Intercessory Prayer

Intercessory Prayer

Job 33:22-26 “Their souls draw near the Pit, and their lives to those who bring death.  Then, if there should be for one of them an angel, a mediator, one of a thousand, one who declares a person upright, and he is gracious to that person, and says, ‘Deliver him from going down into the Pit; I have found a ransom; let his flesh become fresh with youth; let him return to the days of his youthful vigor’;  then he prays to God, and is accepted by him, he comes into his presence with joy, and God repays him for his righteousness.”

I really like how this verse demonstrates how powerful intercessory prayer is.  This is demonstrated a lot in the Bible and yet I don’t know if we grasp how important and powerful it is.  God loves us, we are his children and He would do anything for us.  He is also a fair and just God.  This means that sometimes He has to do things that He doesn’t necessarily want to do.  For instance, I am not sure if He really wanted to banish Adam & Eve from the Garden of Eden.  I bet He enjoyed their evening walks together and enjoyed their company.  However, He told them the rules for living there, and they disobeyed the rules.  He needed to follow through with the consequences.  There are so many times throughout the history of the Bible when God gave his people rules to follow and they didn’t listen and He let them feel the consequences of their actions.  However, there have also been times when God wanted to impose consequences and someone intervened on their behalf and fought for God to go easy on them.  

Moses did this a lot when the Israelites were wandering in the desert.  It seemed like every time Moses was turning around they were breaking another rule, or turning against the Lord for one reason or another.  Moses spoke up to God a lot for the people He led out of Egypt.  He was constantly trying to keep them out of trouble with the Lord.  Sometimes Moses was doing it for the people and sometimes he was doing it because of his love for God.  For instance, when Moses when up onto the mountain and the Israelites make a golden calf, the Lord wanted to destroy them.  However Moses spoke up to the Lord in Exodus 32:11-12, “But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God. “Lord,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand?  Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people.”  Moses and saying this because He doesn’t want God to look bad in the eyes of the Egyptians.  

The Lord is calling us all to pray for others.  The lord does not want to lose a single one of His children to sin and yet this world is calling us all away from the Lord.  This world is confusing us with it’s noise and distractions.  It is teaching us that what we want is more important than what God wants.  It is teaching us that if we think something is right, then it is right, even if God says it isn’t.  The notion of fasting for spiritual reasons is looked down upon, however, the idea of fasting to lose weight it widely accepted.  The idea of spending hours binge watching TV is encouraged but the idea of spending hours reading the Bible is looked down upon.  Matthew 7:13-14 says, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.  But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”  This is a very telling verse.  This means that although the Lord doesn’t want to lose a single one of His children to sin, he is actually losing a majority of them.  

So, how can we help the Lord?  We can pray for all sinners.  We can pray for a repentance of all hearts.  We can pray for a conversion of the whole world.  There were many saints that prayed daily for the conversion of souls and for the souls of all sinners.  It doesn’t have to be a long, wordy prayer where you make sure to say all the right things.  It can be as simple as Lord, I pray for the souls of all sinners.  Our prayers are powerful and if ask the Lord, He answers. Do you think you could add one extra line to your daily prayers?  Even if you just ask one time, even if right now you asked God to save all sinners, it would make a difference.  However, if you added it to your daily prayers it would make even more of a difference.  The Lord wants us to pray for others.  He wants us to intercede on their behalf.  

Another great way to intercede is to start by interceding for your loved ones.  If you have children, then you are probably worried that they do not believe in God, or that they don’t go to church any more.  You are probably worried for their souls.  Or maybe you aren’t worried about your children but you are worried about a sibling, a parent, a spouse, or a friend.  Often times when we are worried for our loved ones souls we think there is nothing we can do but pray, as if praying isn’t powerful.  Our prayers are so powerful and we don’t even realize it.  I heard a witness the other day from a friend of mine.  Her brother has fallen away from the Catholic church and she worries for him because of this.  She prays for him daily.  The other day he had a massive stroke and is not doing too well.  They had a priest come to the hospital and gave him the anointing of the sick and absolved him of his sins.  His soul is pure again.  Our prayers are powerful.  

You may have something that is really weighing on you right now and you feel helpless in this situation.  If that is you I want you to hear this message.  You are not helpless.  You are more powerful than you know because you have the power of Jesus Christ behind you.  Your prayers are going up to the Lord and He hears every single one of them.  Ask others to pray for you  and your situation also.  God loves it when we come together and pray.  Ask friends and family.  If it is something you don’t want others to know about you can ask them to pray for a private intention.  There are usually prayer lines at your church when you can give them the request and they send it out to a whole list of people who will pray for your intention.  If your church doesn’t have one you can email [email protected] and I will get your request out to all of our prayer warriors.  There are also websites you can go to such as Lourdesprayerrequest.com, unity.org/prayer-request, or hisradio.com/prayer/need-prayer/, just to name a few.  

One last thing I would like to mention is that there is nothing too small to pray about.  Many people turn to God for the big things in their life because they don’t know what else to do.  However, God is in all the little details too.  If you need $5 for something, ask the Lord, it’s not too small a request.  If you need timing to work out for something, ask the Lord.  It is actually amazing when you start to pray for little things as well as the big things.  When you do this you are giving God an opportunity to show up more in your life and you get to see how amazing He is at even the little details.  Trust me, you won’t be sorry.  You will begin to see how much He is willing to do in your life, if you just invite Him in.  He is there waiting for the invite.  Why not invite Him in today?

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to the episode today.  Lord, we invite you into all areas of our lives.  We invite you into the big issues as well as the small ones.  We give you unlimited access into our lives.  Lord, help us to intercede for others.  If you want us to intercede for a particular person or a particular cause, put that on our hearts and help us to do it.  Help us to reach out and ask others to pray for us as well.  Lord, we love you and we are so grateful that you listen to our prayers.  You are so just and yet so merciful.  We are so lucky to have you as our heavenly Father.  We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus.  I look forward to spending time with you tomorrow.  Have a blessed day!

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