The Secret of Intercession

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ntercession, one element in our personal prayer life, is what I am choosing to define as “prayer on behalf of needs other than my own.” Intercession is the priestly ministry of a go-be- tween, someone who stands between heaven and a need on earth

and petitions the Father for breakthrough.

The writer of Hebrews asked the saints to intercede on his behalf: “Pray for us; for we are confident that we have a good con- science, in all things desiring to live honorably. But I especially urge you to do this, that I may be restored to you the sooner” (Hebrews 13:18-19). This passage gives us a powerful secret of prayer: Intercession accelerates God’s purposes in the earth. The writer realized he was going to be restored to them, but it would happen sooner if they would pray for him.

We can actually buy time with our prayers—“Redeeming the time, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:16). When evil is looming we can postpone its coming with our prayers; and when good is delayed, we can accelerate its coming with our prayers. There are many things God has purposed for this planet, and they will most certainly happen; the only question is, will they happen in and with and through us? Will we participate? If we

Secrets of the Secret Place

don’t pray, God’s purposes will happen, but they will not happen sooner. They will be delayed.

See here the infinite power of God to accelerate things on earth and bring world events to their culmination. He can wrap this whole thing up whenever He wants to, but He’s looking for a generation that refuses to be bypassed—a generation that’s so desperate to be included that they’re giving themselves to inces- sant, violent prayer.

One of the most profound ways you can love someone is by praying for them. Intercession does something very powerful in the intercessor: It joins the heart of the intercessor to the heart of the one being prayed for. In intercession, you are investing yourself in another person’s life. It’s one of the secrets of the secret place. Our intercessory prayers thus become “cords of affection” which bind the hearts of believers to one another, joining the body of Christ together in the greatest of all virtues—love.

It wasn’t enough for Paul to be convinced in himself that he loved other saints. He wanted them to be clearly aware of his love for them—“that you might know the love which I have so abundantly for you” (2 Corinthians 2:4). “That our care for you in the sight of God might appear to you” (2 Corinthians 7:12). Therefore, after loving someone enough to intercede for them, why not find a way to assure them of your prayers? When they know you’ve been praying for them, they will feel and know your love for them.

The body of Christ doesn’t work properly without the mem- bers praying for each other. Prayer is the immunity system of the body of Christ. Through prayer, we fight off the invasive forces that seek to disease and afflict the body of Christ.

Prayerlessness in the body of Christ is akin to leprosy. I learned some things about leprosy from Paul Brand, a surgeon to lepers. He says that in leprosy the nerves stop functioning properly, no longer sending signals of pain to the brain. Lepers will begin to lose fingers and toes in accidents because they cannot feel pain when they are hurting themselves.

Drawing a spiritual analogy from that, when the church does not feel pain with other suffering believers, it indicates the pres-

The Secret of Intercession

ence of “spiritual leprosy.” The church’s nerves are dead. What happens next is the church begins to lose body members.

Pain signals the body to send help to the hurting member. Pain is absolutely necessary for the body to be able to repair it- self and heal itself. Thus, pain is a gift. It is crucial that we feel the pain of suffering members in the body so that we can rise to repair and heal as needed. Intercession is a response to pain. We cry because we’re in pain. Cries of intercession are the vehement cries of believers beseeching heaven on behalf of one another.

As I think of these things, I am reminded of friends who face chronic illnesses and incurable medical problems. Saints in desperate health straits send an urgent message to the body of Christ: “The church is sick. We lack the power to heal this mem- ber. Danger! Alert! We must rally, respond, and do everything possible for this member to be healed.” The church’s response to this kind of tragedy, however, is often one of distance and unfeeling. We really don’t feel the pain of the sick member. We have spiritual leprosy.

I wonder at what grace will be released in the church when we begin to identify with the suffering members of the body as though it were we ourselves who were imprisoned. One of the fantastic mysteries of prayer is how God joins together the international house of affection (the church) through the impassioned support of one another in prayer. Prayer is God’s gift which empowers the body to edify itself in love. Do our patterns of prayer indicate that we’re feeling the pain? May the Lord put a holy alarm in our spirits over the powerlessness of the church, and drive us to our knees in an impassioned pursuit of the overcoming authority Christ died to give us!

Secrets of the Secret Place

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Дата добавления: 2015-10-23