Hey, welcome to today's podcast. Today I want to talk to you about intercession. What is intercession? Intercession is basically us just praying for other people.
Intercessory prayer is powerful. It's kind of like us having an intervention on someone's behalf with God. Robert Morris in his book, Why Keep Praying says, The Bible tells us that when we say prayers of intercession, we are building bridges between God and the people for whom we pray. Remember, this isn't just a prayer, it's a deliberate action.
It isn't just saying words, it's a construction project. I like that definition of what intercessory prayer is. In 1 Timothy, chapter 2, verse 1 and 2, Paul writes the following. He says, Therefore, I exhort, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings, and all who are in authority that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.
So the Bible actually calls us to intercede on other people's behalf. We have the incredible privilege and opportunity of helping impact other people's lives through prayer. Many times people deal with very significant problems and devastating losses. We should always offer practical help when possible, but we should always lift people's needs before God in prayer.
One of the greatest things that you can do for somebody that is under the crushing weight of a serious problem is to intercede for them. But the question is, well, how do you do that? How do I pray for somebody? How do I pray an intercessory prayer?
What does it look like? Well, try this when entering into prayer. The first thing that you should do is kind of model the after the pattern that Jesus escaped to his disciples in Matthew, chapter 6. This is what he said to them.
He says, our first, you should pray like this, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. This is the first part. Many of you know this prayer, it's familiar to you. When the disciples came to Jesus and asked him how to pray, he gave them what we can call an outline, and this is the beginning of it.
So the first thing that we do, according to this outline, when Jesus says our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, is that we begins with honor and praise to God. This is us worshiping the one who can do what is humanly impossible. This is us addressing our heavenly and all-powerful God believing that he can do what we can't. So yeah, but what does that really sound like?
Well, let me give you an example of what this prayer could sound like. This part of the prayer could sound like, Father, I thank you that you formed me with your hands. I thank you for saving me by grace through faith, through your Son Jesus. I thank you, God, that you're all knowing, that you're all powerful, that you're all loving, and that you're a merciful God.
I praise you for your greatness, for your wisdom, God you are worthy to be worshiped. So that's the first part. What do you do is you begin by acknowledging who God is and by thanking him and praising him for all he's done. I'm not going to go through all the verses of our Father, of the prayer of our Father, because we're interested in intercessory specifically today.
Maybe I'll do that in another program. After you have worship, God comes the purpose and provision portion of the prayer. Well, it sounds like a tongue twister. Let's go to verse 10 in Matthew chapter 6.
Verse 10 says, May your kingdom come and may you will be done in earth as it is in heaven. What is this portion of the prayer? This is where you begin to intercede on the behalf of the person that you're praying for, and your prayer could sound something like this. Lord, I believe that you have chosen, so and so, to be conformed to the image of your Son before the world was formed.
You bought that person with a price, ask you to guide him to correct him and to allow him to walk in your will for his life. Then we go into the provision portion of the prayer that we find in verses 11 and 12 of chapter 6, and it says the following, give us today our daily bread and forgive us of our sins. This is the part of a prayer where we ask for ourselves usually, but since we're talking about intercessory prayer, this is where we're really going to get to asking God on behalf of that person. So it may sound something like this.
You can say, Lord, I'm bringing you this person right now as you to protect him, as you to take away all the evil influences of the people that meet around him, maybe trying to lead him in a wrong direction. I ask you to be his shepherd to provide everything he needs to get through this difficult moment in his life. Supply all of his needs. You know this deep concern that I have for him in my heart, so I just bring it to you in Jesus' name.
These are just examples of what your prayers can sound like, obviously, the more specific that you can get the better. So what you're doing is you're bringing the needs of this person to God, and like Robert Moore says, you become a bridge between them. You stand in the gap for them, so you pray for the person and don't give up. Continue to pray until there's an encounter between the person and between God.
Just like Jesus said, pray always and don't give up. God bless you.