Each week we feature a devotional, book review or testimony ~ a “Devotional Spotlight”, written by a woman in our ministry. May you be blessed reading a devotional by Pam Johnston…
“The Joy of Intercession”
Intercessory prayer is praying on behalf of someone else to God the Father, through Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus closed the gap between us and God when He died on the cross. Because of Jesus’ mediation, we can now intercede in prayer on behalf of other Christians or for the lost, asking God to grant their requests according to His will.
We are instructed in James 5:16 to “pray for one another”. 1 Tim 2:1 says, “I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people”…this passage goes on to says that this “pleases God”. These prayers may involve praying in a general way for such things as the church or the government, or offering up more specific prayers based on your knowledge of a specific person’s need. Think of intercession as coming between two sides to settle differences like a lawyer. So when we pray for someone, we are coming between God and the person and presenting and pleading the person’s case to God.
We may have lists of needs to pray for and probably have an outcome we are asking God for, but there should be room for the Holy Spirit to show us how to pray and lead us to know the will of God. Romans 8:26 says, “The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for; but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.” The Spirit’s communication transcends our words and gets to the true thoughts and intentions of our hearts.
If we are listening to the influence of His Spirit, then our prayers will never be self-centered or have the wrong motivation behind them; instead they will pertain to building up His kingdom. Richard Trench, Anglican archbishop and poet said, “Prayer is the means in which God gets His will done on earth, not the means in which man gets his will done in heaven”. Intercessory prayer seeks God’s glory, not our own.
Our intercession can move the hand of God. He is anxious to answer our prayers! In Matt.7:11, we see this promise: “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?”. Whether the need is big or small, it is not beyond what He is capable of providing. He is the Great Provider, Jehovah-Jireh. When you see a need that someone has, ask God to fill it for them. James 4:2 says, we “have not because we ask not”.
Intercession enhances our own spiritual growth. Praying for others causes us to become more like Christ, who spent many hours praying to His Father for others. We cannot pray for the Lord to strengthen others without ourselves being strengthened. We cannot ask for God to soften someone else’s heart without our own heart being softened also. We grow closer and closer to God each time we pray for someone else.
When we intercede, it helps us to focus on someone other than ourselves. Praying for others forces us to take our minds off of ourselves. Jesus was selfless, always preferring others above Himself, always praying for another person’s needs. As we see how God intervenes in the lives of those we have prayed for, it gives us the chance to thank and praise Him for all His goodness. It is so exciting to see the ways in which God answers the prayers we have prayed for others.
There are millions in the world who do not know God. The lost people should be our first priority in intercessory prayer…the lost we know and those we don’t. We should pray for those who ask us to pray and for our “enemies” like Jesus instructs us in Matthew 5:44. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “In intercessory prayer the face that may have been strange and intolerable to me is transformed into the face of one for whom Christ died, the face of a pardoned sinner.”
The Lord urges us to pray because He knows the power of prayer. He knows what prayer can do, not only for the ones for whom we have prayed but for us as well. We need to pray, not to impress God but because it increases our faith. Intercession helps us to see with spiritual eyes, the needs of others and to lift our voices to God’s throne in behalf of others. “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:16).
