Preservation for the righteous sake

And the LORD said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.....
(Gen 18:26)

The privilege of friends is the ability not to hide anything for each other. The proof of Abraham’s status as a friend of God (Jam 2:23) was that the Lord shall not hide from him the thing that He will do (Gen 18:7). Friendship with God comes with responsibility. It not just about blessing, protection, healing but it is about sharing the same burdens. Do we share the same concerns as God do and talk with Him about it? If we don’t we have to seriously consider our relationship with the Lord.

We ask without answer to our prayers because we ask amiss (Jam 4:3). Our prayers can be polluted with things for self consumption and not God’s concerns. Instead of ‘bless the Lord, O, my soul’, it becomes ‘bless my soul, O, my Lord’. We do indeed need to be weaned from this attitude in being a child of God and dwell in the place where as His friends we know and we know that our Heavenly Father knows our needs (Matt 6:32, 33). That is the confidence a friend of God has, any lesser would be distrust. Jesus warns us that if we ask amiss we will lose our friendship with God and become no better than the heathens.

Notice that Abraham’s intercession was for the preservation of the righteous. It was for the righteous that didn’t bend their knees to baal that the nation was preserved despite the wickedness of Jezebel over the nation. The righteous are the ones that bend their knees to God, not fearing others but only fearing God.

Ye are the salt of the earth…….
(Mat 5:13)

In Lev 2:13 there is a commandment with regard to the covenant of salt. Salt is used to savor our food or in this case the sacrifice. Another important aspect is that salt is a preservative at time when refrigeration is non existent. When Jesus taught that we are the salt of the earth, He doesn’t mean that our existence make life more palatable for others, but rather to preserve our city and even our nation.

As the signs of the end times (read Matt 24, 2 Thess 2) are unfolding before our generation, our roles as salt of the earth become more crucial with the escalation of evil. God will preserve our city and nation for the sake of the righteous. At this time to how many of us will He say ‘Shall I hide from My friend that thing which I do’?