at 90, he's done. And at 90, God shows up and say I want you to change the course of your life. And I'm going to walk with you and I want you to walk before me, not behind me, before me.  

I want you to walk before me and be blameless and I will make you father of many nations. In this little passage of scripture, there's a lot of things and a lot of principles that are said.  

For us to really recognize, understand and to try to emulate, to hold God's presence we must be blameless. To hold God's presence we must be blameless now, brothers and sisters we know it's hard to not be blameless.  

It's hard to be righteous that's why God makes us righteous. Now Abraham is being tasked to do this without Jesus coming. We are now being asked to do the same thing with Jesus.  

In fact, Jesus makes us blameless before God. That's why Paul, when he writes he says the older Saints the Patriarchs, which they had Jesus. We are blessed to have had Jesus. Because what Abraham was being asked to do without Jesus was extremely difficult.  

But the man mastered it hence he becomes the father of many nations. And everybody is blessed through him. So this covenant that God sets with Abraham is done while he is in his presence. 

And let me say, these brothers and sisters. When you experience God's presence, he is going to say some things to you that will resonate with your soul. That will guide you into the next chapter of your life.  

So his presence is necessary and needed because God does not show up. And failed to set some things straight or to establish some things that you need to walk in and four steps to follow.  

If he looks at all the scriptures, every time he comes in contact with the person he set an agenda for that particular person, he did it with Moses, he did it with Abraham. He did it with Joseph, he did it with so many different people when he showed up Gideon.  

So as we are longing for his presence we have to understand that when he does show up. Whether you are in your house and you are praying or whether you set some time for God's presence.  

Just know this He is going to leave you with the message that you will need to follow. And a few weeks ago in June we had Pentecost Sunday. And the message I got from that Pentecostal is that I'm trusting you guys handling holy things, trusting you, healing holy things.  

Because God is not going to show up be it in your worship time, be it in your prayer time. Be it in our gathering and fail to lead us, towards a goal or something that he needs done.  

So as we are longing for his presence we need to understand what it is that we are asking God for. Because when he shows up, he surely is going to leave a mark and Abraham starts this journey after he meets God.  

And if you check his life he was forever longing for this presence. Everything that Abraham did was in hope of meeting God. Again and again and again and again because you cannot experience his presence and not live hungry for more.  

It's impossible. It's just impossible. So today is homework read genesis. Study Abraham's life with Genesis yesterday, I had a conversation with my boys in the evening after Bible study. I was like, I need you to study Abraham's life.  

Look at how God used him and the things that he had to do when he showed up whenever he showed up. Incredible, fascinating man. We had an spiritual encounter with God that changed the course of our world.  

We are standing today as Christians, knowing that we have a Father we can point to. And that's Abraham because of his faith. Because of Abraham's faith, we get to Jesus. But all this happens in his presence.  

We have to long for his presence, our hearts have too long for his presence. Your heart has to long for East residence. It’s 2004 at the conference in Zimbabwe. This man who got up there to share a few little words, started singing this song. My heart longs for you.  

So simple over and over again, my heart longs for you. We must have sang that song for 45, if not an hour. Because in it was this desire the way he sang it, the way he presented it. It made you long for God, simple, but yet profound.  

Because we connected with this man's desire. So let us long for God. Let us long for God's presence. Because there is fullness of joy in his right hand, there are pleasures forevermore, Amen. Let us pray.  

Dear Heavenly Father, our eyes are set on you. Our hearts are longing for your presence. We are in need of direction. We are in need of motivation. We are in need of strength. We are in need of being encouraged and we know when we find your presence there is fullness of joy.  

And that's your right hand there are pleasures forevermore that's in your presence. So, Father, we pray that as, we set our hearts on you. Let the desire to meet with you become so strong that when we experience you leave us hungry for more.  

So we are never satisfied with your presence. We are in need of you, God. You know when you show up, you set something straight. You'll fix some things. You'll give us direction. You bring some things to order.  

So Father we set our hearts on the. We are not looking for anything today, but other than to just set our hearts on you, to long for you. Because we know when you show up sicknesses and disease disappear.  

The scripture says and his spirit was presence and it healed them all. So we pray, Lord, for your presence to now indulge us in everything that we do and we are setting our hearts on you.  

So you can lead us into the path of righteousness. We thank you for Jesus. For making us right with you. Hence, we can experience this presence through him. Now, bless us as we go through our day. Lead us not into temptation, continue to deliver us from the evil one, for thine is the Kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever, Amen.