Intercession

What Intercession Really Is

Intercession is more than just praying for somebody. It is stepping into a situation with God and standing between what is happening now and what God wants to happen.

An intercessor is somebody who is willing to get involved spiritually. You pray, listen, stand, and sometimes keep standing until something changes. You are not trying to make God care. He already cares. You are learning to agree with His heart and cooperate with what He wants to do.

Why Pray If God Is in Control?

One of the first questions: if God is in control, why do we need to pray?

The answer is that God chose to work through people. He gave mankind authority and responsibility in the earth. Prayer is not us trying to convince an unwilling God to do something good. Prayer is us coming into agreement with Him.

God begins the work. He puts something on our heart. He gives us concern, burden, direction, or understanding. Then we respond in prayer.

Real prayer starts with God. We are responding to something He is already doing or wants to do.

Intercession Comes From a Yielded Heart

The altar of incense as a picture of intercession. The point is that true intercession is not cold, mechanical prayer. It comes from a heart that has been touched by God.

Things like brokenness, compassion, purity, commitment, availability, and the work of the Holy Spirit all matter. Sometimes God allows us to feel something of His burden for a person, church, city, or situation.

That burden is not there just to make us emotional. It is there to move us into prayer.

Moses and Aaron give a strong picture of intercession. When judgment broke out among Israel, Aaron stood between the living and the dead, and the plague stopped.

That is what standing in the gap looks like. You are willing to pray where there is danger, need, judgment, bondage, or spiritual pressure. You are asking God to bring mercy, truth, protection, repentance, deliverance, or whatever is needed in that situation.

One Person Can Matter

God does not always need a huge crowd before He can move. Salt for example, salt preserves. A small amount can affect something much larger than itself.

Abraham's intercession for Sodom shows the same thing. One person standing before God can have an effect beyond his own life.

That means we should never think, 'What difference can my prayer make?' Scripture repeatedly shows God using people who were willing to stand before Him.

The Watchman Ministry

A watchman is alert. He is paying attention. He sees something developing and responds before everybody else realizes what is happening.

There are times when God may put a person, family, church, or situation on your heart for a reason. The right response is not always to analyze it to death. Sometimes the right response is simply to pray.

Being a watchman does not mean becoming obsessed with demons or looking for spiritual warfare behind everything. It means staying awake spiritually and being willing to respond when the Holy Spirit draws your attention to something.

Jesus Is the Pattern

Jesus is the great Intercessor. He is the mediator, the advocate, and the One who stands between God and man.

Humanity needed someone who could deal with sin, break the enemy's authority, bring reconciliation, and restore relationship with God. Jesus did that.

So Christian intercession begins with what Jesus has already accomplished. We are not trying to create victory from nothing. We are standing in the victory of Christ and asking that what He accomplished be applied in real situations.

We Represent Jesus in the Earth

Jesus said He did what He saw the Father doing. He spoke the Father's words, did the Father's works, and moved by the Holy Spirit.

Then He sent His followers. That means we are meant to represent Him. His compassion, truth, reconciliation, authority, and love should continue through His people.

Intercession is part of that. We begin to pray for people the way Jesus would pray for them. Instead of just seeing their failure, we begin asking what God wants to do in their life.

Intercession Creates a Meeting

One of the strongest ideas in the manual is connected with the Hebrew word paga. One meaning is meeting or encountering.

Intercession can help create a meeting place between God and a person. You may be praying for someone who is nowhere near God, but you can pray for God to arrange circumstances, bring truth, send the right person, open their heart, and give them an opportunity to encounter Him.

That means intercession is not always about praying, 'Lord, fix them.' Sometimes it is praying, 'Lord, bring them into a place where they can meet You.'

Sometimes Intercession Is Confrontational

Paga also carries the idea of confronting or striking against something.

There are times when prayer is not only asking for something to happen. It is also standing against what is resisting God's purpose.

Sometimes we pray for healing, reconciliation, salvation, or deliverance. Other times we pray against deception, bondage, oppression, confusion, or something that is blocking what God wants to do.

Timing Matters

There are ordinary seasons, and there are strategic moments when something needs attention now.

Sometimes the Holy Spirit suddenly puts somebody strongly on your heart. You may not know why. That can be a moment to stop and pray.

We should not live anxious or paranoid, but we should stay sensitive. Not every prayer assignment carries the same urgency.

Strongholds Often Involve the Mind

A stronghold can be a repeated pattern of thinking that becomes deeply established.

Fear, bitterness, pride, false beliefs, rejection, sexual fantasy, unbelief, and other patterns can become ways of thinking that people barely question anymore.

That is why Scripture talks about taking thoughts captive and pulling down imaginations. Sometimes the real battle in a person's life is not only what is happening around them. It is what has become established inside their thinking.

Intercession includes praying for truth to break deception and for people to begin seeing themselves, God, and their situation clearly.

Intercession Can Set Boundaries

Another side of intercession is setting a boundary. There are times when prayer is basically saying, 'This goes no further.'

You may be praying over a family, a church, a ministry, a person, or a situation and asking God to establish protection and limit what the enemy is trying to do.

Sometimes the assignment is not finished after one prayer. A watchman stays alert until there is a sense that the matter has been settled or the burden has lifted.

Travail and Deep Intercession

The picture is childbirth: something is being brought forth.

The important thing is not to manufacture any of this. You do not make yourself cry, groan, shake, or act spiritual. If the Holy Spirit produces a deep burden, let Him lead it.

The outward manifestation is never the goal. The goal is what God is doing through the prayer.

There may be times when the burden is so deep that words are not enough. Romans 8 describes the Spirit helping us in weakness with groanings too deep for words. We connect that with the idea of God's will being brought forth through prayer.

What This Looks Like in Real Life

• Pay attention when God puts someone or something strongly on your heart.
• Ask what God wants to do instead of only praying about what you want changed.
• Pray from the finished work of Jesus, not from fear.
• Stay sensitive to timing. Some things can wait; some things need prayer now.
• Do not assume every problem is spiritual warfare, but do not ignore spiritual resistance either.
• Pray for truth to replace lies and strongholds in the mind.
• Be willing to stand in prayer over a situation for more than a few minutes if the burden remains.
• Do not manufacture spiritual manifestations. Let the Holy Spirit lead.
• Remember that intercession is cooperation with God, not trying to talk Him into caring.

Summary

Intercession is learning to work with God in prayer.

God puts something on your heart. You recognize it. You begin asking what He wants to do. You stand in agreement with Him. Sometimes you pray for a person to encounter God. Sometimes you confront what is resisting His purpose. Sometimes you set a boundary. Sometimes you keep praying because the timing is critical. And sometimes the Holy Spirit puts such a deep burden on you that the prayer goes beyond ordinary words.

But through all of it, the focus stays the same: we are not trying to make God willing. We are cooperating with a God who is already willing and learning how to carry His heart into prayer.